Kate Moss - All about her latest Interview
Kate Moss: I can tell a wrong 'un a mile away
Kate Moss has revealed how a photo-shoot as a teenager opened her eyes to the dangers of the fashion industry.
She told BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs programmer how she found herself with a man who wanted to photograph her for a bra catalogue.
Moss said she was aged just 15 at the time and he told her to take her bra off.
She said the experience had "sharpened her instinct" and that as a result she could "tell a wrong 'un a mile away".
"I was only 15 probably and he said: 'Take your top off'," she said.
"I took my top off, and I was really shy then about my body, and he said "take your bra off" and I could feel there was something wrong so I got my stuff and I ran away."
Spotted by a talent scout at the age of 14, Moss was signed by Storm modeling agency in 1988.
The 48-year-old told presenter Lauren Laverne how she would go to castings in London on her own, armed with just an A to Z street guide.
Moss went on to become one of fashion's most famous faces, and remains in demand with designers and magazine editors around the world.
In 1992, she shot her first major advertising campaign for Calvin Klein with actor Mark Wahlberg, known as Marky Mark at the time.
But Moss said the underwear shoot did not bring back good memories.
Topless for the photographs, the model said she felt objectified and "vulnerable and scared".
She said she suffered from severe anxiety before the shoot and was prescribed Valium to help her get through the experience.
Now an agent herself, her daughter Lila Moss is on her books, and the icon said she has been able to give her some advice about the fashion industry.
"I've said to her you don't have to do anything you don't want to do," she said.
"If you don't want to do this shoot, if you don't feel comfortable, if you don't want to model, don't do it."
She explained that she takes care of her models and ensures an agent is always with them at a shoot so there is someone there to say "I don't think that's appropriate".
Moss also opened up about standing by friend John Galliano, the designer who was found guilty of racist abuse in 2011, and her former partner actor Johnny Depp during his recent libel trial in the US.
She explained: "I believe in the truth and I believe in fairness and justice.
"I know that John Galliano is not a bad person - he had an alcohol problem and people turn. People aren't themselves when they drink and they say things that they would never say when they were sober".
She continued: "I know the truth about Johnny. I know he never kicked me down the stairs. I had to say that truth."
Moss for a while was perhaps most well-known for controversial fashion photos taken by Corinne Day for British Vogue in 1993.
Day's images of Moss posing suggestively were criticized and prompted a media debate about so-called "heroin chic".
Moss said: "I think I was a scapegoat for a lot of people's problems. I was never anorexic, I never have been.
"I had never taken heroin. I was thin because I didn't get fed at shoots or in shows and I'd always been thin."
Kate also talked about not believing she was photogenic when she was younger, sitting for a portrait by artist Lucian Freud and the quiet life she leads in the Cotswold’s.
Kate Moss ‘sick and angry’ at being made a scapegoat for taking cocaine
The British supermodel talks candidly on BBC radio’s Desert Island Discs about her drug use, defending Johnny Depp and being ‘objectified and scared’
Kate Moss, one of the world’s most famous models, has spoken of her anger at the condemnation she received after publication of photographs of her taking cocaine in 2005. She took the blame, she believes, for the widespread acceptability of drug-taking in her circle.
“I felt sick and was quite angry,” the British supermodel revealed on Sunday in a rare radio interview, “because everybody I knew took drugs. So for them to focus on me, and to try to take my daughter away, I thought was really hypocritical.”
Although Moss was not charged for the offence, and she kept her daughter, Lila, she lost lucrative contracts with several top brands and later said “sorry” formally in a public statement. “I had to apologies really, if people were looking up to me,” she told Lauren Laverne, host of BBC Radio 4’s long-running Desert Island Discs programmer.
For 30 years, Moss, 48, has represented the summit of British cool. But the woman whose motto “never complain, never explain” was borrowed from her former boyfriend, Johnny Depp, used the interview to speak out about the anxiety that crippled her teenage modeling years and of the abuse and mistreatment she suffered in the industry.
Moss also explained her decision to speak up for Depp in his recent American libel case against his ex-wife, Amber Heard, and talks about defending her old friend, the British fashion designer John Galliano, who was found guilty of racist abuse in 2011.
