- The times that my social media has quote unquote
looked the best, it was when I felt the worst.
It was like 100,000 followers a day at one point,
it was surreal.
Everyone was like perfect girl, the perfect couple,
the perfect this, the perfect that,
and I was like, I want to be that.
I don't want to be like whatever is actually happening here,
I want to be that.
- [Interviewer] So I just want to begin by saying
that we're really grateful to be doing this with you,
and we really value your decision to do it.
- Thank you for making this space.
I knew as soon as I would walk into this door
it would feel like almost that space
where you're greeted with no masks.
It's not possible to have any mask
or layer on when you walk into this space.
A lot of the success that I've manifested
also has come from all of my insecurities,
like a need to be seen.
Even our blessings are sometimes
coming from an unhealed part of ourselves,
and it's also a lesson that's being learned.
- [Interviewer] So can you talk about
what your style says about you?
- I feel like I'm still in a place of self-discovery.
I think for a while I felt very out of place in my style.
I think for a long time I relied on my body.
It would just be more more so like as long
as it showed off my body,
then like it looked good.
Which I was a model for 10 years.
And so one, I kind of just let people put things on me.
And then in my daily life it was just basic basic.
like my modeling agency was very
wear as basic as you can,
make it look the model off duty look.
But then I didn't have an identity in it,
it was very much so white tank top and jeans,
you can't go wrong.
As soon as I was 14 years old
I was being put in clothes in front of adults
that I wanted to please.
I wish we were comfortable,
and also women felt safe enough
to truly dress how they wanted to
because I think this world would be really beautiful
if women could do that.
And sometimes I have the guts
to like go out in that dress that I loved
and most days I wear like hoodie and track pants
and I just go really casual
because I don't want to draw attention to myself.
Even though I do and I don't and it's very confusing.
Growing up as conventionally pretty
I've always wanted to tone myself back
because I don't want girls being like
oh who do you think she is kind of an energy,
or men being like I can take advantage.
It's just a weird kind of space to be in.
For a while I felt very out of place in my style.
But this year I made it a priority and it's been so fun
to just build it.
- [Interviewer] What are assumptions
that people make about you based on your appearance?
- She's probably not very intellectually stimulating.
There's just a level of shock that people have
when they talk to me.
I have a weird reaction to that
because I'm just like thank you.
I don't, maybe thank you, I don't know.
Sometimes I go into a conversation
being aware of the fact
that I have to tell myself
you're not proving, you're having a conversation.
Because I'm so used to proving,
just I'm here, you know.
I was modeling in Japan and I was at an audition
and they're all talking Japanese,
I don't know what they're saying.
And I walk back out and my agent at the time
she was like do you want me to tell you what they said?
And I was like yeah, they seemed so nice.
And she was like um,
they said that they would never work with you
because you have a horse face.
And I was like.
That and then also
when my modeling agency was like
you know it would be really cool
if you lost like 10 pounds.
Those were like okay, this is where my value is,
this is where my worth is,
and then so I'm just going to make sure
that when I hear something like that
I'm going to take it as I just have to be better.
I didn't take it as they're just rude,
I took it as okay, I can position my face
so it doesn't look essentially like that.
Or oh yeah I can lose 10 pounds.
Like I was very much so like what box do you need me in?
I do hide behind my looks,
I'm not going to deny that.
I do still do that
and I'm actively, and I'm looking for
exactly things like this
so that I can break that barrier.
And especially going from modeling to acting.
Models sometimes have a hard time transitioning
because they're so used to making sure
they look their best in front of the camera
and they don't want to look messy,
whereas acting, the camera does not exist.
It's such a relief,
and it feels so good to not care
about where the camera is.
And to showcase myself as a human.
Sometimes I feel guilty
because I'm like I didn't do enough,
I should have done more
because when I was 17, 18 and when social media was like,
and I was going up with that.
I just wanted to be like the hot girl on Instagram.
I didn't know what it was,
I didn't know what I was doing,
I was just living and showcasing my life.
And I also was showcasing it
in the most perfect way,
partly because everything else was in shambles
and it was the one thing I could control.
