"I stared at my plate and thought to myself: I shouldn't eat this." Ex-Victoria's Secret angel Erin Heatherton accounts.
86-62-87. 1.80 meters tall (two-thirds of them legs, so our estimate). These are the body measurements of supermodel Erin Heatherton according to her agency IMG-Models. Perfect. But what is perfect anyway? It's all a matter of consideration - and in the eyes of the marketing directors of lingerie label Victoria's Secret, Erin is…. well: not perfect.
From 2008 to 2013 Erin (28) strolled down the catwalk for the underwear giant, was part of the marketing machinery surrounding the Victoria's Secret catwalk show, which was followed by millions of viewers worldwide on TV. Then Heatherton hung the wings on the hook. The reason? Was never communicated.
But now Leonardo Di Caprio's ex-girlfriend speaks in Time's Magazine about the wrong body image associated with the job as a lingerie angel: "I was told in advance at the last two Victoria's Secret shows that I went to that I should lose weight urgently. When I think about it now and see the old pictures of myself, anger boils up in me."
She worked out twice a day, "but I kept getting more and more depressed. I felt like my body was defying all my attempts. And then there came the point where I came home from a workout and stared at my plate and thought to myself," 'You'd better not eat this.'"
This was a sticking point for them. "As a VS angel you should signal to the world that you have the perfect body. You parade up and down in front of other women and tell them that it is very easy to look like this. Everyone can have this body, very easy." A lie she no longer wanted to live with. "It's important to be fit. But you shouldn't chastise yourself and try to torture your body into shape."
Erin Heatherton posted a statement for other women on Instagram. "I am willing to sacrifice some of my privacy and speak openly about how much I struggled with my body image. I hope to help other women with this." In America there is now a petition calling for more women of normal weight on the VS catwalk.