“I believe in the truth and I believe in fairness and justice,” she said. Her appearance at Depp’s trial was prompted by a wish to set the record straight. “I know the truth about Johnny,” Moss said. “I know he never kicked me down the stairs. I had to say that truth.”
The urge to stand by Galliano came from her belief that he is “not a bad person – he had an alcohol problem and people turn.”
“People aren’t themselves when they drink,” suggested Moss, “and they say things that they would never say when they were sober.”
At 14 years old, Moss was approached on an aero plane journey by the owner of the Storm modeling agency, but she didn’t imagine herself as a model. “I thought it was vain,” Moss said.
The start of her career in 1988 was traumatic and “a hard slog”, she recalled. She had to travel across cities alone for photographing castings. At 15, she had the “horrible experience” of being asked to take off her top for a bra catalogue shoot. “I was really shy then about my body, and I could feel there was something wrong, so I got my stuff and I ran away.”
She says the experience “sharpened her instincts” – “I can tell a wrong ’un a mile away.”
Her 16-year-old face was suddenly in international demand after a photographic session for The Face magazine on Camber Sands in Sussex with her photographer friend, the late Corinne Day.
Moss admits crying “a lot” about being naked. “She [Day] would say, ‘If you don’t take your top off, I am not going to book you for Elle. It is painful. I loved her, she was my best friend, but she was a tricky person. But the pictures are amazing, so she got what she wanted and I suffered for them, but in the end they did me a world of good really. They changed my career.”
The American designer Calvin Klein chose Moss for a 1992 underwear campaign as a result, but her memories of this job, posing with actor Mark Wahlberg in New York, are “not good”. She took Valium for her anxiety to get out of bed for work.
Topless again, Moss felt “objectified and vulnerable and scared”, she told Laverne, adding: “They played on my vulnerability. Calvin loved that.”
Her friend Day was responsible for the controversial images taken for Vogue magazine a year later, which were decried for promoting “heroin chic”. Pictured in her own flat, the ever-slim Moss was shown in underwear. “I was a scapegoat for a lot of people’s problems,” Moss said. “I was never anorexic. I never have been. I had never taken heroin. I was thin because I didn’t get fed at shoots or in shows and I’d always been thin.”
A quote often attributed to Moss, that “Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels”, was not her own coinage, she said. It came from a note stuck to the fridge door in a flat, designed to dissuade a dieting friend from snacking.
Born in 1974 to a travel agent father, Peter, and “glamorous” mother, Linda, who worked part-time in a bar, Moss said she suspects she was quite lonely. Her looks were not remarked on at home, and her mother was surprised when modeling work came her daughter’s way.
Her unruly “headstrong” teenage behavior worsened, Moss remembers, once her parents split up: “I started smoking spiff and I hung out with older boys,” she says, confessing she was full of sadness. “Yes, I was heartbroken ... it was all a bit dark.”
Moss set up her own modeling agency in 2016, signing up her own daughter early on. “I’ve said to her, ‘You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. If you don’t want to do this shoot, if you don’t feel comfortable, if you don’t want to model, don’t do it.’ I take care of my models. I make sure they’re with agents at shoots so when they’re being taken advantage of, someone is there to say, ‘I don’t think that’s appropriate’.”
Moss has moved her main home to her Cotswold’s country house and reveals she has become obsessed with gardening. Partying, she says, is “boring to me now”, adding, “I’m not into being out of control anymore.”
Kate Moss recalls ‘running away’ after being asked to remove her bra aged 15 before ‘painful’ modelling experiences
Kate Moss has admitted to feeling ‘objectified’ throughout her modeling career, starting with one experience when she was asked to stand topless in front of a casting agent at the age of 15.
The supermodel was scouted on a flight from New York to London when she was just 14 years old, and soared to prominence when she appeared on the cover of The Face magazine two years later. Despite her young age, Kate went on to join the likes of Naomi Campbell, Claudia Schiffer, Cindy Crawford and Elle MacPherson as one of the golden supermodels of the 1990s.
However, Kate, now 48, has revealed there were many uncomfortable moments during the early days of her career that left her feeling sexualized.