I was trying to fit into the modeling box so,
like so intensely to the point
where my body was like you're bedridden
for three, almost four months.
The times that my social media has
I guess quote unquote looked the best,
it was when I felt the worst
because it was all I was focusing on.
My mother had just passed away, I was scrambling,
and then at the same time modeling was picking up
so I was in that really intense state of people pleasing.
So it was just the perfect storm
to be the perfect mess.
It's going on almost 10 years which is so crazy,
I'm just like what.
10 years without my mom, it's so weird.
It's almost like the longer it is
the more painful it is.
I think when I first lost her,
I went shopping that day.
I was like, I don't know what to do, let's go shopping.
Went to buy some clothes, like what do you do?
What do you do?
Nine months after my mom passed
and then I turned 18
I went to Australia to do a modeling contract,
and I think just normally when any girl turns 18
like you just become more,
like your body just becomes more womanly.
Like that's just what was happening.
And the modeling agency there did not like that.
My agent at the time sat me down
like I was at a school principals office vibe
like you need to lose weight.
Like this just needs to happen now.
So then I associated their acceptance with life or death.
So it was like as soon as they said I was okay
I could live again energetically.
So that's when I started doing
the most intense juice cleanses.
I was juicing for like two months at a time.
- [Interviewer] You mean not eating anything?
- Not eating anything.
And then I started getting really skinny,
like a lot tinier than I,
you know like that unhealthy look,
that almost like drugged out look.
That's what started to happen,
and my agency was stoked.
I relied a lot on adrenaline.
I couldn't do much during the day.
My body just like canceled me for two, three months
and I had to think about it.
My god sister, she sat me down and she was like
I can't change what you're doing,
but I'm just letting you know that if you keep doing this
you are repeating exactly what your mother did.
- [Interviewer] She had eating disorders?
- Mhmm.
So that was a hard pill to swallow.
It's a denial of being human.
Like you're denying your existence.
That's literally an abusive relationship with your body.
Anytime I doubt something I always say
my body is the first to know.
Because my body was like
this is actually my way of protecting you
because you were going down a road of killing yourself
through not giving yourself the right food,
not eating at all,
traveling, not sleeping correctly.
Being with someone that was too young
to acknowledge what was happening.
- [Interviewer] So was this during the height
of you becoming big on Instagram?
- Yeah, it was like 100,000 followers a day at one point.
It was surreal, it was crazy.
Everyone was like perfect girl,
the perfect couple, the perfect this,
the perfect that.
And I was like I want to be that,
I don't want to be whatever is actually happening in here,
I want to be that.
Like wouldn't you?
Yeah sure, I'm that, I'm not this
what's actually happening.
Social media, as much as it's like crazy and intense
and wow there's 100,000, you know,
there's millions of people following you.
It's still just a phone most of the time.
And so like the times that it was surreal
was when I would be traveling
and there would be hundreds
of people at the airport waiting for me.
That was like the surreal moments.
It didn't feel overwhelming
until bad things started to happen in my life,
and then everyone had an opinion about it.
There's going to always be a point in fame
no matter who you are
where people are going to turn on you.
It's just innately what we want to do
when someone's like all the way up there.
It's like okay, your time's good
and then we pull them down.
It's just something we do, and I do it too.
Like we literally all do it,
like every single person.
Because there was so much dopamine and serotonin
being pumped into my system of all the validation
that I didn't have time to think about my brokenness.
Because I was like always being put into scenarios
in which I had to be Alexis Ren
like the character that I created.
You know, the avatar.
I like to separate myself from her
because it helps me understand
that she's just one aspect of me.
I was so busy being her,
and honestly creating her,
that I had very little time to be sad
and feel everything.
But then it came out in my physical health.
The turning point for me
was when I started having anxiety attacks.
After I was bedridden for a couple months,
it was about a year after that
I was like literally on the floor
trying to catch my breath.
I was definitely in a healthier space with my food,
so I thought like once again right
we look at these physical simple,
all right if I just work on my food
then everything's going to be okay.
But actually that was a manifestation
of the undealt emotional trauma,
like everything's one thing.
