Chapter 4
BANGKOK OR BUST
Let no one deceive you with empty words.
EPHESIANS 5:6
“THAILAND?” I asked Daniel, my agent. I glanced at my mom in disbelief, but she didn’t say a word.
“Yes, Thailand,” he continued. “It’s just for the summer. You’ll mostly be modeling formal wear, and it’s a great way for young models like you to get some experience under your belt.”
I just sat there, mute, so Daniel went on. “Clients like to see that you’ve worked overseas. It shows diversity.” He paused and looked right at me. “So, what do you think?”
I had no idea what to think. I liked the idea of getting more experience and building my portfolio. But Thailand? I’d never even been outside of the States.
“We’ll talk about it,” Mom answered, smiling at me.
After we got home, Mom and Dad stayed up late into the night talking. I was in my room, but I could hear snippets of their conversation. I could tell there were things about the trip that made them a little uneasy. It was a long way from home. And I was very young—only fourteen. But they both knew how much modeling meant to me, and they wanted to do whatever they could to help me achieve my dreams. And they figured that since it was a summer job, it wouldn’t interfere with school.
The next morning they announced their decision: I could go, on one condition. Mom would be going with me, at least for a few weeks, until I got settled. A relieved grin stretched across my face. To me it was the best possible scenario—not only would I get to experience this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, but I wouldn’t have to do it alone.
Once we landed in Thailand, I realized just how grateful I was to have Mom with me. Neither one of us had ever been out of the country before, and we didn’t know anyone there. To make things more challenging, we also were up against quite a language barrier. When we stepped off the plane, all we had was an address for the apartment we would be staying in, our luggage, and each other.
Once outside the airport, we hopped into the first available taxi, and Mom handed our driver the address. He spoke very little English, but he seemed to understand where we wanted to go. Eventually, after navigating the crowded streets of downtown Bangkok, we ended up at the apartment complex. The apartment the agency had arranged for us to stay in was nothing fancy, but it was clean, and there was plenty of room for Mom and me to spread out.
After we unpacked, we met several of the other models who were staying at the same complex. A few of them were from the United States, and two were from Europe. All the girls had been there for several weeks already, so they filled us in on everything we needed to know, like how to get to and from casting calls, where we could go shopping, and how to get around without knowing the language. I was relieved to find out that at least the booking agents spoke English.
The next day we went to the agency headquarters in downtown Bangkok, where I was immediately whisked away to hair and makeup. I had what they called “virgin hair,” meaning it never had been colored, highlighted, or permed. For some reason unbeknownst to me, they insisted on dying it black. Jet black. When I saw my reflection in the mirror, I barely recognized myself. I thought the coloring made me look really pale, but that was the look they were going for, apparently. I had no choice but to go along with it. And I knew it could have been worse.
Back in Vegas, I’d seen models go through some pretty drastic styling. I remember one girl who broke down sobbing after they completely hacked off her bangs—with no warning at all. Not only did it look terrible, but since they lopped off more than ten inches, it also was going to take forever to grow back. The stylist barely noticed. He’d gotten the look he wanted for that particular shot, and that was all that mattered.
That’s one of the harsh realities I learned early on about the modeling industry: ultimately, your body doesn’t really belong to you. It belongs to the client. Since they’re paying, they figure they can do pretty much whatever they want to you. They can curl your hair, straighten it, dye it, cut it—even shave it. I’ve seen hair extensions being pulled out by the roots and smoke billowing out of flat irons while the hair inside got singed and fried. I’ve watched models squeeze into shoes so small their feet literally bled, and I’ve seen false eyelashes torn off so quickly that the natural lashes came off with them. Modeling may look glamorous on the outside, but believe me, beauty can be an ugly business.
I had a casting call immediately following my dye job, so Mom and I took the map the agency had given us and navigated our way to the client’s office. Bangkok has kind of a street-fair atmosphere both day and night, so not only did we have to figure out where we were going, but we also had to weave in and out of the hundreds of people who filled the sidewalks and spilled onto the streets. And since few people spoke English, it was nearly impossible to communicate or ask for help with directions.
