Victoria’s Secret Told Erin Heatherton and Her Six-Pack to Lose Weight
When you think about a model strutting down the Victoria’s Secret runway in lingerie and posing in a bikini for the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, body image struggles wouldn’t usually come to mind. But like many women, supermodel Erin Heatherton has battled with her body image, especially when told to drop a few pounds.
“My last two Victoria’s Secret shows, I was told I had to lose weight,” she told TIME magazine’s Motto. “I look back like, ‘Really?’”
And it was after that show when Erin chose to part ways with Victoria’s Secret: “I realized I couldn’t go out into the world—parading my body and myself in front of all these women who look up to me—and tell them that this is easy and simple and everyone can do this.”
“I was really depressed because I was working so hard and I felt like my body was resisting me,” she said. “And I got to a point where one night I got home from a workout and I remember staring at my food and thinking maybe I should just not eat.”
The model first opened up about the pressures from Victoria’s Secret last month in an Instagram post. The photo featured Erin in a shirt with “Empowered by Failure” written across it.
So, why has Erin chose to speak out now?
“I’m willing to sacrifice my pride, in a sense, and my privacy because I know that if I don’t speak about it, I could be withholding information that would really help women,” she said. “It hurts too much to keep it in, and that’s why I’m not keeping it in now.”
Just a little daily dose of girl power for you.
