Emily Ratajkowski admitted to capitalizing on her “sexuality” by “using her body” to find “fame” and “success” but now says it’s wrong to think of it as “empowering.”
“[In] my early 20s, I really thought of myself as hustling and working the system and saying, ‘Okay, I know what I can get from becoming a model and from using my body to have fame and success,'” the 30-year-old model/actress shared during her appearance on CBS This Morning Monday. The comments were noted by the Daily Mail. (RELATED: ‘It’s Mine And No One Else’s’: Cara Delevingne Poses Nude While Talking About Her Vagina For NFT Video)
(Photo by Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images)
“And, I even called it empowerment,” she added, noting the video she did with Robin Thicke as she danced around topless. “I was in the Blurred Lines video – that was my big breakthrough moment – and I told everyone that felt like an empowering experience.” (SLIDESHOW: The Sexiest Looks From The Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show)
“But, as I’ve gotten older, I realized that it’s a bit more complicated and feel a responsibility to tell young girls that,” Ratajkowski continued. “I would be wrong to say that it’s just simply empowering to capitalize on your sexuality and your beauty as a woman.”
(Photo by Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for Harper’s Bazaar)
The Sports Illustrated Swimsuit model said she used to think her sexuality gave her “some kind of control” but now feels different.
“I don’t think that exploiting myself is progress at all, I think that it just offered me some kind of control,” Emily shared. “The only time I feel like I’ve experienced empowerment is through writing this book and telling this story and even just making something, creating something. That feels like real power.”
(Photo by Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for Tony Awards Productions)
The supermodel confessed to accepting thousands of dollars to attend special events with different men, which she now slams as “manipulation,” the Sunday Times magazine reported.
“I don’t fault young girls and I would never shame them for how they dress or how they try to work the system or try to be,” she explained, the outlet noted. “That being said, I don’t want [them] to think it’s gonna be a beautiful pathway with flowers… It’s more complicated than that. There’s a lot of ways that you can be hurt. Especially if you are naïve.”
“I was defiant,” she added. “I really wanted to believe I was an example of a woman empowered. That if this was feminism that you can use your body to have fame and success, and in some ways that’s totally true. In other ways I didn’t feel empowered because it’s more complicated than just that.”
“It’s a cultural shift,” Ratajkowski continued. “There’s obviously ways that we can protect models but it’s a really complicated industry because it’s just about using women’s bodies to sell products.”