As we walked through the city, the stench was overwhelming. We never figured out what smelled so bad, but we suspected it had something to do with the hundreds of dogs roaming the streets. It seemed there were three dogs to every person in Bangkok, and the streets were overcrowded as it was. On top of everything else, it was unbelievably hot—even for a girl who had grown up in the desert—making for a sticky, chaotic adventure every time we left the apartment. I’d never felt so far from home in my life.
Mom went with me to each casting call after that, and I was glad. I couldn’t imagine being there alone. In addition to the dogs, there were also sleazy characters lurking in the streets who scoured the city for girls to lure into the sex trade. From the research we’d done prior to the trip, Mom and I knew that sex trafficking was a prevalent problem in Thailand. But reading about it is one thing; seeing it happen right in front of you is another.
One afternoon, as Mom and I were fighting our way through the crowded streets en route to yet another casting call, the nonstop schedule, the extreme heat, and an empty stomach finally caught up with me. The next thing I knew, I was lying on the sidewalk. I had collapsed from a combination of heat exhaustion and hypoglycemia. Thank God Mom was with me, or who knows what could have happened.
Mom helped me to my feet and, after making sure I wasn’t injured, started looking for a place where we could sit down and get something to eat. It was hard to find American food in Bangkok, but a few days earlier, Mom had managed to track down a Pizza Hut on the other side of the city. We hadn’t even been in Thailand for two weeks, and I was already desperate for American food. I couldn’t wait to sink my teeth into a piece of pepperoni deep dish. It seemed like the perfect cure for what was ailing me—the hypoglycemia and the homesickness.
The harsh reality was that it was just about time for Mom to head back home. With one-year-old Luke at home, she needed to get back to him and the rest of the family.
As we waited for our pizza, Mom expressed her concerns about leaving me. “Ky, what if you pass out again and I’m not here to help you?” she asked. “You’re only fourteen, and you’re basically on your own here. I know we agreed to give this a shot, but now I’m not so sure.”
I was only half-listening to Mom because I was distracted by a seedy-looking man at a nearby table, talking to two girls who didn’t look like they originally were from Thailand. They looked about my age, probably fourteen or fifteen, and from what I could make out, he was trying to coax them into working for him.
“You’re both so beautiful,” he told them. “You stand out in the crowd.”
I could see the girls’ faces light up with every flattering remark. Modeling is a desperate business, and a little flattery can go a long way. It was obvious this guy knew what he was doing, and those girls were naively playing right into his hands. He made lots of promises and was doing his best to sound genuine, but I just didn’t trust him. I felt so scared for the two girls. And I felt scared for myself.
How am I going to survive here without my mom?
By now Mom had started watching the horrific little scene playing out at the table a few feet away. And she had seen enough. “That’s it, Ky,” she said firmly. “You’re coming home with me.”
I let out a huge sigh. Thank goodness, I thought. As much as I wanted to build my portfolio, at that moment all I wanted was to go home.
We went back to the apartment, packed our bags, and headed to the agency to break the news. Mom thanked them for the opportunity and explained that I wasn’t feeling well enough to continue in Bangkok that summer. The booking agents weren’t pleased with our decision, but they didn’t try to stop us. Not that it would have made a difference if they had. There was no way Mom was going to leave her baby girl in Bangkok without adult supervision.
On the plane ride home, I thought about those girls at Pizza Hut. I hoped they were okay. I also thought about my modeling opportunities and hoped I wouldn’t be in too much trouble at Envy for bailing after only two weeks. I thought about my little brother and my dad, and how much I couldn’t wait to see them.
I also thought about my hair, and how I was definitely dying it back to brown the moment we landed in Vegas.
