Tyra: Everyone thought I was on vacation, just letting it all hang out. But really, I was in Australia shooting for Top Model when those photos were taken. People think I got caught during some me time, but child, I was posing. For you.
Anyway, you might know the photos I’m talking about. Me. In a brown strapless one-piece swimsuit, on the beach, my hair’s flowing and my ass and thighs, well . . . some say those are ummm . . . overflowing. I call it curvy, thick, sexy, voluptuous. But the world called it something else.
Fat.
During that photo shoot, we knew that there were paparazzi in the distance. My security was trained to recognize the glare on a lens, no matter how far away, and when they saw that signature reflection of light way up in the trees, we knew exactly what it was.
Whatever, we shrugged it off. Paparazzi come with the territory of being in the public eye, especially on a beach. A beach complete with a crew of about fifteen people doing a photo shoot. That #squad ain’t blendin’ in. We were some busy people, too. We had eight more shoots and locations to go to in Sydney that day, so we couldn’t waste time chasing the “paps” off every time one popped up.
After my last shot on the beach, as I was walking back to the location van, a paparazzo had emerged from the bushes and was right in the sand. I said hello, joked and asked him if he got the shot, and I was on my way. I didn’t get annoyed until he showed up at lunch miles away from the beach. “Oh, come on,” I thought. “Can’t this dude go bother somebody else? There has got to be some famous Australian around here somewhere. Where the heck is Nicole Kidman when you need her?”
I dropped some hints to him that he should be done, and he picked up on none of them—not even the one where I straight-up—yet politely—asked him to leave us alone so we could eat our juicy Australian steaks in peace.
He snapped away through the appetizer, main course, and dessert. So, my team and I brainstormed ways that we could have a little fun with him. As soon as we’d paid the check, we put our plan into action. Everyone at our table pulled out their camera phones and we chased him down the sidewalk, snapping away. We wanted him to see how it felt.
We were lighthearted, smiling and laughing the whole time, and the “photo shoot” lasted all of fifteen feet. But someone wasn’t smiling at all. My pap was pissed.
“Come on, dude.” I said. “It’s all love. We were just having a little fun being you.” Then I got in the van, and we drove away and had forgotten all about it as we continued to shoot around the city. When I laid my head on my pillow that night at the hotel, I’d forgotten it all.
Two weeks later, I landed at LAX airport and was back in the U.S. of A. I enjoyed Australia but it felt good to be home. As soon as the plane touched down, my cell phone was blowing up. Countless texts and voice mails, asking me if I was OK. Was I OK? Of course I was OK. I’d just spent three weeks shooting Top Model and had crowned a cha-cha diva winner who was gonna win the hearts of America and the world.
But then more messages started to flood in. Messages that revealed what the “Are you OK” concerned ones were all about: me on the cover of every tabloid out there, with headlines like AMERICA’S NEXT TOP WADDLE and THIGH-RA BANKS and TYRA TOPS 200 LBS!!! I about died when I saw that—of laughter. I thought it was crazy, but I did not take it seriously. But I did recognize that the people who sent them to me seemed to be enjoying every minute of it.
You don’t need me to tell you this, because anyone who’s ever accidentally opened their photo to the selfie cam when they weren’t expecting it knows—pictures can tell all kinds of cray stories. Oh yes, I was bigger than usual at the time, but it was nothing that was outside my normal “bigger phase” range.
The photos had just come out and people were coming up to me like, “Oh my God, you look great! How did you lose all that weight in a week?” If they didn’t know that it was damn near impossible for someone to lose forty pounds in seven days, I didn’t consider it my job to enlighten them. I didn’t tell people that I hadn’t lost any weight at all, that it was all in the difference a paparazzi photo can make. I just tried to brush it off and change the subject. “Oh, well, I don’t know . . . but damn, girl, you look fantastic! What type of weave hair are you using these days?”
Cut to a day later. I was standing in line at the grocery store. (Yes, I shop for my own groceries often.) The woman in front of me was looking at the tabloid magazine covers, then turned around and looked me straight in the eyes. There was no “OMG, Tyra, I can’t believe you do your own grocery shopping!” look on her face. Instead she said, “If they’re calling you fat, what am I?” And she said it through tears.
