Models From Los Angeles

"It took me a long time to understand that God didn’t do divorce"

"I had to be put in that place in order for me to get as free as I am now"

"I didn’t realize it at the time, but my concern with what other people thought about me was such a thing that I had to go through something like that where I literally had no other option, and I had to find my joy and my peace regardless of what everyone was thinking"

"But I remember when I was praying, I felt a peace come over me, and I was like, ‘this is an answer to a prayer"

"I was like, I look so crazy I just have to sit in this, and let people think what they want to think, and there’s nothing I can do about it"

"Black girls, we don’t get, ‘Let’s hire her now and put her in the gym with a trainer and get her where she needs to be.’ You don’t get to get there and figure it out. You’ve got to come already ready"

"I can still change people’s minds about me, and I don’t look at that as a bad thing. I look at that as a purpose thing."

"Growing up, me and Christina Milian and Zoe Saldaña were up for a lot of the same things. But also, being Black women, we kind of merged. We could be anywhere between 32 to 43. I kind of feel like we’re all somewhere around the same age of 37."

"It's nothing that I would have ever chosen, and when I realized that it was happening, I was devastated. I was like, 'This is me, Lord. I did everything that I could do to the best of my ability. I don't understand why I did all these things, and then this is my end result.'"

"One skill a child learns from having alcoholic or drug-dependent parents is to anticipate the needs of those around them. I learned to take care of everyone and make them happy, you before me at all costs, in an unconscious effort to control my environment or to feel needed so to feel worthy, and that doesn't translate into an authentic and trustful relationship."

"My childhood was colorful and chaotic, unstable and inconsistent, unpredictable and hard a lot of the times. But the silver lining is that it made me a very adaptable person."

"Go ahead, Momma. Tell me about your life. Tell me everything."

"What I have are trust issues and an attraction to emotionally unavailable partners. That, combined with a fear of intimacy that compels me to push away the men who might have the capacity to commit to me in a real and sustainable way, makes for romantic problems. My relationships have been mirrors of how I felt about myself. I've only been treated as well as I thought I deserved."

"That being said, you can have all of the resources and open doors in the world, but if you know don't know what to do with them, they're useless. And we know plenty of kids who grew up with privilege, who grew up wealthy — way more privilege than [us] — and they do nothing with their lives."

"I think that everybody would love to play the bad girl, ‘cause for most of us, it’s a stretch."

"I have no words. SF [San Francisco] is a complete s—hole. I am a registered Democrat and feel confident saying liberal politicians are ruining cities."

"I know a lot of aesthetically beautiful women who are not nice people, and they do not come across as beautiful to me. I think the number one thing for beauty is a smile. I love a woman with a beautiful smile."

"We weren't really raised in the public eye because our dad was a behind-the-scenes person. But I will say being raised with privilege, I think that there's a lot of judgment that comes with it and we would never be so presumptuous to pretend like we haven't had a leg up on someone who has no resources and no help in the world and no one to open a door for them and no opportunities."

"Hence, the whole party girl club rat phase that I went through in my life. School wasn’t for me. Honestly, I felt uncomfortable and I didn’t have a clique. I was floating by friends with all the different groups. Maybe that’s the Gemini in me, but I didn’t have my thing in school. I wasn’t very good at school. I was terrible at math. Testing freaked me out. I dropped out. My last completed grade is ninth grade. We walked in one day and walked out and I was like, “I’m done.” I was in the club one night and DJ AM was deejaying. I literally saw the sky open and I was blown away by how he controlled the room and his energy made everybody else so happy. If you looked at him, he was joyous and it brought joy to me and everyone in the room."

"I have heard that the business can start to control you. We have to be careful because life is short and we can’t just make it about the business."

"When you’re in LA, you can try everything."

"I grew up in Malibu and people hear that and they’re like, “You were some rich socialite.” I’m like, “How?” My dad is the pizza man, first of all. When I wanted enough money to go to the club or something crazy that night, I delivered pizzas. I had to work. I was in this circle and I grew up with these girls that were more financially fortunate or famous than me and my family. It was a very interesting dynamic, but none of that matters when you’re all true friends. Everybody’s got your back. You become friends with who you become friends with."

