If you’ve ever looked at a Victoria’s Secret model and assumed they were exempt from body shaming comments, you are sadly (for everyone) mistaken.
In fact, a model whose body would be considered by many to be too thin was told she was just too fat for VS.
“My last two Victoria’s Secret shows, I was told I had to lose weight,” said former VS angel Erin Heatherton in an interview with motto. “I look back like, ‘Really?’”
We’re looking at her like, “Really?” too, because… REALLY???
Heatherton said that despite working out twice a day and eating healthy meals, she just couldn’t slim down enough to meet the strict weight requirement.
“I was really depressed because I was working so hard and I felt like my body was resisting me,” she revealed.
“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.”
After walking in her last VS show in 2013, Heatherton said goodbye to the brand for good.
“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,” she recalled.
She now strives to be an advocate for women who struggle with body image issues.
“This feeling I once perceived as ‘failure’ was, in truth, a powerful awakening for me to stand behind my purpose in life,” she wrote on Instagram.
“I stepped away from hiding behind a fabricated version of myself.”
Heatherton says she is creating a channel for women “to become the truest versions of themselves,” and to “stay tuned for more.”