Related Chat: Love Life and Let Go of Regrets
Monday, July 7 @ 10pm Eastern

“I learned the truth at 17, that love was meant for beauty queens…�?played from our car radio in 1975. As a scrawny 12-year-old, I believed that if I was beautiful, my life would be perfect.

Fast forward four years �?at 16, I was chosen from more than 200 girls to go to Paris and become a fashion model. My agent told me, “Your rail-thin body, shiny blond hair and sky blue eyes will be your passport to success.�?TEEN Magazine wrote an article about my life, “Model Success Story �?It’s like something that happens in the movies!�?BR>
My glamorous, exciting life was filled with dancing, drinking, dating and parties. Life was a thrill a minute. It never occurred to me that my excessive eating and drinking could affect how I looked. At the modeling agency I was told, “You look puffy and tired!�?BR>
One morning I went to a photo shoot. The hairstylist painstakingly arranged my hair in an elegant up-sweep. I put on a gown that the dresser had waiting for me. The assistants set the lighting and I got into place. The photographer scrutinized me up and down, and said, “No. No good. You can go home.�?The first taste of rejection as a model was devastating �?I felt as if I had been punched in the stomach. On the way home I bought a huge chocolate bar and overindulged.

I wasn't accepted because of my weight

Six months later, I was living on my own, in an apartment in New York. One evening, my mom called, “Your agent, Valerie, phoned us and said you’ve gained a lot of weight and that you’re fat. Tonya, are you fat?

“Yes,�?I cried. “And I look horrible.�?BR>
At 16 years old �?I had a whopping 120 pounds on my 5 foot 7 ½ inch frame. That was 10 more pounds than I weighed in the fabulous pictures that filled my modeling portfolio. The traitorous pounds that made my face look puffy were keeping me from my dream of becoming a supermodel.

When I stood on the scale it was torture. By any normal person’s standards, I would have been considered thin, but not by the fashion industry’s standards and certainly NOT by my New York agent Eileen Ford’s. One day, after a week-long fast, I walked into the agency and said, “Eileen, look, I’ve lost weight.�?I was 118 pounds. She looked me over and bluntly said, “You’re still fat �?lose five more pounds.�?BR>
My eating was out of hand. The more I tried to lose weight, the more I ate. I bought Haagen Dazs ice cream and consoled myself with it. I would eat a whole box of Frosted Flakes and a gallon of ice cream followed by a handful of laxatives. I sat with my head over the toilet trying to make myself vomit. I took diet pills to help me lose weight and speed up my system, and diuretics to rid myself of unwanted water. I wanted to look perfect, but my eating was out of control and so was my life. I could only be as happy as I was thin.

I was consumed with the way I looked and I was obsessed with food. When I scrutinized my appearance, it was like looking in a fun house mirror. My view was distorted �?what was real was not what I saw. When I looked in the mirror I no longer saw a resemblance to Cheryl Ladd, but to Miss Piggy. Somewhere along the way, I had lost sight of what was true. My value, both to my agents and myself, was measured by the way I looked and since I could not look perfect, I felt worthless.