“Follow me,” she instructed, glancing at my platforms and then quickly at my face. I stayed a few paces behind her as she led me through an expansive open-plan office. No one looked up from their desk as we passed. She opened a door to a small room filled with drawers of bras and underwear and directed me to take off my clothes in the corner.
“Shoes, too, please,” she said, pointing toward my feet. I walked on my tiptoes over to a wall where she silently measured my height and took several flash images of me with a digital camera, making a note on a piece of paper before thanking me, barely glancing up as I scurried out the door.
Afterward, I headed uptown to meet with an agency.
“We don’t love the shorts,” they told me, inspecting the pair of black denim cutoffs I was wearing over tights. “Can you take them off?”
I nodded. “Of course,” I responded, slipping the frayed cutoffs down my legs and over my platform boots.
“Much better,” said a young woman with a French accent as she studied my hips. “Now we can see how small you are! We’ll be in touch.”
The next day, I made sure to leave the shorts at home, dressing only in a black crop top and tights. I stood on the bed, checking the small mirror to make sure that the tights weren’t too sheer.
At my Sports Illustrated casting, two female editors leafed through the heavy plastic pages of my portfolio. They glanced from the pictures back to me and asked if I ever smiled. “We like girls who smile here at SI!” they explained, shutting my book with a thud.
Back on Seventh Avenue, I huddled over my iPhone, desperate to return to my hotel room and crawl beneath its unfamiliar sheets. I stood in the sun, enjoying the break in scrutiny, when a man approached me, staring at my crotch. “I can see your pussy,” he muttered without meeting my eyes. I felt the sting of shame but refused to let myself cry.
Through the years, I’d developed a necessary and protective immunity to the frequent disappointments and rejections that came with modeling. I didn’t allow myself to become excited about shoots or potential jobs; I didn’t care if my image ended up on a billboard or in a magazine as long as the check cleared. I wasn’t interested in fame or notoriety, just the cash, or at least that’s what I told myself. In New York, I broke my own rules: I let myself imagine the power, beyond money, that other women seemed to have gained by becoming successful. I returned to Los Angeles with a renewed sense of resolve and determination. Fine, I wasn’t going to be a supermodel, but I was going to make as much money as I possibly could with the options I had.
It was around this time that an email came in through my agent about a music video featuring T.I. and Pharrell, whom I admired, and a singer called Robin Thicke, whom I’d never heard of. Attached to my agent’s email was a treatment, a PDF filled with words and pictures describing the director’s vision for the video. Lying in bed that morning, I scrolled through the document: Bright red text spelling out “#THICKE” paired with images shot by Terry Richardson of topless, red-lipsticked girls with messy hair were interspersed with bolded phrases like “Let’s break the fucking rules!” A section entitled “TONE” listed “TRUE PIMP SWAG, DUMB SHIT IN A VERY SMART CONTEMPORARY WAY, VICE MAG STYLE” and “NAKED GIRLS XXX TITS BUSH RED LIPSTICK.” I read the misspelled text underneath the section “THE GIRLS” out loud to the guy I was seeing at the time:
“SHE’S THE BEST KIND OF GIRL, SHE’S 100% CONFIDENT. THIS IS FAR FROM MASOGYNIST. IT’S GIVING CRAZY PROPS TO GIRLS TO HAVE THIS UNBELIEVABLE SENSUAL VISUAL POWER.”
I was surprised to see that the director was a woman. I searched the email for the rate. “Oh, wow,” I said. The fee was barely more than I got for shooting one day of e-commerce for Forever 21. “Fuck that. Basically just another shitty music video with a bunch of naked girls.” I told my agent to pass that same morning.
But Diane Martel, the director, persisted, sending me a personal note: Could I at least come and meet her to discuss the project? The list of music videos Diane had directed—Beyoncé, Mariah Carey, JLo—was certainly impressive. When my agent said he thought there was “room on the money,” I agreed to drive to West Hollywood, struggling to parallel park in a metered spot in front of a photo studio on Santa Monica Boulevard.
Inside, Diane remained seated as I stood in front of her wearing a minidress and heels, gripping my portfolio, which she did not ask to see. She told me that the director of photography would be a young woman I’d worked with recently called Olivia. I softened at the mention of her name. I’d liked the pictures she’d taken of me; they were pretty and ethereal, and there had only been women on set when we worked together. “I’ve known Olivia her whole life,” Diane said. “She’s so talented. And so young! You know how pretty she makes everyone—not slutty. And it’ll be mostly all women behind this.” Her leg bounced rhythmically as she spoke. “I want this to be funny. Like a spoof. I know you’re an actress. I want you to be acting in this.”