It was 1983 and I moved to New York to became a high fashion runway model. I had done my research; I completed a six day course at Hilda Holverstein’s Modeling School, leafed through a Vogue magazine, took some Instamatic head shots, threw-up, watched a fashion documentary on HBO and whipped out of Memphis on a jet plane.
I arrived in Manhattan and was immediately raped by the head of a famous modeling agency. The next day I was on the cover of Cosmo and then twenty-two runway shows for Valentino, Klein, Lauren, Sprouse, Blass, Westwood, Oldham, Halston, Dior, Givenchy, Armani, Versace, YSL, Chanel, Gaultier, Yamamoto, Kawakubo, Miyake, Rykiel, von Furstenberg, Karan, and Johnson, all in that order.
That night I shot smack in the bathroom of Danceteria with Gia Carangi who introduced me to and later slept with Mick Jagger. Lauren Hutton and Barbara Carrera dragged me out of the hotel room the next day and we flew to Kenya for an exotic photo shoot with Peter Beard where I posed with lions devouring gazelles while wearing a white Benetton unitard.
Maud Frizon booked me that night for a photo-spread in Paris Vogue where I was snapped dangling from the Eiffel Tower, climbing the Arc de Triomphe and racing at high speeds in a Bugatti. Grace Jones and I snorted an eight ball and danced on tabletops at a disco/bathhouse.
In the morning, I was late for a haute couture gig with the House of Lanvin where I modeled dresses for CZ Guest and Brooke Astor. After the show I lunched with Claude Montana and we flew his private helicopter to the Alps where Iman and I posed nude in the snow to launch his line of shearling coats for a Mademoiselle spread.
In the morning, I met up with Gerry Hall and Margaux Hemmingway in St. Tropez where we went topless to the beach wearing little crochet jeweled thongs and drank mineral water. We went to the Cannes Film Festival where Margaux introduced me to and later slept with Jack Nicholson. Bursting from the closet, Anjelica Houston flew into an objet d'rage and the ceramic shards were bouncing off the walls. I hopped out a window and into a jet and the next day Paulina Porizkova arrived in New York and was immediately raped and I was replaced. And that was the end of my brief modeling career.