That was when it hit me—this whole incident wasn’t funny, and it wasn’t just about me.
No pun intended, but it was bigger than me. Much bigger.
I called my Tyra Banks Show producers from the car on the way home. We worked on producing the response-to-the-tabloids show for about a week, and I had intense sessions with my team of producers to bounce ideas off them and figure out exactly what I wanted to say. (Thanks, Lauren Berry-Blincoe and John Redmann!) At first, I was going to end my diatribe by saying, “To everyone who goes around calling me and other women fat, f*ck you!” and flip off the camera. When the show aired, we’d just bleep out my words and blur my hands.
Then we sat back and realized that we wanted this moment to be more poignant than cursing, and we didn’t want to bleep or blur any part of it out, so we rewrote it. I tried so many different versions, like “Forget you!” or “Kiss my butt,” and even called the Standards and Practices, the censor police of network television. “Can I say ‘ass’ on TV?” I asked.
We had a winner.
The day of shooting, I was dressed in my little talk show dress, looking prim and proper. But something felt off. I called out to my stylist, Yaniece, “Do you still have that swimsuit from Australia?”
“The swimsuit?” she asked.
“Yeah, the swimsuit.”
“Girl, yeah. It’s with all that Top Model stuff over there in that suitcase.”
“Get it out,” I said.
“Why?”
I started taking off my clothes.
“What are you doing?” she asked, looking at me like I was crazier than I already was.
“Just help me put it on,” I said.
She helped me yank it up, and I was about ready to exit my dressing room when I thought, “Oh shoot, I may be brave, but I ain’t stupid.” I called over Valente, my longtime makeup artist, who was also on the Australian beach with me, to put some body makeup on my legs, and run some Victoria’s Secret–like shimmer down the front of my thighs (a trick that makes it look like there’s a muscle there when there ain’t).
Then I walked out the door, straight to the stage.
When I entered that set in that swimsuit and nothing else, my staff and many of my producers were as shocked as the studio audience.
Carolyn: I was sitting in my living room in front of the TV, sipping on my daily can of ginger ale, when Tyra strutted onto the set of her talk show sporting the same bathing suit that was plastered on the cover of every gossip magazine around the world.
Of course, she had told me that she was going to address the paparazzi’s blatant attempt at public humiliation, but not dressed like that! With every sip, I grew more and more proud.
Tyra: I addressed the audience and was as real and as raw as was humanly possible, and ended it yelling, “Kiss my FAT ass!” Oh, I slapped my own ass super hard when I said “fat,” too. I had wanted the whole speech to be strong, empowering, fierce. But now, as the audience screamed and cheered and teared up and even sobbed, I realized I was crying, too. What the hell? I was just laughing about all of this a week ago. But now, I was feeling weak and vulnerable. WTF?
I needed to be strong. I needed to be a warrior. I needed to be an example to women everywhere that they could survive this body shaming without letting it break them down. I ran straight to the control booth to my director, Brian.
“Brian,” I said, wiping snot from my nose, “I started to cry out there. So we gotta do it again. And I want you to end the ‘Kiss my fat ass’ part with a shot close on my face—strong and defiant. There was this woman in the grocery store, and I can’t have her see me all teary. Nobody should see me crying. It’s weak.”
Brian looked at me—actually, he looked through me—then started walking around the booth, turning off each and every monitor. When he was done, he turned to me and said, “Tyra, go home.”
“What?” I said.
“Go home,” he repeated. “Yes, you cried. Yes, you were vulnerable. But it was real. It was you. And I’m not gonna say it again after this. Go. Home.”
So, I did as he said. I went home. I hardly slept for the next two weeks, until it aired.
And the day it aired changed my life forever.
