Perfect Is Boring Read online

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  Copyright © 2018 by The Tyra Banks Company Books LLC

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  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  Names: Banks, Tyra, author. | London, Carolyn, author.

  Title: Perfect is boring : 10 things my crazy, fierce mama taught me about beauty, booty, and being a boss / Tyra Banks and Carolyn London.

  Description: New York : TarcherPerigee, [2018]

  Identifiers: LCCN 2017057372 (print) | LCCN 2017059180 (ebook) | ISBN 9780525504290 | ISBN 9780143132301

  Subjects: LCSH: Banks, Tyra. | London, Carolyn. | Models (Persons)—United States—Biography. | Self-esteem. | Self-realization. | Success.

  Classification: LCC HD8039.M772 (ebook) | LCC HD8039.M772 U5356 2018 (print) | DDC 650.1—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017057372

  Some names and identifying characteristics have been changed to protect the privacy of the individuals involved.

  Penguin is committed to publishing works of quality and integrity. In that spirit, we are proud to offer this book to our readers; however, the story, the experiences, and the words are the authors’ alone.

  Cover design: Jess Morphew

  Cover photograph: Matthew Jordan Smith

  Version_1

  CONTENTS

  TITLE PAGE

  COPYRIGHT

  1. INTRODUCTION: PERFECT IS BORING

  2. TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOURSELF

  3. LIP GLOSS + PIZZA SAUCE = BOSS

  4. AIN’T NO PARTY LIKE A PERIOD PARTY

  5. 8 WORDS TO WATCH OUT FOR

  6. WE’RE ALL ROOTING FOR YOU!

  7. EMBRACE YOUR BEAUTY

  8. FIX IT OR FLAUNT IT

  9. EMBRACE YOUR BOOTY

  10. LEARN SOMETHING FROM THIS!

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  PHOTO CREDITS

  ABOUT THE AUTHORS

  1

  INTRODUCTION: PERFECT IS BORING

  This photo pretty much sums up our whole dynamic: I’m crazy, but my mama is crazier.

  Tyra: Hi, my name is Tyra Banks, and you might remember me from that time I yelled at a girl on TV.

  Yeah, you remember that time.

  If I was a singer, “Be Quiet, Tiffany” would be my top-of-the-charts number-one-hit-single bat mitzvah dance floor filler that you and your gay best friend cue up every time you go sing karaoke, and you got the GIF saved on your phone, just so it’s ready to go the next time someone starts telling you something you don’t want to hear.

  And you know what? I’m not mad at that, because that moment that’s all over the Internet is really just me embodying someone I love so damn much: my mother.

  ’Cause I ain’t crazy, but my mama sure is.

  Carolyn: Ty, now when you say “crazy,” you mean it in that good way, right? Shoot, girl. I ain’t even gonna ask, ’cause I know you do!

  Tyra: Well, let me see—do I? When I say that my mama is crazy, what I mean is . . .

  Crazy in a letting-your-grandbabies-pull-your-wig-off-and-let-them-wear-it-to-brunch way.

  Crazy in an eating-spilled-chili-off-the-dusty-kitchen-floor-cuz-that’s-her-famous-recipe-and-it-ain’t-gonna-go-to-waste way.

  Crazy in an always-got-your-back-even-when-everyone-else-says-you’re-down-and-out kinda way.

  Crazy in a using-her-juicy-belly-bloops-as-a-musical-instrument way.

  Crazy in that tough-love-that-gets-the-point-across-for-real way.

  Crazy in a talking-’bout-secretions-on-Amtrak kinda way.

  Crazy in a beautiful, talented, loving, and supportive kinda way.

  So . . . yes.

  You’re right, Mama. When I say “crazy,” I mean amazing, awesome, incredible, mind-blowing, stupendous.

  For me, crazy is good. Crazy is the opposite of boring.

  Carolyn: I like that. I ain’t been boring a day in my life, so if you wanna call me crazy, I’ll take it!

  Tyra: I think we can all agree—me and yeah . . . you reading this book right now and Mama—that “Be quiet, Tiffany!” was my craziest moment (it’s always number one on any Internet list of “29 Reasons Why TyTy Is One Color Short of a Rainbow” or something like that). It was also the time that all the Mama in me came spewing out, like one of those baking-soda-and-vinegar volcanoes you made for your elementary school science fair (and with my red hair, I kinda looked like a volcano).

  So let us just break down all the wig-shaking, finger-pointing, mouth-flapping insanity that spawned a million memes.

  Tiffany was a girl on cycle 3 of America’s Next Top Model. She was so beautiful and talented, with a rags-to-riches story. She didn’t make it to the final cast of that cycle, but she had something special about her so we invited her back for a cycle 4 audition and, bam, she made it. On cycle 4, her photos were getting better and better. She was someone who had already been through so much, and I could see where she was going. We invested in her, and she invested in herself. I thought she was going to be the winner. Scratch that—I knew she was gonna be the winner.

  Carolyn: Tyra had been raving about Tiffany every time I talked to her. She said that when she saw Tiffany model, she felt like she was looking at the winner of the show. She had never said that—ever.

