- The 30-year-old star has shared details of how she was sexualized as a pre-teen and teen in her upcoming book, My Body
- She said her parents seemed fixated on her beauty and said 'it seemed important to them both ... that their daughter be perceived as beautiful'
- Her mother clued her in to the attention of men, telling happily from age 12 when the opposite sex would notice her
- Her proud dad had her modeling card, which included her photo and measurements, on his desk
- She recalled a middle school teacher snapping her bra and young men checking her out when she was a 14-year-old model
- When she was in high school, a casting agent looked at photos of her face and said: 'This is how we know this girl gets f**ked!'
Emily Ratajkowski has opened up about the effects of being sexualized from a young age, recalling how a middle school teacher once snapped her bra and how a casting director remarked to her as a teenager that she looked like she 'gets f***ked.'
Emily, 30, shares the candid details in her upcoming book, My Body, reflecting on how adults felt comfortable making sexual comments to her even when she was underage — and how it wasn't long before she became aware of the interested attention of men.
The model and actress noted that while others sexualized her, her parents, too, seemed incredibly fixated on her good looks, leading her in turn to focus much of her attention on her own beauty.
'Beauty was a way for me to be special,' she wrote, according to the New York Post. 'When I was special, I felt my parents’ love for me the most.'
Candid: Emily Ratajkowski has opened up about the effects of being sexualized from a young age
Young: She started modeling at age 14 (pictured) and said that even as a young teen, men paid her attention. Once, in middle school, a teacher snapped her bra
The earliest anecdote that Emily has about herself is one that her mother, Kathy, has shared about her birth.
The doctor who delivered her reportedly exclaimed over Emily's beauty, and even brought his own children to the hospital the next day to see her.
'You were such a beautiful baby,' her mother would say.
When she would later hear her mother talk about how beautiful she herself had been when she was younger, Emily wrote, 'I tried to gauge where my parents thought I belonged in the world of beauties.
'It seemed important to them both, especially to my mother, that their daughter be perceived as beautiful,' she wrote, adding that she would pray that God would make her 'the most beautiful.'
Her prayers came true, and she first realized that men were attracted to her when she was just 12 — when her mother gushed about it.
'I’ll never forget the look on his face as you walked past him!' her mom would say. 'He stopped dead in his tracks and his mouth fell open!'
'It seemed important to them both, especially to my mother, that their daughter be perceived as beautiful,' she wrote (pictured with her dad)
At 13, Emily was told her outfit at a dance was 'too sexy' and got sent home. There were other awkward moments, including odd reactions from others that made it clear she was thought of in a sexual way.
'I was a child, but somehow already an expert in detecting male desire, even if I didn’t completely understand what to make of it,' she said.
When she was in middle school, an agent approached her about modeling.
Her parents were quite proud of her modeling career, with her father hanging one of her marketing materials with her measurements and photo in his classroom.
It seems that around that time, a lot of adults were taking note of her good looks — and she says a middle-school teacher even snapped her bra on one occasion.
Emily might have missed some of the attention of others had her mother not proudly pointed it out.
At her first modeling audition, her mother noted that a young man had been checking her out.
Growing up fast: At 13, Emily was told her outfit at a dance was 'too sexy' and got sent home. There were other awkward moments, including odd reactions from others that made it clear she was thought of in a sexual way
Parenting: At her first modeling audition, her mother noted that a young man had been checking her out
Pride: Her parents were quite proud of her modeling career, with her father hanging one of her marketing materials with her measurements and photo in his classroom
'That boy looked at you when you stood up and flipped your hair,' she said, according to Emily. 'He was watching you.'
But by far the creepiest moment was when an adult casting agent was poring over modeling photos of her with a sultry expression.
Upcoming: She opens up about her experiences in her book, My Body, out in November
'Now this is the look,' he said. 'This is how we know this girl gets f**ked!'
Emily recalled feeling embarrassed and wasn't sure if she should be proud that that's how she looked.
Still, she tried to embrace the power she convinced herself that she had because of her sexuality — though in recent years, she's come to think differently about it.
'It had never occurred to me that the women who gained their power from beauty were indebted to the men whose desire granted them that power in the first place,' she said. 'Those men were the ones in control, not the women the world fawned over.
'Facing the reality of the dynamics at play would have meant admitting how limited my power really was — how limited any woman’s power is when she survives and even succeeds in the world as a thing to be looked at.'
'I was forced to face some ugly truths about what I understood as important, what I thought love was, what I believed made me special, and to confront the reality of my relationship with my body.'
Emily reflected on her sexualization in an Instagram post at the beginning of last year, sharing a throwback photo of herself in a bikini at age 14.
She recalled when an adult casting agent was poring over modeling photos of her with a sultry expression. 'Now this is the look,' he said. 'This is how we know this girl gets f**ked!'
'It had never occurred to me that the women who gained their power from beauty were indebted to the men whose desire granted them that power in the first place,' she said
'I used to like showing people this photo of me at 14 to prove that my body is natural,' she wrote on Instagram Saturday.
'Now I’m a little sad it exists at all. I was just a kid in this picture and I wish the world had encouraged my 14-year-old self to be more than just my body.”
'All of that said, I do still feel like I’ve been empowered through my body and my sexuality via modeling and platforms like Instagram,' she continued.
'Luckily I have discovered the parts of me that are so much more important than "sexiness," but if you’re a 14-year-old girl reading this, don’t worry about any of that for now. Read lots of books and know that what you see on Instagram is just a very small fraction of complete and beautifully complex human beings.'
Also in her upcoming book, Emily reveals for the first time that Robin Thicke sexually assaulted her on the set of his Blurred Lines video.
In an excerpt published by The Sunday Times, she wrote about the moment the singer grabbed her bare breasts.
'Suddenly, out of nowhere, I felt the coolness and foreignness of a stranger's hands cupping my bare breasts from behind,' she wrote. 'I instinctively moved away, looking back at Robin Thicke.
In an excerpt from her upcoming book My Body, Emily , 30, alleges that Tobin Thicke, 44, groped her bare breasts while they were filming the music video for his controversial hit
In her book, the supermodel claims the R&B star was a 'little drunk' when he sexually assaulted her on set
'He smiled a goofy grin and stumbled backward, his eyes concealed behind his sunglasses. My head turned to the darkness beyond the set. [The director, Diane Martel's] voice cracked as she yelled out to me, "Are you okay?"'
She said she felt 'the heat of humiliation pump through' her body after the alleged fondling and suddenly 'felt naked for the first time that day.'
Martel confirmed the account.
'I screamed in my very aggressive Brooklyn voice, "What the f— are you doing, that's it!! The shoot is over!!"' she said. 'Robin sheepishly apologized. As if he knew it was wrong without understanding how it might have felt for Emily.'
Emily has since told People that she kept quiet about the incident for so many years because it happened when she was an 'unknown model' and it would have hurt her reputation and career.
'I was an unknown model and if I had spoken out or complained, I would not be where I am today, I would not be famous,' she told the publication.
She added that her decision to speak out about Thicke's behavior came as a result of her personal 'evolution,' saying: 'I wrote a book about the evolution of my politics and that includes a lot of different experiences from my career and my life and the way that I felt and thought about those experiences have evolved.
'I hope people are able to read the essay and understand the nuance behind these kinds of situations.'
MAIL ON LINE
No comments:
Post a Comment