Carolyn: “Kiss my fat ass!” Whew! Those four words that Tyra said—no, yelled—were not what I had expected. But I was overjoyed! By the time she slapped her butt, I had leapt off the couch, spilled ginger ale on my shirt, and had tears rolling down my cheeks. Tyra spoke in defense of all of us who have witnessed or experienced the physical and emotional chains that are forced upon women throughout our lives. It was as if she was screaming in unison with all of our voices: “Enough is friggin’ enough!” The resounding response from women and girls around the planet said it all. We were tired of feeling that we are worth nothing more than what we weigh.
Tyra: That butt slap was felt everywhere—from beauty salons to office buildings to locker rooms to school playgrounds to damn near every news and online outlet in the darn universe. I saw the gorgeous and talented Adele at an Alicia Keys event and she wrapped her arms around me and thanked me from her beautiful body and soul profusely. Women (and men, too) from all over the world were writing in about how much what I said meant to them. A week later at intermission of the musical Rent in NYC, a woman pulled me aside and said the moment saved her life, that she had a handful of pills but experienced that moment and immediately called a suicide hotline that ended up saving her life. Time magazine named me one of the most influential people of the year next to Barack Obama, Oprah Winfrey, and Richard Branson (and in the Heroes and Pioneers category, no less). And the speech made it onto TV Guide Magazine’s 60 Greatest Talk Show Moments list.
I had no idea it would lead to all of that. But I realized it had this impact because it was a real moment. At the time I taped it, I thought real meant polished. A do-over. Perfection. But if I had delivered that speech how I wanted to—cool and calculated, and yeah, 100 percent “strong,” like I wasn’t bothered one bit by people calling me fat—it would not have resonated the powerful way it did.
I believe in those words that I said on my talk show just as much today as I did when I first said them, more than ten years ago. And just in case you weren’t there back then to experience the moment, and even if you were, I’ve brought it here . . . to you:
I love my mama. She has helped me to be a strong woman so I can overcome these kind of attacks, but if I had lower self-esteem, I would probably be starving myself right now. But, that’s exactly what is happening to other women all over this country. So, I have something to say to all of you that have something nasty to say about me or other women who are built like me . . . women whose names you know, women whose names you don’t, women who’ve been picked on, women whose husbands put them down, women at work or girls in school—I have one thing to say to you: Kiss my fat ass!
Carolyn: This epic moment was a culmination of all that I had worked so hard to instill in Tyra. She had sprouted her own wings and was flying high.
Fat ass and all.
CHOOSE HEALTHY OVER SKINNY
Tyra: My weight is like Cardi B’s beautiful booty while she’s twerking: It goes up and it goes down and then back up and then back down—over and over again. And to be honest, my mood is happiest when I’m up. I know right now you’re like, “What?” But let me explain. I’m happiest bigger because I’m not restricting myself at all. For me, food is pleasure, pleasure, pleasure. I don’t drink, I don’t smoke, and have never done drugs, so food is my vice. When I’m thick, you better damn well believe that I am celebrating like it’s my birthday at every damn meal.
Carolyn: Tyra and I are both ice cream addicts. No matter what city or country we are in, we will find the top ice cream parlor. In New York, we used to go to the bodega and get about eight different kinds, then take those bad boys back to her condo. We wouldn’t even put them in a bowl; we’d just line them all up on the sink like piano keys, get a spoon, and travel the counter of pints. We’ve had some of our best business ideas playing ice cream keyboards! I think the idea for her to do her own swimsuit calendar and to do two versions, an edgy one and a commercial one, came from those “ice cream musical” sessions.
I’m lactose intolerant now, so I know if I eat ice cream I’ll have an upset stomach and be running to the powder room all night. But sh*t, I eat it anyway. Pun intended.
Tyra: When I was growing up, we’d go to the Häagen-Dazs shop on Hollywood Boulevard every weekend. I will eat almost any ice cream flavor, as long as there’s no chocolate in it. (Yeah, I’m the fool who doesn’t like chocolate, but I ain’t mad at cookies ’n’ cream.) Just give it to me, baby. And I like my cream straight up. No cone.
