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Whitney Thompson, the first plus-size winner of America’s Next Top Model, has opened up about the struggles she faced feeling fat shamed on ' show.
Ahead of the tell-all documentary Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model, the 38-year-old blonde beauty - who won cycle 10 of the show in 2008 - recalled some of her lowest moments, including feeling that certain challenges were made deliberately harder for her as a plus-size model.
Thompson, , told People that not having proper clothes for the plus-size contestants ‘felt intentional’.
‘I just pretended like it didn’t bother me, but, and I’m sure most of the girls would do this, I would cry in the shower every day because the shower is the only place that the cameramen couldn’t come, so that was your safe place to release and be like, “Why are they doing this to me?”’ she explained.
She added, 'I knew that they were trying to poke me and get something out of me, so I just played it cool, like, "That's fine. We'll just duct tape my dress. No worries.'"
She also spoke candidly about the judging panel, admitting the whole experience was a ‘nightmare’.
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Whitney Thompson, the first plus-size winner of America’s Next Top Model, has opened up about the struggles she faced feeling fat shamed on Tyra Banks' show; (pictured 2024)
Thompson, who was just 20 and a size 6 when she started on ANTM, told People that not having proper clothes for the plus-size contestants ‘felt intentional’; (pictured with Tyra Banks in 2008)
‘I took Xanax before every judging,’ she said.
‘You’re standing there for eight, nine hours under those hot lights waiting for people to tell you that something is wrong with how you look. It was emotionally exhausting.'
‘I took Xanax before every judging,’ she said, adding, ‘You’re standing there for eight, nine hours under those hot lights waiting for people to tell you that something is wrong with how you look. It was emotionally exhausting'; (pictured 2013)
On top of that, being known as a reality TV personality sometimes worked against her in a world that supposedly wanted 'just the clothes,' she explained.
