My friends are surprised to learn that, outgoing as I am today, I was a loner growing up. I was a mixed-race girl with a Korean-Japanese mother and an African-American father, and none of the other kids at my school were like me. I was nearly six feet tall by the time I was 11 years old. And I was an only child being raised by a single mother.
At school in the St. Louis suburb of Florissant, MO, everything about me seemed to be a source of ridicule to other kids: my face, my height, the texture of my hair, my body shape. I was a real fish out of water. And because I had so many growth spurts, it took time for me to grow into my body. The popular kids were into sports, but I was awkward and gawky. I was super clumsy—I still am. Kids can be cruel. They called me “chinky giraffe.” I cried all the time. But my mother wanted me to turn my tears into something else, something positive.
My mom, who worked for the Social Security Administration her entire life, has always been my role model. She did her best to make me feel comfortable in my own skin. She always reminded me that we’re all different and that’s to be respected. “Put on your game face,” she’d say. “Yes, it hurts, but don’t succumb to it. It will pass.”
Mom was right, of course. Even though I felt a bit like a freak in school, my unusual looks were just right somewhere else—in the world of modeling. To a camera or a catwalk, my height and exotic looks were assets instead of liabilities. Realizing this, my mother enrolled me in modeling classes when I was 11. She’d take me on “go-sees” during her lunch hour and would rush back to work. If she didn’t get back to her job on time, she’d be reported. It was stressful for her. But she did it for me because she saw how modeling seemed to be a place I could finally fit in. Almost overnight, everything the kids at school thought was weird about me was now good.
When I was 13, I was discovered by agent Marilyn Gauthier at a Model Search in St.
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