She has recalled one incident where she was asked to meet with a photographer who worked for an underwear catalogue.
‘He said, “Take your top off”, and I took my top off, and I was really shy then about my body,’ the runway icon told Lauren Laverne on BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs.
‘And he said, “Take your bra off”, and I could feel there was something wrong, so I got my stuff and I ran away.’
Despite being shaken by the incident, Kate believed it ‘sharpened’ her instincts and she can now ‘tell a wrong ’un from a mile away’.
Kate’s cover shoot for The Face propelled her career but she didn’t have the easiest experience working with late photographer Corinne Day.
She recalled: ‘I cried a lot. I didn’t want to take my top off. I was really, really self-conscious about my body, and she would say, “If you don’t take your top off I’m not going to book you for Elle”, and I would cry.
‘It was painful because she was my best friend and I really loved her, but she was a very tricky person to work with. But the pictures are amazing: she got what she wanted and I suffered for them, but in the end they did me a world of good. They changed my career.’
Two years later, Kate starred in a Calvin Klein shoot alongside Hollywood superstar Mark Wahlberg, but has now revealed she took Valium before the photoshoot to ease her nerves at going topless.
When asked if she felt objectified, Kate admitted: ‘Completely. And vulnerable and scared. I think they played on my vulnerability. I was young and innocent, and Calvin loved that.’
She added of Mark: ‘He was very macho and it was all about him.’
Kate Moss fled uncomfortable photo-shoot at 15
Kate Moss "ran away" from a modeling job when she was told to take her bra off when she was just 15 years old.
The 48-year-old supermodel was scouted on a flight from New York to London when she was just 14 years old and recalled one of her early experiences in the fashion world, when she was asked to meet with a photographer who worked for an underwear catalogue.
She said: "He said, ‘Take your top off’, and I took my top off, and I was really shy then about my body.
“And he said, ‘Take your bra off’, and I could feel there was something wrong, so I got my stuff and I ran away.”
Despite being shaken by the incident, Kate thinks it "sharpened" her instincts and she can now “tell a wrong ’un from a mile away”.
The fashion icon's career took off when she covered The Face magazine at the age of 16, but she admitted that photo-shoot, by late photographer Corinne Day, was also a "painful" experience.
Speaking to Lauren Laverne on BBC Radio 4's 'Desert Island Discs', she said: “I cried a lot. I didn’t want to take my top off. I was really, really self-conscious about my body, and she would say, ‘If you don’t take your top off I’m not going to book you for Elle’, and I would cry.
“It was painful because she was my best friend and I really loved her, but she was a very tricky person to work with. But the pictures are amazing: she got what she wanted and I suffered for them, but in the end they did me a world of good. They changed my career.”
Kate joined Mark Wahlberg - who was then known as Marky Mark - in a Calvin Klein underwear shoot two years later and she admitted she had taken Valium before the photo-shoot to ease her nerves at going topless because she felt "vulnerable and scared".
Asked if she felt objectified, she said: "Completely. And vulnerable and scared. I think they played on my vulnerability. I was young and innocent, and Calvin loved that."
Of Mark, she added: “He was very macho and it was all about him."
In 2016, Kate set up her own modeling agency and ensures all of her models are accompanied on shoots to prevent any uncomfortable moments, and she's been handing over advice to her 19-year-old daughter Lila, who is following in her footsteps.
She said: “I’ve said to her, you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. If you don’t want to do this shoot, if you don’t feel comfortable, if you don’t want to model, don’t do it."
Kate Moss exposes her traumatic modeling experiences as she aims to protect her daughter
KATE MOSS says her traumatic experiences as a young model, when photographers told her to go topless, inspired her to set up her own agency to protect her daughter. The supermodel, 48, also revealed she once faced the prospect of Lila, 19, being taken away from her, after pictures emerged of her allegedly snorting cocaine
Now the London-born star, who rarely gives interviews, says she has swapped her life of hard partying for garden centers, going to bed early and meditation. She even considers partying “boring” and is not keen on being “out of control” any more. Her chat on Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs, broadcast at 11am today, is her most revealing interview to date.