For the specialty, boutique places, like Salt & Straw, McConnell’s, and Jeni’s, I will stand in line and wait and wait. I don’t care if there are thirty people in front of me—I’ll stand there all anxious like I’m there waiting for the Black Friday sale to drop. When I was at my biggest, I would get dessert (usually ice cream) after lunch and dinner. And, like I said, I felt great.
But now, as I write this, I’ve dropped a few pounds. Why? I’ve got this old ankle injury that keeps recurring, and the last time I twisted it was on the set of Drake’s “Childs Play” video. “Oh, Tyra, you gotta see the instant replay of your cheesecake-smush-face moment!” said one of Drake’s boys to me. I ran to the monitor before they were about to turn it off and twist, it happened again. And I woke up the next morn with more pain than ever before. If you caught me running onto the America’s Got Talent stage to give an impromptu makeover on my debut episode in unsexy white sneakers, blame the ankle (but don’t blame sexy Aubrey “Drake” Graham; ain’t his fault). My doctor said if I drop some weight, along with doing rigorous physical therapy, my ankle will heal faster, better, stronger. So, I’ve been going to cycling classes, balancing in yoga classes, doing Pilates, and yeah, eating healthier. I’m more energetic and my ankle is soooo much healthier. And yeah, that feels good, too.
Sometimes my mom and I get into it over healthy eating. She eats any- and everything she wants. She’s a cheeseburger, fries, and shake three times a week kind of eater, whereas I’m now more of the burger and no bun kind of girl.
But dammit, I want my momma to be healthy! I had my son when I was older, and I want her to be around to watch him grow up because York is obsessed with his nana. We were FaceTiming with York recently, and she told me she’d had pancakes and bacon for breakfast. Again.
“Choose life, not bacon slice!” I yelled.
“Oh, pshaw,” she responded. “Bacon ain’t killed nobody but the pig.”
“Bacon nobahbee PIG!” repeated Grandma’s number one fan, a.k.a. York.
I respect my mama more than anyone, but she knows that ain’t true. And now I gotta unteach my lil pumpkin this at the same time I’m trying to get him to think lima beans and rutabaga are the most delicious things on the planet so that I can airplane another spoonful into his mouth for dinner.
Carolyn: After my early teen years, I had a slim, tight waistline, but now I have all these bloops, one muffin top on top of another on top of another. Tyra’s always trying to help pull my shirt out of waist creases because it gets stuck in the dents. So one day I said, “Well, let me show you something I can do that none of you can!”
I held my arms up, started leaning side to side, and did a whole routine with accordion sounds coming out of my mouth.
“I cannot believe you are playing your body, Mama,” Tyra said.
“Every negative you can turn into a positive,” I said, and just kept right on playing my body accordion.
You got some rolls round your middle? Show your hidden talents and strike up a tune for the kiddies; they’ll love it.
Tyra: Remember when I told you my mama is crazy? The body accordion just backs me up. Ma is disgusted (or at least pretends to be) by anything that is healthy. I mentioned the need for her to drink more water last year, and you know what she said?
“Water? Ugh.”
What?
But honestly, I get it. A lot of it is a generational thing. Twenty years from now, York will probably come to me saying, “Mom, why are you eating that quinoa and that kale? That’s disgusting! Don’t you know that can kill you? You need to make your salad with these fermented, oxygenated bubble-gut greens that come from the droppings of a Himalayan mountain goat.”
And I’ll look at him and go, “Get the hell out of my face, boy. Kale ain’t killed nobody but the leaf.”
But the difference with me is I’ll probably eat the goat poop.
Carolyn: Goodness gracious, I just read this chapter and I sound insane in the membrane. I love all my grandbabies and wanna live to see my newest one give his mama hell like she gave me. So maybe I’ll trade in this slice of streaky, fatty bacon for the healthier Canadian kind, and these buttermilk pancakes with extra syrup can be swapped for some naturally sweet Scandinavian crackers. Does it taste as good? Almost. But is it time for a change? Hell to the yes! So thank you, TyTy, for mothering your mama and introducing me to healthy choices that tickle my taste buds, and for making me see the skim/low-cal/lite light. But two liters of water a day? Lord, help me.