My guest tonight is a supermodel, an entrepreneur,
and the creator and executive producer and host
of America's Next Top Model.
She's also written a new book with her mother called
Perfect Is Boring: 10 Things My Crazy, Fierce Mama
Taught Me about Beauty, Booty, and Being a Boss.
Please welcome Tyra Banks!
-♪ ♪ -(cheering, applause)
My goodness. Hi, everybody.
-(cheering, whistling) -Hello!
Oh, my gosh, so good to be here in person.
-Welcome to the show. -Thank you.
-This is so much fun. I like seeing you in person.
-Do you? -That sounded weird. Um...
I like seeing you in person, too.
No, I'm just saying, like, you said "being here in person,"
and then it's, like, I'm gonna act like I'm not awkward at all.
But it's so nice to see your... your dimples in person.
-Oh, thank-thank you, Tyra. -Yeah. I see them on TV.
And you guys all do it on the TV, don't you?
Don't you touch the TV and go...
(laughter)
Now I could do it in person.
(laughter)
(cheering, applause)
All right, I'm going back to Africa, people. Good-bye.
Thank you very much. We're done. We're done.
-Uh, welcome to the show. -Thank you.
It's so fun to have you here. And congratulations on the book.
You are doing so many things. You're making TV,
uh, you're working on, like, projects and film
and everywhere else.
You also had time to write the book, Perfect Is Boring.
-Yes. -Why did you want to write this book?
I wrote this book, 'cause, Trevor, my mom and I
have quite a unique relationship.
It is raw, real, unfiltered.
My mama tells me anything, everything.
And people come up to us, and they're like,
"I want a relationship like you have with your mom."
And it could be a dad and a son,
a mom and a son, mama and a daddy,
a daddy and... You know, all of the... all of those.
Then, and, you know, my mom and I were like,
"Let's write a book about that."
And really, it starts with making your child blush.
-Making them blush. Having... -In what way?
-The uncomfortable conversation. -Oh, wow.
Did your mama have the uncomfortable conversation?
Oh, yeah, no, my mom, I blushed my entire...
-Right. -my whole life was just blushing.
And it's not just the birds and the bees,
my mom actually put me on a train,
from Los Angeles to San Diego, California, and said,
"You did the birds-and-the-bees talk,
"we did that already, but now I'm gonna give you the...
"how it feels, how a man will touch you,
"and how you will feel and what it'll feel like,
and the eight words he will whisper in your ear."
The eight words he will whisper, which were...?
The eight words to watch out for.
-You got to get the book, honey. -(laughter)
And I wonder if you have whispered them.
-I'm sure you have. -I know what the words are,
but I don't want to spoil it for anyone.
'Cause I read... 'cause I've read the book.
You did the homework. Have you said the words?
I've read... I think every single guy in the world
-has said these words. -(laughs)
(laughter)
Your mother teaches you so many things,
but I wanted to know, like, you say here,
Tyra and Her Mama: 10 Things My Crazy, Fierce Mama
Taught Me about Beauty, Booty, and Being a Boss.
-Yes. -How did you write that your mama was crazy
-and not get an ass-whupping? -(laughter)
Like, does she like that? Does she know she's crazy?
She knows that she's, like,
certifiably insane in a fierce way.
-Right. -Yes. My mother is the mom
that, like, my cousins come over and my nieces and nephews,
and she plays the body accordion.
-The what? -The body accordion.
-Which is the...? -Like, you know, she has her bra on,
and she has her little skirt on, and she'll go, ♪ Raah, aah. ♪
-Oh, geez. -Like, with her rolls.
And they're like, "Nana, Auntie, Auntie Carolyn,
play the body accordion!"
And she's like, "You ready?"
♪ Aah, aah, aah, aah... ♪
Yeah, so, that's my mom. She's fun, but she's raw,
-she's real, and... yeah. -And she helped you...
I guess, like, that story's interesting,
and it ties into the idea in the book,
which I didn't know, and that is, she helped you
get over your body as a... which I never thought of.
I never thought that Tyra Banks
had to get over her body in any way, shape or form.
Oh, yeah. I have been on both sides.
I have been on being very, very skinny--
98 pounds and five nine, if you can imagine that.
-Wow. -And there was nothing that I could do to gain weight.
I was very sad, very depressed.
I would stuff my face. Nothing happened.
But my mother helped me through that dark time.
-Right. -And then, cut to years later, I'm a supermodel,
and they're saying my booty is too big for the runway.
Yes, they did. My Italian...
There was a time when booties were too big?
Oh, uh, yes.