"I knew from the time I could walk that I wanted to work. I wanted to be my own boss and do my own thing. You can get what you want if you act like there is no other option."

"Growing up in L.A., for me, was a lot different than you’d think. I was the daughter of a hardworking pizza man who ended up kickin’ it with the rich kids. I lived in Malibu because we opened a D'Amore's pizza there. I'd make just enough money delivering pizzas so I could pay for gas and valet at the hottest clubs. I worked to party. I must have been fired from D'Amore's 100 times. But being the owner’s daughter had perks. And, of course, free pizza for life, so I never starved."

"My mother contracted the AIDS virus when I was very young by the doctors at the hospital. They gave her a precautionary blood transfusion and did not check the blood they gave her. It was a total fluke. I was lied to for 15 years about it. I always thought she died from toxic shock. I was very angry that my father lied to me, but I now understand that he just did not want the stigma of the disease to affect my friendships at school. As we all know, kids can be mean, and my father was trying to protect us. The stigma of this disease has always been something I'd like to help remove. Anyone at any time can contract this disease, gay, straight, a mom of four with no drug history. Anyone. Everyone needs to educate themselves on how to be protected and also about how to discuss this disease without adding to the stigma. It shaped my outlook on life by reminding me that life is so precious and can be very short. Live life to the fullest, but be smart and take care of yourself."

"I started DJ-ing about eight years ago. I used to hang in the DJ booth with DJ AM a lot and he really inspired me. I loved watching how happy he was while making other people so happy as he dropped each track. He really was my inspiration and my motivation. He was the one that told me I could do it. Paris actually hired me to DJ all of her record release parties around the world. This was before it was "cool" to be a chick DJ. We actually had a lot of fun."

"Yes, I was raised by my pops. I think it made me super strong, maybe too strong at times. I remember I was the only kid who didn't cry for their mommy at sleepovers. Which turned into not really needing anyone. Which made it hard to date me. Every guy always cried long before I ever did in a relationship. I'm so lucky I met someone who could handle me. My husband changed me for the better, but he loves me for the tough bitch I am. If he's not happy, even for a moment, I will totally cry."

"REAL women don’t bully other women."

"Ask your employees questions and ask for their opinions. Empower them to feel ownership. When they love what they do and how they're treated— you'll see results. I like working with people that can teach me something that benefits the business. People willing to do more than just what's required to get the job done."

"I never was against wearing fur because I truly did not know how these animals were tortured and killed in order to have these coats and accessories. I am done with fur forever and I have now found so many amazing faux fur lines that are great alternatives for women who love the look and love animals. I love that PETA is all about individuals taking baby steps in becoming aware of animal rights. I am not a full vegetarian but I have not eaten red meat or pork in over 10 years. … I am also extremely careful now not to purchase products that are tested on animals. I have started with fur but I hope that over time I will become a full vegetarian."

"Everyone in the family wears fur except me. … Kim wore fur last night. I told her you cannot wear fur. It's embarrassing."

"Looking back, I can see how there are challenges for any working parent. My mom was a stay-at-home mom and that was really challenging too. I think it’s hard to be a parent and it’s complicated and there are a lot of difficult decisions that you make for your child and for yourself and for your family. Only now as an adult can I appreciate how courageous it was for my parents to move because they didn’t know anybody there [in Connecticut], and also for my dad’s career it must have been hard being away from LA. But we were always on movie sets. We were never apart. I was sheltered from the industry lifestyle but not from the experience of the set."

"I think everyone has what it takes to be a good actor innately within them. It’s really about connecting to your own humanity and your own behaviors, and getting to a level of self-awareness so that you can have perspective and step outside of yourself and transform and become another person. You can’t become another person if you’re not self-aware; you wouldn’t know what’s changed. [But] the ability to play pretend is something that everyone has access to; you see little kids doing it. On the spectrum of imagination, there are people who are more imaginative than others—I guess some kids are hardcore pretenders and have imaginary friends for years and other kids play and they have fun, but it’s not quite as specific like that. I’m sure there’s a range, but I think everyone can pretend."

