British supermodel Kate Moss was discovered in 1988 at just 14 years old after she and her family were returning home from a family vacation in the Bahamas. The owner of the Storm modeling agency saw the young beauty during a layover at JFK International Airport and recruited her for a career in the fashion industry.
According to the one-time face of Gucci, a year later, she found herself posing with her breasts exposed for a magazine.
“At a very young age, I started working, and I started doing pictures topless. And I was very, very conscious of a mole I have on my right tit. I hated it so much, I would cry,” she said during an appearance on the Fashion Neurosis with Bella Freud podcast that premiered on Nov. 13.
The 50-year-old dished on posing for the Face magazine when she was only 15 years old and the negative effect it had on her.
“I never wanted to be topless; I would cry. And I had to get over it because the photographer was like, ‘If you don’t do this, I’m not gonna book you for the next job,’” she shared. “So, I had to get over it,” Moss shared on the podcast.
The photographer in question was Corinne Day, whom Moss helped make a name for herself with the “heroin chic” fashion aesthetic of the 1990s, a move in fashion that also made the Croydon native famous and eventually Moss’ best friend.
Moss quickly learned that the culture of fashion left little room for a teen’s insecurity and forced her to just suck up any feelings of un-comfortability to fit into the competitive scene. There was always some other pretty girl waiting to take her place.
“As a model, you can’t be very self-conscious because your body’s kind of not your own when you’re a vessel for somebody else’s imagination,” Moss explained.
Moss said that she was able to exercise a small level of control during the photo shoot, saying she asked her male hairdresser to “turn around” and not look at her because she was still really “shy,” despite the team being “like family” and the fact that she had “worked with them … many times” before.
“I’d make Drew [Jarrett] turn around ’cause he was straight, and I was like, ‘I’m not having him look at me,’” she said.
Though the team attempted to make her comfortable, she still felt unhappy after work was done. It as something that the teen didn’t want to do.
“But still, even after that shoot, I did cry a lot about taking my clothes off,” she said. “I really didn’t wanna do it.”
Moss would go on to have an extraordinary career as a model, but this would not be the last time that she would have issues with posing in shoots in ways that did not suit her.
In 1992, at the age of 18, she worked with Mark Wahlberg in a Calvin Klein underwear ad, when he was still performing as Marky Mark.
In a 2022 interview with BBC Radio 4, Moss said she felt that she was being exploited. When asked about if she felt “objectified,” she said, “Yeah, completely. And vulnerable and scared. … I think they played on my vulnerability.”
Readers in the Daily Mail comment cection weighed in, with some blaming her mother and father and blasting Day.
One comment read, “So her friend manufactured child pornography?”
“Her parents have a fair bit to answer for, this is where a strong parent will protect their child and not allow them to be posing topless at 15 etc, same with Brooke Shields in Blue Lagoon the parent,” another person wrote.
The entertainment industry in the 70s, 80s, and 90s played on the vulnerability of young girls and their desire to be in the business.
In 1978, actress Brooke Shields appeared in the movie that launched her career, “Pretty Baby,” a film where she played a 12-year-old child prostitute.
In the movie, she had nude scenes that many now say were inappropriate. IMDb has a parents’ guide with the movie on its site that says, “The main character is not only a minor in the movie but also in real life, and yet she is seen fully naked at multiple points, private parts, behind and chest all exposed in some scenes. She also has lots of implied sex with far older men and real onscreen kisses and touching with them.”
In her two-part documentary, released in 2023 on Hulu, she confessed she was not only objectified as a young person but that she was sexually assaulted in her early 20s by an industry executive. She did not share his name but noted he was powerful.
“It’s taken me a long time to process it,” Shields said in a People interview around the time of its release. “I’m more angry now than I was able to be then. If you’re afraid, you’re rightfully so.”
Moss did not state that she was ever assaulted but that being a minor and being required to disrobe several times made her feel small. Now in her 50s, she is in more control of her life and doesn’t do things that compromise her values.
When talking about the experience, she shared that she was still in school. The saving grace was that that particular magazine “wasn’t really sold” in the city where she grew up.
“I was 15, and I was topless in a magazine, and I was still at school… Luckily, the Face wasn’t really sold in Croydon, she said.
Despite that, some kids found it and shared it with her younger brother, Nick Moss. According to the supermodel, other children teased him because she posed topless for the magazine.
She said in the interview, “They took the piss out of my brother. He probably suffered more than I did about it.”