Let them eat cake! Tyra Banks says models — herself included — have better things to do than obsess over their weight, despite all the apparent pressures to stay a certain size. Speaking with Us Weekly at a private screening and fashion show for the new cycle of America's Next Top Model on Wednesday, Aug. 7, the mogul dismissed the idea of "dieting" and said she actually prefers her body to be a little curvier.
"I don't believe in diets," the supermodel told Us, alluding to juice cleanses and that "liquid s–t," which she has dubbed the "Class Reunion diet." Detoxing might work for a red carpet or a wedding, she explained, "but the minute you bite one piece of real food, you're going to gain [the weight] right back."
"To me, it's like, I lost weight a couple of years ago and that just changed the way I ate, it changed the way I thought. I actually got too thin because I have tunnel vision," she continued. "So when they said this is what you have to do, I was too strict, and I realized I needed to cheat way more because it didn't look good. I didn't realize I was too thin until I started seeing pictures and I thought, 'Oh, I don't like that. That doesn't look good.' I need some ass."
"I was at the height of my success when I was at my biggest," she added. "So then I go, 'Why am I shedding weight for press when, like, I told the world to kiss my fat ass and had Emmys and Top Model was at its peak and I was on Time magazine's top influential people two times in a row — all with a big ass!"
Banks, 39, doesn't encourage the models on her show to diet, either. "I don't do a good job of helping [my girls] lose weight, even if they might need to," she said. "We stock the house really bad, and then they complain, like, 'We're eating all this crap!' For me, I don't want them to feel all crazy like models in my day felt. I don't care — gain some weight, whatever. I know how to choose a shot that's the most flattering."
She also knows the power of Photoshop. "I don't think cellulite is great — that's not a flaw that I want in a photo, by any means! I retouch that crap out," she quipped. "But I tell women that I'm retouching it out."
"I have too much cellulite right now," the ANTM host noted. "The shape is fine, but, honey, I have on stockings! I can't do short skirts without stockings anymore, so I don't like that."
"I did an episode on my talk show on cellulite, and I brought seven women into a dressing room at Nordstrom's in L.A., and we all sat and talked about our cellulite," she continued. "We had on little things; no one could really see anyone's cellulite. Then we all got up and stripped and we stood in the mirror, and we weren't supposed to turn around to look to see…[but] I had to peek! Mine was the worst of all! I have a lot, I have a lot. It is what it is. I can't really do much about it."