Asked about why she recently gave evidence in court for her ex-boyfriend Johnny Depp in his legal battle with Amber Heard, she said: “I know the truth about Johnny.”
Kate, who grew up in Croydon, admits she was left “heartbroken” aged 13 when her parents split up. She then lived with her mother while her brother went to live with their PanAm travel agent father.
She then started messing about in school, smoking cannabis, hanging around with older boys and going out drinking in Soho.
After being signed by the Storm modeling agency in 1988, she would go on her own to castings in London, armed with an A to Z. But on one occasion, the teenager found herself with a man who wanted her to take a step she was not prepared for.
She recalled: “I had a horrible experience for a bra catalogue."
“I was only 15 probably, and he said ‘Take your top off’ and I took my top off and I was really shy then about my body."
“And he said ‘Take your bra off’ and I could feel there was something wrong so I got my stuff and I ran away."
“I think it sharpened my instincts – I can tell a wrong ’un a mile away.”
In 2016 she founded Kate Moss Agency (KMA) with clients including daughter Lila, Rita Ora, Jordan Barrett and Esmé Creed-Miles.
“I’ve said to [Lila] you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do,” she said.
“If you don’t want to do this shoot, if you don’t feel comfortable, if you don’t want to model, don’t do it. I take care of my models.”
Kate said she “cried a lot about being naked” when her friend and photographer, the late Corinne Day, took topless pictures of her aged 16 for Face magazine. But this led to her first major advertising campaign for the underwear designer Calvin Klein in 1992.
The shoot was with actor and rapper Mark Wahlberg, known as Marky Mark. She said: “He was very macho and it was all about him. He had a big entourage.”
Being topless she felt objectified and “scared”, adding: “I think they played on my vulnerability, I was quite young and innocent.”
She suffered from severe anxiety before the shoot and was prescribed Valium to help her get through it.
Now far more self-assured, Kate said her lifestyle has changed dramatically since she left London for the Cotswold’s: “Oh my God, I’m obsessed with gardening."
“I have membership to the garden center, I go there with my mum and we have the best time.”
Talking about wild partying, she said: “It’s boring to me. I mean, I love a dance but I am not really into being out of control any more…
“I like to get to bed, I like to get up early and do my meditations before anybody is up and I like to be in control.”
Asked about the difficult period after she was dropped by H&M when pictures emerged of her allegedly taking cocaine in 2005, Kate said: “I felt sick and was quite angry because everybody I knew took drugs."
"So for them to focus on me and try to take my daughter away, I thought really hypocritical. I mean, I had to apologies really. If people were looking up to me, I had to apologies.”
She also talked about standing by her friend, the designer John Galliano, who was found guilty of racist abuse in 2011, and Johnny Depp, who was accused of abuse by his ex-wife.
She said: “I believe in the truth and I believe in fairness and justice. I know that John Galliano is not a bad person – he had an alcohol problem and people turn. People aren’t themselves when they drink and they say things that they would never say when they were sober.”
She added: “I know the truth about Johnny. I know he never kicked me down the stairs. I had to say that truth.” And she defended the controversial Vogue magazine photographs, shot by Day in Kate’s flat in the early 1990s – which critics claimed glamourized “heroin chic.”
Kate said: “I was never anorexic, I never have been. I had never taken heroin.
“I was thin because I didn’t get fed at shoots or in shows and I’d always been thin."
“It was a fashion shoot, it was shot at my flat and you know that’s how I could afford to live at the time."
“It was a shock because I was not voluptuous, I was just a normal girl.”
Kate Moss says she was asked to go topless during a shoot aged 15
Kate Moss has recalled being the target of misconduct during a shoot aged about 15.
The British model, now 48, said during an appearance on Desert Island Discs that she had “run away” from a photography session for a bra catalogue after a man asked her to be topless.
Moss signed to Storm modeling agency in 1988 and told the BBC Radio 4 programme she would go on her own to castings across London, armed with an A to Z book.
Recounting the incident, she said: “I had a horrible experience for a bra catalogue. I was only 15 probably and he said ‘Take your top off’ and I took my top off. And I was really shy then about my body.