And they still are too big for the runway.
-They're not too big for the Instagram-way. -I see.
They are too big for the runway.
And so that happens, and you-you feel
-like your world has ended. -Yeah.
And it's a really beautiful story in the book
where you talk about your mom.
Like, you go, "This is it. My life is over."
And your mom steps in and-and she says
"We're gonna put that booty to work."
Yes. She said, "You know what we're gonna do right now?"
Through my tears, she says, "We're going to eat pizza."
And over pizza in Milano, Italy, on, like, a butcher paper
of white paper, she-- pizza in one hand--
she put a pin in the other and said,
"You write down every client
in this modeling industry that likes ass."
She said, "Because my baby's ass is getting bigger,
and I'll be damned if she starves for this industry."
So through tears, I'm like,
(crying): "Victoria's Secret."
And she's like, "Write it down."
I'm like, "Sports Illustrated."
"Write it down." And then she's like, "Who has an ass?"
I'm like, (crying): "Cindy Crawford."
And she's like, "Write it down."
And she said, "Those are the models who you're gonna emulate,
"and those are your future clients.
Now you take that and you go give it to your agency."
-And then here I am today. -That is amazing.
As a Victoria's Secret contract with them.
-That is absolutely amazing. -Sports Illustrated,
First black woman on the cover of that.
So it worked.
What I appreciate in the book
is you say, you say perfect is boring,
but you're not afraid to talk about the different ways
-that women can appreciate and accept themselves. -Yeah.
You know, we live in a world where it seems
like you swing from one extreme to the other.
Some people go, "Accept yourself the way you are.
Don't change anything." And then other people are like,
"Oh, no, if you change something,
-then you don't love yourself, etc." -Yes.
But you're in the book going like, "Hey, just love yourself.
-"And do what you need to do. -Yeah. I say fix it
-or flaunt it. -Right.
I mean, there are hair weaves, there are wigs,
there are people with natural hair, people with natural hair
that are actually making bigger Afros with fake hair.
There's eyebrow plucking and eyebrow microblading,
and fake lips and fake boobs, and--
mine are real by the way--
Um, but, like, all that kind of stuff.
And I talk about getting my nose done when I was very young.
I broke my nose when I was three years old.
It started growing crooked, it was itching.
(with British accent): Um, this makeup artist--
she talked like you, kind of, but a little different,
like this-- and she said, "Tyra, your nose is growing crooked.
It's growing sideways, and I feel shards of, like--"
(normal voice): That's not really South African, really.
No, that's British. But it's like...
But, yeah, but she was British. She was British.
Yeah, it's colonial enough. I-I'm with you.
-She was, she was British. -Yeah.
And she told me that my nose was kind of growing sideways,
-and it used to itch all the time. -Right, right, right.
And I went to this one doctor and this doctor tried to make me
have this nose that was like, super, like, Caucasoid,
and not like my African American features.
A year later I went to a different one,
and he said, "Yeah, your nose is broken.
"I can stop the itching and make it
"as African American as possible, and probably
what it should have been had you never broke it."
You know, but I want to tell girls that.
Like, this nose, maybe it was the one that I would have had,
maybe not, I don't know, but the-the thing is,
to fix it or flaunt it, it's all fine.
Let's stop like saying, "Ugh, ugh, ugh.
You too natural, ugh. You too done, ugh."
Child, I'm done. This took two and a half hours.
And it's so natural, isn't it?
(laughter, applause)
The um...
(cheering and applause)
One of the joys of America's Next Top Model is,
you've broken, in many ways, the mold
-of what people believe a model should be. -Yes.
We've seen people evolve, we've seen the evolution
of the idea of a model.
Um, when you are looking at models,
when you're looking at the modeling industry as a whole,
what is your end goal? What do you dream
of seeing change in the modeling industry?
I want diversity to be boring.
I want it to just-- you had Ashley Graham here.
-I saw her on your show. -Right, right, right.
I don't want it to be like, "Oh, curvy,
plus-size model, Ashley Graham."
I want it to be, "Ashley Graham. She just so happens
"to be thicker than a Snicker.
This one over here is skinny, and she is just mini-me."
And it just all is beautiful and all is boring.
I want diversity to be boring.
-Diversity to be boring. -Yes.
That's exciting. Perfect is Boring.
The book is definitely not.
You and your mom are amazing.
-Thank you so much for being on the show. -Thank you so much.
-Thank you. -(cheering and applause)
Perfect is Boring is available now.
The season finale of America's Next Top Model
airs April 10 at 8:00 p.m. on VH1.
Tyra Banks, everybody.