Cindy Crawford calls Oprah out for making her feel like 'chattel' during a 1986 interview: 'That was so not OK'
Cindy Crawford reflects on a 1986 interview she did with Oprah in a new docuseries for Apple TV+.
Early in her career, Crawford was asked by Oprah to show off her body during an interview.
The supermodel says she realizes now that the awkward moment "was so not OK."
Cindy Crawford opens up about her early life and career in the new Apple TV+ docuseries "The Super Models" — and reveals that she feels differently about a 1986 appearance on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" than she did at the time.
The clip from the 1986 interview (shown in the first episode of the docuseries) features a then-20-year-old Crawford and John Casablancas, her Elite Model Management representative. After Oprah introduces the supermodel, she says: "Did she always have this body? Stand up just a moment."
Crawford gamely stands up to show off her physique, smiling awkwardly while the audience is silent.
"Now this is what I call a body," Oprah says.
The talk-show host goes on to ask Casablancas if Crawford had to go through a "training period."
"With Cindy, it was much more — psychologically, she was not sure if she really wanted to model," Casablancas answers.
In a new interview for the docuseries, Crawford reflected on the awkward moment, which was the first of several appearances she made on Winfrey's show.
"I was like the chattel or a child, be seen and not heard," the supermodel says. "When you look at it through today's eyes, when Oprah's like, 'Stand up and show me your body. Show us why you're worthy of being here.'"
Crawford continues: "In the moment I didn't recognize it, only when I look back at it am I like, 'Oh my gosh, that was so not OK, really. Especially from Oprah.'"
Representatives for Crawford and Winfrey didn't immediately respond to Insider's requests for comment.
Elsewhere on "The Super Models," Crawford reveals that she would routinely faint during her early career photo shoots in Chicago with the fashion photographer Victor Skrebneski.
"I passed out there more than once. Especially right before lunch, if you were hungry, you would faint. Then they would prop you back up, and you'd do it all over again," Crawford shares.
"It wasn't about, 'Oh wow, you're so pretty, we're gonna take pictures of you,'" she says of the attitudes toward models at that point in her career. "It was like, 'Your job is, you're helping me sell this jacket. We're all here to sell this jacket.'"
Read the original article on Insider
