beauty – Now I've Heard Everything

The Remarkable Journey of Supermodel Alek Wek

July 24, 2024July 20, 2024Bill Thompson

Back in 1995 in London, a teenager was out shopping one day when a stranger tapped her on the shoulder. That stranger was a modeling scout, and before long, that teenager was signed as a professional model.

And it wasn’t long after that that Alek Wek was seen on covers of major international magazines. She was MTV’s Model of the Year in 1997.

But what makes her story even more incredible and extraordinary is that she had only been in London for four years, after her family fled a life of poverty in their homeland, civil war-torn Sudan.

Alek told her story in a 2007 autobiography called simply Alek. I met her on her book tour that year.

So here now, from 2007, Alek Wek.

Alek Wek is 47 now. She lives in New York.

Naomi Wolf

June 22, 2022June 22, 2022Bill Thompson

They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder but in modern western society the beholders are usually men and the men make the rules of that social construct that we call beauty.

That’s the essence. Kind of boil down into my own words of Naomi Wolf’s blockbuster breakthrough 1991 book The Beauty Myth.

The Beauty Myth created some big waves when it was published. In fact, later the New York times even said it was one of the 70 most influential books of the entire century.

But it has also generated a lot of controversy for Naomi Wolf.

I first met her when her first book was published — and I hate to admit it now, but so of my questions now seem a bit naive.

So here now from 1991. Naomi Wolf

Naomi Wolf is 59. She lives in Washington, DC.

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Tyra Banks

July 1, 2020June 29, 2020Bill Thompson

She’s a supermodel, a role model, and a popular actor.

Tyra Banks was already, at 24, an international celebrity when I met her in 1998. She had written her first book, called “Tyra’s Beauty Inside & Out.”

So here now, from 1998, Tyra Banks:

Tyra Banks is 46 now, and still a role model, still a popular TV and movie actor.

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