From runway sass to telling critics to kiss her "fat ass," Tyra Banks has spent
her career championing body positivity in the most brutally honest — and 100% meme-able — way.
Tyra Banks grew up in Inglewood, California. The daughter of a computer consultant and
medical photographer, her parents divorced when she was just six years old. Banks, however,
believes she was too young for the divorce to affect her, and she still thrived in school.
The star also discovered some of her heroes as a young girl. When asked
in 2018 whom she admired while growing up, Banks told the Los Angeles Times:
"When I was growing up there was a news anchor. Her name was Angela Black;
she is this beautiful African American woman. And I was just obsessed with her, seeing this black
woman in this prominent position. [...] [Angela Black showed me] that anything is possible."
By age 17, Banks had signed a contract with Elite Model Management and was soon
found on high fashion runways all over the world. Banks moved to Paris to find work,
and in 1991 she booked 25 runway shows. She told The Cut:
"My runway walk with something extra special. There was a lot of sass,
often times too much for some designers' tastes, but in the end, it did set me way apart."
Her success on the runway was short-lived, however. Banks had started to gain weight,
and she lost work because of it. She returned to the United States and began swimsuit and
lingerie [lahn-zhuh-RAY] modeling, as that avenue was more accepting of different body
types. But in 1993, Banks struck gold and signed a contract with CoverGirl cosmetics,
cementing her status as a bonafide supermodel.
In 1997, Tyra Banks became the first Black woman to appear solo on the cover of Sports
Illustrated Swimsuit Edition. Banks had been on the cover the year prior,
but she was photographed with another model, Valeria Mazza [vah-LEH-ree-uh MAH-zuh], making
her 1997 cover more surprising and special. Banks told the magazine:
"To be a Black woman on the cover of a Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition,
this is Americana. This is not about color, it's just about being a female."
Banks' success didn't stop with Sports Illustrated. That same year,
she became a Victoria's Secret Angel. Being named a Victoria's Secret Angel
was high praise for a model, and appearing in the fashion show was an honor. Banks
was further honored by wearing the special Fantasy Bra, once in 1997 and again in 2004.
Tyra Banks had always planned to take over every industry, not just modeling. In 1994, the model
officially turned into an actor when she landed her first gig on "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air."
"I love performing, I love it to death."
In between her busy modeling schedule, Banks found time to act in various television shows
and movies, and her acting career hit its peak in the early 2000s when she starred in movies
like "Coyote Ugly," "Love & Basketball," and the cult classic "Life-Size," in which
she starred as a doll-come-to-life alongside Lindsay Lohan [LO-han].
Banks has also starred in a variety of music videos, including Ludacris'
"Stand Up," George Michael's "Too Funky," and Michael Jackson's "Black or White."
In 2003 Tyra Banks started a revolutionary reality
competition show called "America's Next Top Model," in which she and her crew of
judges searched for supermodels. Banks used the opportunity to find models who
didn't necessarily fit the mold. She told Entertainment Weekly in 2017:
"Being black and being curvy made me empathize with people who didn't fit
the cookie cutter. [...] I was using them as a vessel to tell millions
of girls around the world who looked like them that they were beautiful."
"America's Next Top Model" was instantly popular, and to this day is referenced in pop culture.
"I was rooting for you! We were all rooting for you! How dare you!"
While the show has come under fire in more recent years for some of its problematic choices,
it did help create space for diversity in the modeling industry, just as Banks intended.
In 2005, Tyra Banks took her career to daytime television with "The Tyra Banks Show." In addition
to interviewing celebrities, Banks became known for some of her more bizarre segments,
like teaching her audience how to burp and pretending she had rabies.
Banks also gained notoriety by walking on stage in the same swimsuit she had
recently been photographed in. A paparazzi photo showed her in an unflattering light,
and Banks addressed it head-on, saying:
"If I had lower self-esteem, I would probably be starving myself right now."
"Kiss my fat ass!"
Banks also works behind the scenes through her production company,
Bankable Productions. In 2020, it was revealed that the company had signed
a deal with ABC Signature to create both scripted and unscripted shows.
