TYRA BANKS - SELF-EMPOWERMENT

Hi. It’s me again. Welcome back to In A Word. A while ago I had the chance to talk with Tyra Banks. As you all know, Tyra’s an entertainment icon. From Paris to New York, from Dolce & Gabbana to Yves Saint-Laurent, she’s walked the runways and posed for all the industry greats. Through the years, she’s pro-actively cultivated a very commercial, mainstream appeal, garnering contracts with giants like Covergirl, Pepsi and Tommy Hilfiger to name a few. GQ and the coveted Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue both famously featured Tyra as the first black woman to grace their covers. Next, she landed the Victoria Secret contract that made her a household name. And, most recently, she’s become executive producer, host and head judge of the hit TV show America’s Next Top Model and host of The Tyra Banks Show. As busy as she is, she took the time to share her word with me. Here’s an excerpt from our talk…

KUWANA: Obviously, it takes much more than just a beautiful face to achieve the level of across-the-board success that you have. So tell me, if you had one word to describe yourself, your life, and your legacy what would it be?

TYRA: My word would be self-empowerment.

KUWANA: That’s a great word. Tell me about what it takes to be a self-empowered woman in your industry, someone who’s been able to successfully transform herself into a business savvy media mogul.

TYRA: As a model, it’s important to transform yourself. That’s the difference between a good model and a great model. A good model is going to look pretty in clothes. A great model is going to transform herself into the character that she’s portraying. Great models are silent actresses. I’ve been modeling since I was fifteen years old. When I first started, I was a high fashion, very intimidating type of model. But I started to realize that that kind of girl was temporary. They are the girl of the moment. Its fun while it lasts, but then the industry moves on to the next.

I didn’t want to be that girl, someone not in control of her life or her career, at the mercy of the whims of the industry. I looked at Cindy Crawford and I said, “Wow, she’s not a model of the moment. She’s been around for more than ten years and she’s still successful. She has Cindy, Inc., her own company where she calls the shots.” I’d never really seen a black model do that before and I said, “I want to do that.”

Also around that time, I started to gain weight. Designers called me fat and said that my breasts were too big. That’s when I began to change and transition out of high fashion. I came back to America and told my agent to call Victoria’s Secret and Sports Illustrated. I did Covergirl and more things that I thought were more related to the masses. That was the beginning of getting away from high fashion. Because that high fashion stuff is so not me. All those expensive designer clothes and stuff—that’s not really how I live my life. I’m a girl who loves Target and who loves to go buy toiletries with my Mama and stay in Target for three hours. I love to go to the movies and do all the normal stuff so I wanted my career to reflect who I was.

KUWANA: How were you able to make those kinds of decisions and call your own shots in an industry where the women are generally perceived to be beautiful accessories to someone else’s vision?

TYRA: I always looked at my modeling career as a business. My mother really pushed me to be a business woman in that sense. When I lived in Paris, the other models would go to work, come home, get dressed and go to the party. I would go to work, come home and study my French books. Or I would come home and buy every magazine on the news stands and study all the local French photographers. I learned that kind of work ethic from my mother.

My mom is a really big influence for me. She was a single mom raising my brother and I. She always kept her eye on the prize. When my parents divorced, we moved into a one bedroom apartment. But my mom was always trying to take extra jobs and save her money so we could get another bedroom. My mom would save up and she’d go, “Ok, now we’re moving to two bedrooms!” A couple of years later we got three bedrooms. That was her mission—to always improve our lives. That whole bedroom thing for me has continued. And it’s not just a monetary thing. It’s constantly improving, being self empowered and not depending on anyone but myself in order to succeed.

KUWANA: That kind of strength and commitment is critical to creating a sense of self empowerment.

TYRA: I think self empowerment is so important because I feel as women, especially women of color, we’re put into a box that says, “This is what you’re good for. This is as far as you’re going to get and you need to just accept that.” That’s something that I’ve heard as both a model and a woman of color. So every day on my talk show I try to get out that message that even though we’re put into these boxes, it’s up to us to break free and to prove people wrong.

I remember when the idea for my talk show came up. I was sitting at lunch with my manager Benny Medina. He wanted to make sure I was happy with all the career stuff we were working on. At one point he said, “Tyra, what do you want to be? If you were to walk into this restaurant and everyone were to turn and look at you, what would you want them to think?” I said, “Wow, Benny that’s a good question. You know, I’m not interested in being hot. I’m not interested in Oh, yeah, Tyra’s the hotness. She’s the new Porsche driving down the street. Ain’t she hot? That kind of thing fades. As fun as it is to be the girl of the moment, it goes away quickly. I’m interested in longevity, in being relevant, in being a leader and having power.” He said, “Oh, money? We can make money.” I said, “No, that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about the power to make change.”

Because people are going to constantly tell us that we’re not good enough, that we cannot do something, that we cannot change the way things are or accomplish our goals. It is a fight to stay confident and empowered. It is a battle. And we cannot let those negative people win. We must fight to stay true to who we are and what we believe in.