Kate Moss is opening up about her traumatic experiences as an underage model.
The British ’90s supermodel is known for her young start in the industry after she was scouted by a modeling agency at 15. However, what followed were uncomfortable and violating experiences that she has been discussing over the last few years. The now 50-year-old model explained on the podcast “Fashion Neurosis with Bella Freud” that she felt a sense of insecurity during a photo shoot for The Face magazine at age 15.
“At a very young age, I started working, and I started doing pictures topless. And I was very, very conscious of a mole I have on my right tit. I hated it so much, I would cry,” she said. “I still, even after that shoot, I did cry a lot about taking my clothes off. I really didn’t want to do it.
“I was 15 and topless in a magazine, and I was still in school. Luckily, The Face wasn’t sold in Croydon, so I don’t think anyone really saw it, but they heard about it,” she said.
“I never wanted to be topless; I would cry. And I had to get over it because the photographer was like, ‘If you don’t do this, I’m not gonna book you for the next job,’” she continued. “So, I had to get over it.”
“As a model, you can’t be very self-conscious because your body’s kind of not your own when you’re a vessel for somebody else’s imagination,” she added.
This isn’t the first time Moss revealed that a modeling photo shoot left a stain on her overall experience. Moss described her experience with the iconic 1992 Calvin Klein underwear ad with actor Mark Wahlberg as objectifying. The model was only 18 when she had to go nude. She told the BBC in 2022 that she felt “vulnerable and scared . . . I think they played on my vulnerability.”
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