I hadn't dealt with the whole picture of it.
But that's what I've learned over the last couple years,
but the anxiety attacks was definitely
okay, I thought I fixed it with starting to eat again
but clearly something else is going on.
- [Interviewer] What were you fixating?
- So I hadn't grieved my mom.
While I was having these anxiety attacks
I ended up going to Hawaii,
and I kind of did my own mental health physical retreat.
I learned breath work.
I started journaling because I wanted to see
what was I actually thinking?
Like what were going into my thoughts every day?
- [Interviewer] What were the things
that were coming up in that?
- Just constant like it's never enough.
It's never enough likes,
it's never enough fame,
it's never enough validation,
it's just never enough, it is never enough.
It's so freeing to let that go
to just know that it's never going to be enough
and then let it go.
It's as simple as okay I got
a million likes on my photos,
okay now I want to get two million likes.
It was as simple as that,
but it was detrimental to me
becoming the person I wanted to be.
That's what I broke down in Hawaii.
That was the conclusion I came to
was oh wow, it really is never going to be enough.
I look for flow state now.
And flow state to me is when you kind of like
lose track of time.
It's that moment where whether it's
a good conversation, or you're dancing,
it's that state.
I look for that.
That's why I dance, I prioritize creativity
as much as I can,
because I know that that's going
to build my identity and the depth of my soul.
- [Interviewer] When do you feel the most vulnerable?
- When I read my amateur poetry out loud.
I think it's innately because that's my mind,
and I didn't value my mind for a very long time.
I didn't think my mind had value.
I thought my value was the physical aspect of myself.
- [Interviewer] And how about like in relationships?
- There had been times where I knew after
that the relationship was more based
upon my physical attractiveness
as opposed to like a spiritual attractiveness.
Because what people forget
is that I'm growing old and dying too.
That's been very scary because men are attracted to me,
but like will they stay when things get ugly
and not so beautiful
because that's going to happen.
- [Interviewer] When do you feel the most beautiful.
- When I dance, ballet specifically.
I stopped doing it for like six years
because it was also one of the things
that contributed to my eating disorder,
and I knew that when I went back into it
it was going to be a huge moment.
Just like proof, like this is how much you've healed.
You're going into this and you don't
feel like that anymore.
I was scared to go back into it
because I knew that it was going to show me
if I had healed.
So instead of looking at my body
as this thing that's either beautiful or not,
I look at it as look at this machine
that I'm here because of.
And I make sure that every single day
I'm doing something to showcase my strength
and my relationship with my body.
Those things that we did as a kid
that we didn't end up doing as adults,
that is still a calling.
And just because we didn't become
the famous most amazing version
of whatever you thought you were going to be,
still do it because it lights up
and it reminds you of who you were
before all of the programming.
I don't do it for any reason
other than it's how I connect to my spirit.
It's just, and that's enough for me.
- [Interviewer] Why in your body, in your skin,
in your journey,
why is it a good place to be?
- I wouldn't have strived for this much
wisdom and experience if I had a mother.
The worst thing that has ever happened to me
was literally the best thing
that's ever happened to me
because I wouldn't have been this whole of a person
without that whole being created.
Whatever breaks your heart is the path,
it's the path.
I fully believe that.
- [Interviewer] So how do you feel now
that you're undressed and revealed
and shared everything?
- I feel a lot more calm than when I first started.
I feel present, I'm here now.
So thank you guys, like really.
- [Interviewer] No thank you.
This was really really really beautiful
and we're very honored and happy to have you here.
- Thank you to Biography,
a line of clean active face oils
for supporting us and bringing this episode
of What's Underneath to life.
- I am a personal humongous fan of Biography.
I use all three face oils.
It is such an amazing experience
to smell them, and to put them on.
I feel like my skin has been so enhanced by them.
Lily do you use it too?
- Well I think you gave me it first
because you were trying to help me
take better care of my skin,
and now I use this petty grudges every single day.
My skin feels glowy and like a baby.
Head over to BiographyNYC.com
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to this week's episode of What's Underneath with Alexis Ren.
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