"I’ve never, ever, in my entire life, been upset at a casting choice. I started taping my dad’s auditions when I was 11, when he was auditioning actors for one of his movies. I would see, over and over again, that there wasn’t just one actor for the role. It was really clear that there were a lot of people who could play a character really well, and it would always come down to something kind of weird and non-obvious as to why a person was cast. If you’re not right, you’re not right, but that’s okay."

"I love watching amazing actors and actresses that you can't take your eyes off of because everything they are doing -- even if it is just twiddling their thumbs or scratching their eye -- it's just interesting. That's why I love this job and that's why this industry came around. People are fascinating and we want to watch them."

"When I was younger and started acting, I wasn't good at sports and didn't have any other special talents. Acting was my after-school activity. I never planned on growing up and becoming an actor. I always wanted to go to school and become a veterinarian so I think when I got older and suddenly realized that it was my passion, it was just a natural moment. I never felt pushed. My family has always supported me completely and kept me grounded. I never got lost in child Hollywood actor weirdness."

"I have to find the right part of myself and put it into that character. I feel like everyone has a full deck of cards and I just have to pull the right card for that character. The more comedic roles come easier to me though because I see myself as a silly, easy-going person."

"Having such a large family can be challenging. I won't deny that. But they're just great kids so you just deal with everything. There's very few things in my life that I regret. If I could change anything, maybe I wish I had learnt and done certain things earlier. I would have liked to have continued in school longer. I would have been interested in living in Africa and perhaps trained as a pediatrician."

"You learn by going where you have to go."

"Rage and grief are savage companions, but despair is the final undoing."

"Well, I didn't lose my faith in God and in my own commitment to what I think my religion means to me but I did lose faith in Rome. I was horrified that the Pope at the time of the Rwandan massacre— this is a Catholic country, Rwanda—made no attempt to go there and to halt the killing. And I mean, who among us would not have tried? And on the contrary many of the perpetrators were actually sheltered. So I disengaged with my faith at that point. And then when I went to Darfur some 10 years later, by then I had cast away any allegiance to Rome and I saw -- you know, if only we'd had a Pope like Archbishop Desmond Tutu, for example, who was engaged on the issues that concerned the most needy of humanity."

"On this planet there are people who are suffering beyond description. They are innocent people, they didn’t bring this upon themselves. They are the victims of the sins of other people. And while it’s hard to see, it’s important to understand that these people exist. I’m talking to you now because they can’t and I hope to be a voice for them. They need support."

"If you're brought up a Catholic and you've had 13 years of convent education with nuns, there's no way you ever get out from under that. I've accepted that fact about myself so there are certain things—like my lost saint—that sometimes are not so lost."

"I get it now. I didn't get it then. That life is about losing and about doing it as gracefully as possible...and enjoying everything in between."

"I learned that you can't truly own anything, that true ownership comes only in the moment of giving."

"I called Planned Parenthood and begged them to give me their best argument and all they could come up with that it is really just a clump of cells and if you get it early enough it doesn’t even look like a baby. Well, we’re all clumps of cells and the unborn does not look like a baby the same way the baby does not look like a teenager, a teenager does not look like a senior citizen. That unborn baby looks exactly the way human beings are supposed to look at that stage of development. It doesn’t suddenly become a human being at a certain point in time. I’ve also asked leading scientists across our country to please show me some shred of evidence that the unborn is not a human being. I didn’t want to be pro-life, but this is not a woman’s rights issue but a human rights issue. If I see someone abusing a child I am going to stand up against that, and that’s how I feel about abortion. Women are not given all the facts, they’re told it is a harmless procedure and now it has turned into such a political football."

"I have never seen anyone epitomize glamour and grace and professionalism like she did."

"I loved Heidi Klum, but now I know Kathy Ireland is on the cover of Forbes, so that’s pretty amazing as well."

"I really actually would like to model my career after someone like Kathy Ireland. I think she just built this incredible empire, but she honors the fact that Sports Illustrated was the platform that got her to that place"

"Modeling exposed me to the best designers and people of all different cultures, but I always knew I belonged on the other side of the camera. When I modeled, I saved my money. A lot of people thought I was cheap. I was saving to invest in people."