Kate Moss Opens Up About Feeling ‘Vulnerable’ During Calvin Klein Photoshoot With Mark Wahlberg
Kate Moss has opened up about the struggles she faced during her modelling career, which kicked off when she was signed by Storm modelling agency at just 14, for BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs.
Elsewhere, the fashion icon shares details about her childhood and heartbreak after her parent's divorce to feeling 'vulnerable and scared’ during that Nineties Calvin Klein shoot and angered by public scrutiny. ICYMI: Here are some of the most revelatory quotes from the supermodel's most revealing interview to date...
On taking big risks in her childhood
In response to a question from host Lauren Laverne about her dad having travelled a lot when she was a kid, Moss said: 'I knew there was a big world out there.'
Moss said spending time in her dad's Beetle car and growing fond of American cars while in the US gave her 'motivation to get out of Croydon', her hometown.
The original 90s supermodel also spoke about feeling lonely as a child.
'I always remember saying "Mum can I have someone to come over,"' she recalled.
Prior to modelling, both Moss and her mum didn't think she was 'photogenic'.
When Moss told her mum she’d met with a model agent, she recalls her saying: '"Oh, I don't think you’re very photogenic," and I was like "neither do I"'.
Despite not believing she was 'model material', she remembered thinking: 'Might as well try.'
Moss said her mum only occasionally accompanied her to castings when she was 14.
'My mum came with me one day and then said you're on your own, because it was a hard slog then,' she explained, which she thought was 'fine'.
Speaking of her 'always quite glamorous' and 'fun' mother, Linda, as a parent, the mum-of-one said that she tried to be strict with her.
Moss admitted that she used to sneak out to nightclubs, while her mum would instruct her to be home by midnight (she rebelled on one occasion). 'And she came in her dressing gown and dragged me out. Traumatising,' she said of her mum's reaction.
Moss said that both her mum and dad, Peter, gave her freedom growing up. Recalling her 13th birthday, she said, referring to her dad: 'He was doing the ironing and 'it was carnage downstairs. They let me get on with it.'
Did her parents trust her? No, said Moss. In fact, she believes they simply couldn't control her. 'I was very headstrong,' she said.
Moss struggled with her parents' divorce and even said she was 'heartbroken' by it. Her coping mechanisms were to start smoking spliffs and hanging out with older boys who she said 'took me under their wing and protected me'.
She explained that she would change out of her school uniform into clothes suitable for Fred's bar in soho (Moss even shed details on her drink of choice: a long island iced tea, because she didn't like the taste of alcohol and it was, to her, seemed less potent).
Continuing to open up about her parents' split, she added: 'It was all very dark.'
At the time of her parents' split she stayed with her mother, while her brother Nick went to live with her dad.
Her childhood changed when she was scouted at 14. Of the time, she said: 'I would never ever have said to anybody I want to be model because I just thought that was vain.'
'And I never did. I just thought "Omg, I'm just gonna take a chance."'
On her difficult experiences on a fashion shoots
'I had a horrible experience for a bra catalogue and I was only 15 probably,' Moss began.
She said of the photographer: 'He said take your top off and I took my top off and I was really shy then, about my body.'
'And I could feel there was something wrong so I got my stuff and ran away.'
Still, she added: '[The experience] sharpened my instincts.'
'I can [now] tell a wrongen a mile away.'
Moss went on to discuss her 1992 underwear campaign shoot with Mark Wahlberg for Calvin Klein. 'Not very good memories,' she said.
The now iconic shoot comprised of black-and-white photos that captured her topless next to the Hollywood actor. 'He was very macho, and it was all about him. He had a big entourage. I was just this model,' Moss recalled.
Asked if she felt objectified, she added: 'Yeah completely. And vulnerable and scared.
'I think they played on my vulnerability. I was quite young and innocent, Calvin loved that.'
She 'really didn’t feel well' ahead of the shoot, 'couldn’t get out of bed' for 'a week or two' and had 'severe anxiety'.
On navigating fashion shoots and imposter syndrome
Explaining her approach to handling fashion shoots, Moss said: 'It's just instinct. It's not a plan. I just go with what I feel at the time.'
She added: 'I'm always ready for a new look.'
She continued: 'When I step on set I always feel like it's always my first shoot, and I always find myself on set in front of the camera thinking "what am I going to do, I've forgotten, I don't really know what I'm doing."'
Referring to a shoot as a 'puzzle', she went on to say: 'And then as soon as the camera starts clicking I find myself in character, and once the first picture's done, that's when I feel I know who I am in that story, in that puzzle.
Moss admitted: 'I'm actually really shy in front of the camera.
'I don't like having my picture taken when it's not at work. I don't like having selfies or snapshots. I find it really difficult to be myself in front of the camera so it's much easier to be someone else.'
On negative press coverage
'I was never anorexic. I never have been. I had never taken heroine. I was thin because I didn't get fed at shoots or shows and I'd always been thin.'
Speaking of how she appeared in fashion shoots, she said: 'I think it was a shock because I wasn't voluptuous and I wasn't, I was just a normal girl. I wasn't a glam model.'
Referring to the 2005 photographs that surfaced of her taking cocaine, she said: 'I felt sick and was quite angry because everybody I knew took drugs.
'So for me, for them to focus on me and try and take my daughter away I thought was really hypocritical.'
While no charges were brought against her, she issued a statement to people let down by her behaviour. 'If people were looking up to me, I had to apologise,' she said.
On her advice to daughter Lila Moss
'I've said to her you don’t have to do anything you don’t wanna do,' she recalled telling 19-year-old Lila, whose dad is creative director Jefferson Hack.
'If you don’t wanna do the shoot, if you don’t feel comfortable, if you don’t wanna model, don’t do it.'
On finding party life 'boring' these days
Asked if her hedonistic party lifestyle is behind her, Moss affirmed: 'Yeah, It’s boring to me now. I mean, I love a dance but I’m not really into being out of control anymore.
'I like to get to bed. I like to get up early and do my mediation before anyone’s up and I like to be in control.'
Her current hobby? 'Omg I’m obsessed with gardening. I have got a membership to the garden centre and I go with my mum and we have the best time,' she revealed.
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