As expected, Envy was appalled that I’d walked away from the Bangkok opportunity after only two weeks, but no one dwelled on the matter long. Truth be told, I was too valuable for them to stay mad at me. Between the Fashion Show Mall gigs and the smattering of print jobs I’d done in and around Vegas, I was making decent money—and they were getting 20 percent of everything I made. Plus, at fourteen, I still had at least four or five good years left in me. No point in leaving money on the table.
“Maybe you can try Thailand again in a few years,” my agent said.
And that was the end of it.
With brown hair once again, I soon was back at the Fashion Show Mall doing six runway shows a day almost every weekend. Since there only were nine of us working the shows, I got to know the other models pretty well and even became close to some of them. I didn’t know it at the time, but this is pretty rare, since the constant competition and high turnover rate tend to prevent friendships from forming among fellow models.
I especially bonded with a girl named Asia. Like me, Asia was a little curvier than your typical model. And when I say curvy, what I really mean is that we both had hips. Not big hips, mind you—just hips. In the modeling world, anything over thirty inches is considered curvy, and curvy does not play well on the runway—especially in high fashion, where being rail thin is considered the ideal. Horrifying as it may sound, some models even go so far as to have their hip bones surgically shaved down to reach that precious thirty-inch mark. Others have their bottom ribs removed so they look ultra-thin. It just felt like part of the industry to me when I was starting out, but now it breaks my heart to think of girls and young women using surgery to deform the beautiful way God created them.
With hips measuring roughly thirty-six inches, I was practically obese by modeling standards. But there was one place where being curvy did play well: Victoria’s Secret.
Though extremely well toned and thin, Victoria’s Secret models tend to be shapelier than your typical runway model. Runway models are built straight up and down so the clothes fall on them like they’re on hangers. If you’ve ever watched a high-end fashion show, you know that the edge goes to models who are thin to the point of being gaunt.
But lingerie—especially Victoria’s Secret lingerie—is designed to give women more curves than they have naturally. I remember the first time my mom and I went into a Victoria’s Secret store at the mall in Vegas. The walls were covered with enormous pictures of the most beautiful women I had ever seen. Victoria’s Secret’s elite models are called Angels, and to me, that’s exactly what they appeared to be. Everything about them seemed perfect—their hair, their skin, their bodies. Like me, they were lanky yet curvy; unlike me, they all seemed confident, outgoing, and bubbly. They were the embodiment of everything the world deemed sexy and desirable, and like millions of girls all over the world, I wanted to be just like them.
Both my friend Asia and I had fallen under the Angels’ spell. We were among the millions who tuned in every December to watch the sexiest women on earth strut their stuff on the runway in the most lavish and spectacular fashion show of the year. During breaks between our own fashion shows, we would take to the empty runway and practice the walk. Here’s the thing: Angels don’t just walk the runway; they work it. They work their hips, and they work the crowd. Angels are put on the runway with one intention: to seduce every man within eyeshot. It would be years before the Lord would awaken me to the twisted irony in that: angels, depicted in the Bible to be God’s messengers, being portrayed as sex symbols.
But for now, all Asia and I could see was the perceived glamour of it all. Between shows we’d put on the tightest, most revealing outfits we could find and strut our stuff on the Fashion Show Mall runway, throwing out our hips, striking provocative poses, winking, blowing kisses, and flirting with our imaginary admirers. Every so often, we’d catch the attention of men walking by, and they’d stop and flirt with us, telling us how gorgeous we were and feeding our egos. The fact that we weren’t even sixteen didn’t matter to the grown men who gawked and whistled and made suggestive comments to us.
“Someday we’re going to be Victoria’s Secret Angels,” Asia would whisper to me in a low, conspiratorial voice.
“You know it,” I’d whisper back, shooting her a sly grin.
For the most part, we were just joking around and having fun. But deep down, both of us desperately longed for the glamorous life we imagined Victoria’s Secret Angels led—the attention, the fashion, the fame. I had no idea yet how empty and unsatisfying that lifestyle could be. As teenage girls, we simply were enamored with the aura of being an Angel. And in the modeling world, it doesn’t get any bigger than that.