Always wanting to learn and improve, Tyra Banks headed back to school in 2012,
sort of. Banks completed the nine-week Owner/President Management program at
Harvard Business School. While she came under fire for calling herself a Harvard graduate,
Banks did leave campus with a diploma, just not a degree.
Still, her success in business and personal branding is apparent,
and in 2016 she was asked by Stanford to teach an M.B.A. course. She told the Los Angeles Times:
"I love teaching; I think it's something that I really want to focus on when I do
a bit of retiring from entertainment. [...] It's
one of the most gratifying and actually fun things that I do."
Banks used that Harvard diploma to help launch her own beauty line, Tyra Beauty,
in 2014. In 2017, Tyra Beauty became available exclusively through digital
sales, whereas it had previously been sold through direct sales, like Mary Kay or Avon.
After conquering modeling and television, Tyra Banks switched her focus from her career to
her personal life. The model began dating Norwegian photographer Eric Asla in 2013,
and in 2016, the two had a son via surrogate, York Banks Asla. Banks had long wanted a child,
but due to the demands of her career and infertility,
she struggled to get pregnant. After her son's birth, she told People:
"The journey to now has not been an easy process, as I've shared before. But there
was a beautiful bright light at the end of the tunnel for me and his father, Erik."
These days Banks is very reticent to show her child publicly, and
he is rarely photographed. She told The Guardian:
"I'm very protective of my personal life. So if you look at my social media,
you don't see my child. I know my followers would quadruple if I posted pictures of him,
but I don't want to use my child for my career."
The list of famous people who have gone under the knife is ever growing,
as is the list of those who are sharing their experiences.
Tyra Banks opened up about her experience in her memoir "Perfect is Boring." The star
got a nose job when she was younger, and noted that although she didn't
need corrective surgery in order to breathe, she wanted to make her nose
look better while she was being operated on for other reasons. She told People:
"Fix it or flaunt it – I think women should be able to do both. [...] You want a hair
weave? Fine. You want permanent eyebrows? Fine. We as women need to stop judging."
Banks also revealed that if she could, she wouldn't stop at her nose.
"When I walked down the Victoria's Secret runway, I always covered up my butt. I was covering up
my cellulite. Thank you Victoria's Secret for working with me, they knew why I was doing it."
Tyra Banks has gained serious confidence over the years — enough for her to go
makeup-free every now and then. Banks has been very open about appearing sans makeup,
and she has even become famous for her "no makeup-makeup look."
In 2015, she took to Instagram to show herself without makeup, saying:
"I wanted to smooth out my dark circles so badly!!! But I was like, 'Naw,
Ty. Show 'em the REAL you.' [...] Maybe you're thinking,
'Whoa, she looks ROUGH.' And if you are, great! You deserve to see the REAL me."
Though she's confident showing herself bare-faced, Banks is still a fan of
full glam and has no problem wearing makeup when she wants. She told People:
"As a model, I needed makeup. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. It leveled my
playing field. Gisele, you don't need it? I do! And we're both modeling for Victoria's Secret."
Tyra Banks has been just as busy in the latter half of her career as she was in
the first. In 2017, she returned to the hosting world, this time for "America's
Got Talent," and again in 2020 as host of "Dancing With the Stars," which she
will now be hosting with her former fellow "The Fresh Prince of Bel Air" actor Alfonso Ribeiro.
Banks also made history by returning to modeling to pose for the cover
of the 2019 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition. Editor MJ Day said of the model:
"Tyra Banks is the epitome of what we hope for all the women who are a part of Sports
Illustrated Swimsuit. What she has achieved so far in her career is extraordinary. [...] She has
refused to be singularly defined and is constantly working to inspire everyone within her reach."
Banks herself gushed:
"Being the first Black woman on the cover,
I didn't dream it because I never thought it was possible. And almost like this,
I never thought it would be possible. I'm 45 years old on the cover of this magazine again."
It seems that Banks won't be going anywhere. She is still
modeling occasionally, and in 2022 joined three other supermodels — Heidi Klum,
Alessandra Ambrosio and Candice Swanepoel — for a Skims campaign with Kim Kardashian.