Why This Top Modeling Agent Stormed Out of an Interview
Fashion industry icon Carole White clearly did not appreciate 60 Minutes journalist Tara Brown’s questions about the modeling world’s effect on young women.
The legendary agent and founder of Premier Model Management, who represented OG supermodels including Naomi Campbell, Christy Turlington, and Cindy Crawford, became so displeased by Brown’s line of questioning that White stormed off the set after criticizing her interviewer and cursing at the still-rolling camera, reportsThe Daily Mail.
Brown was speaking with the top modeling agent as part of a 60 Minutes story focusing on two young models, Edyn Mackney and Victoire Dauxerre. Mackney, an Australian schoolgirl who started modeling at the age of 15, described being constantly told by industry insiders to lose that “extra inch,” while Dauxerre, a former French model, penned a bestselling memoir, Never Skinny Enough: The Diary of a Top Model, about how the pressure to stay thin led her to develop an eating disorder.
“They never told me, ‘You’re too fat or you have to lose weight,’” Dauxerre told Brown, according to news.com.au. “They told me, ‘You are a size 8 and you have to go down to size 2 or 4.’ So I had to lose two sizes of clothes in two months.” And that led the model, who was scouted on the streets of Paris at 17, to at one point subsist on nothing but three apples a day — with a side of laxatives and enemas. Even so, Dauxerre said, her agency would falsify her measurements on the comp cards she took to castings in the hopes of getting more bookings.
But when Brown then asked White whether it was “cruel” to demand models stay unnaturally thin, the agent deflected the question by saying she wanted scientific facts to prove that modeling causes eating disorders in girls and women. (Here you go, friends.) When Brown later asked White if lying on booking cards, as Dauxerre had described, was common practice, the power agent became notably agitated. “Gosh, your words are really strong, actually. It’s sort of quite annoying me,’” she snapped. Brown responded by assuring White that she was not trying to annoy her, but White cut her off angrily, regardless.
“Listen, I will say … I am very outspoken, but I don’t like your terminology to me,” White continued. “I need a cigarette.” Things seemed to calm down momentarily, with White continuing: “I’m happy to answer it, but I don’t like your terminology, I don’t like how you’re asking me the ” — but then she realized the cameras were still rolling, and any attempts to mince words were abandoned.
“Are you still f***ing filming me? Just don’t!” White shouted before standing up to leave. “No, I’m really annoyed because I thought this was going to be quite a broad interview and it isn’t.” Brown reportedly tried to convince White to stay by assuring her that the interview would indeed be wide-ranging, but White simply muttered “Get me out of here” and stormed out of the room.
But despite White’s reticence on the issue, the pressure to stay thin in the modeling industry is quite a timely topic. Earlier this year, a study in the International Journal of Eating Disorders confirmed what many have long suspected: that models are often pressured to jeopardize their health as a prerequisite for employment, and that the modeling industry has far too many models struggling with eating disorders.
Of course, all models by no means fall victim to eating disorders (see all things Ashley Graham and Gigi Hadid‘s statements on coming to terms with body-shamers). But many certainly feel an unhealthy pressure from a young age to maintain their physique — and that’s something that White and the industry as a whole could stand to pay a little more attention to.
Read more from Yahoo Style + Beauty:
Why Did This Company Hire ‘Size 2’ Models to Sell Plus-Size Clothing
Even Olympic Gold Medalist Nastia Liukin Has Felt Body Shamed
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