“And he said ‘Take your bra off’ and I could feel there was something wrong so I got my stuff and I ran away.
“I think it sharpened my instincts. I can tell a wrong ‘un a mile away.”
Moss also spoke about the 1990 shoot that made her famous, but admitted revisiting the memory was “painful”.
The late photographer Corinne Day, who Moss often worked with, shot a series of photographs of her for The Face magazine on the beach at Camber Sands, East Sussex, when she was 16.
Moss said: “That scrunched up nose that is on the cover, she would say, ‘Snort like a pig’ to get that picture.
“And I would be like, ‘I don’t want to snort like a pig’ and she would be like, ‘Snort like a pig, that’s when it looks good’.”
Moss recalled how she had “cried a lot” during the shoot because she did not feel comfortable being “naked”.
She said: “I didn’t want to take my top off. I was really, really self-conscious about my body and she would say, ‘If you don’t take your top off I am not going to book you for Elle’ and I would cry.
“It is quite difficult (to take myself back there). It is painful because she was my best friend and I really loved her – but she was a very tricky person to work with.
“But you know, the pictures are amazing so she got what she wanted and I suffered for them, but in the end they did me a world of good really. They did change my career.”
Moss also recalled shooting an underwear campaign for Calvin Klein in 1992 with the actor Mark Wahlberg, who was then known as Marky Mark.
It was her first major advertising campaign but Moss recalled taking Valium to ease her anxiety before the shoot and feeling “vulnerable and scared” when she was required to be topless during it.
Moss said she had passed lessons about the modeling industry on to her 19-year-old daughter Lila, who she manages through her agency.
“I have said to her you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do,” she said.
“If you don’t want to do this shoot, if you don’t feel comfortable, if you don’t want to model, don’t do it.
“I take care of my models. I make sure they are with agents at shoots so when they are being taken advantage of, there is someone there to say ‘I don’t think that’s appropriate’.
“I don’t know if that’s across the board but that’s what I can do.”
Desert Island Discs will be on Radio 4 at 11.15am on Sunday and on BBC Sounds.
Kate Moss details horrors of fashion industry and how she was asked to go topless at 15
'I was only 15 probably'
Supermodel Kate Moss has detailed how she was asked to go topless for a photo-shoot at 15 while also speaking to wider issues in the fashion community.
After signing with Storm Modeling Agency in 1998, Moss steadily became the face of British fashion, scoring contracts with everyone from Levi's to Chanel, H&M to Burberry. But the Croydon-born model developed a "sharpened" instinct after grappling with a photographer's demand to shoot topless.
"I was only 15 probably and he said: 'Take your top off'," the 48-year-old told BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs programme. "I took my top off, and I was really shy then about my body, and he said 'take your bra off' and I could feel there was something wrong so I got my stuff and I ran away."
In 1992, Moss shot her first major advertising campaign for Calvin Klein alongside emerging actor Mark Wahlberg. The images are still referenced today, and Wahlberg would build off that immediate sex appeal for decades to come.
While the photo-shoot is iconic, the reality for Moss was far from magical. She was prescribed Valium before the shoot to help with her nerves and told the BBC that the topless images made her feel "vulnerable and scared."
Such experiences have given Moss a sixth sense of sorts, able to identify the "wrong 'uns" a mile away.
Moss now runs a modeling agency herself, with her own daughter Lila, 19, on her books. Lila's father is Jefferson Hack, the Creative Director and co-founder of Dazed Media.
"I've said to her you don't have to do anything you don't want to do," she said. "If you don't want to do this shoot, if you don't feel comfortable, if you don't want to model, don't do it."
Moss also referenced her testimony at Johnny Depp's million-dollar defamation trial against ex-wife Amber Heard, 36. The 58-year-old Dark Shadows actor was suing his ex-partner over an op-ed she wrote for the Washington Post that insinuated he was a domestic abuser. Depp was ultimately victorious and was awarded damages of $10.4m
Moss' testimony came fairly late in the trial and took many by surprise.
"I know the truth about Johnny. I know he never kicked me down the stairs. I had to say that truth," she told the BBC.