  I was never someone who put tons of emphasis on physical beauty. For me, inner beauty is much more important, and I passed that on to Tyra. So, when she looked at the girls on Top Model, she was looking at the whole girl—not just their posing or their runway walks. How they laughed, how they smiled, how they treated other people, how they lit up a room, or their quest, their fire, their journey.

  Tyra connected to Tiffany’s spirit and her potential. Tiffany was pure heart and soul, and Tyra was set on making sure that beauty rose to where she deserved to be.

  Tyra: That cycle, we had created a judging room challenge that had the models doing mock live TV commentating and reading really difficult words off a teleprompter—things in French, difficult designer names, tough technical terms for patterns and stitches. The point wasn’t to see who knew how to pronounce the words perfectly, but who could butcher the heck out of them without losing her cool. We knew that no one—no one—was going to get those cray-cray words right. Everyone tried their hardest and everyone messed up, but when Tiffany messed up, we felt like she acted like she personally had been set up to fail. That all the other girls were perfect and she, well, wasn’t. Like it was her fate to lose, entirely out of her control.

  Something inside me just couldn’t take that. I was looking at this beautiful black butterfly who had finally exited her cocoon, and she was pretty much saying that she wasn’t good enough to really spread her wings. There have been countless times in my career when I heard that I couldn’t do something because I was black, and that only made me want to go out there and prove everyone wrong. Now, to have a girl who had already overcome so much standing in front of me talking about how she couldn’t do things because circumstance and fate were in
her way, well . . . You saw what happened. (And you might want to turn down the volume, ’cause it’s about to get loud.)

  BE QUIET, TIFFANY—BE QUIET! WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU? STOP IT!

  I HAVE NEVER IN MY LIFE YELLED AT A GIRL LIKE THIS. WHEN MY MOTHER YELLS LIKE THIS, IT’S BECAUSE SHE LOVES ME.

  I WAS ROOTING FOR YOU; WE WERE ALL ROOTING FOR YOU. HOW DARE YOU? LEARN SOMETHING FROM THIS.

  WHEN YOU GO TO BED AT NIGHT, YOU LAY THERE AND YOU TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOURSELF, ’CAUSE NOBODY’S GONNA TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOU.

  YOU ROLLIN’ YOUR EYES AND YOU ACTING LIKE THIS BECAUSE YOU’VE HEARD IT ALL BEFORE. YOU’VE HEARD IT ALL BEFORE—YOU DON’T KNOW WHERE THE HELL I COME FROM; YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT I’VE BEEN THROUGH.

  BUT I’M NOT A VICTIM; I GROW FROM IT, AND I LEARN.

  TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOURSELF.

  (I typed that in caps ’cause yeah, I was yellin’ like a banshee when I said it.)

  I’d been in this banshee situation before, but on the other side. I got one of those real, raw, no-holding-back “Be quiet, Tiffany” diatribes from my mama at least twice a year. Or maybe three times a year. Wait, who am I kidding? It’s probably more like four. To this day, whenever she gets tired of hearing me doubt myself, or when she thinks I’m about to give up because something turns out to be a little harder than I expected, she grabs me by the shoulders, shakes me, and screams, “BE QUIET, TYRA!”

  Mama was never about just breaking me down. It was always—and still is—about building me up. In that two-minute televised Tyrade, I dropped several truth bombs on Tiffany that were filled with the very lessons that Mama had tried so hard to teach me. Mama always told me that I was beautiful no matter what and that I was worthy no matter what, and that’s the message I want to pass on to women and men everywhere. It ain’t about me. It’s about us. I don’t want you getting in your own way as you strive to reach your big, fat, sexy, juicy goals.

  Carolyn: I wasn’t there on set that day, but Tyra came to my house as soon as production wrapped. I could tell something was up, because she was quieter than usual when she walked in the door.

  “Mama, something happened on set today, and . . . I don’t know if I should air it.”

  Something about the way she said this made me realize that she wasn’t talking about the standard-issue drama that went down on Top Model—someone being super rude at a go-see, a girl writing words on her booty cheeks, or a model cheating on her boyfriend in Milan and crying under a table while getting cursed out by her irate boyfriend back home.

  “Ty, what happened?” I asked. “What did you do?”

  “I’m just gonna let you watch the tape,” she said.

  Then she played me the uncut version, and the hair stood up on the back of my neck.

  Tyra: When I walked off set that day, my heart was pounding and I had to catch my breath. I knew I had done the right thing (or had I?), but still, there was a part of me that was surprised as hell.

  What the eff was that?

  I could feel the eyes as I walked back to my trailer. Not on me, but on the ground, as no one on my crew wanted to make eye contact or talk to me. “Tyra has lost her goddamned mind,” they were probably all thinking. Probably? Shoot. I’m sure they were sure I needed meds stat.

  Had I truly flipped the switch? No one could believe what had just happened. Not even Mama.

  Least of all me.

  Carolyn: What Tyra showed me was bone-chilling.

  Nobody ever believed that Tyra was my daughter. From the time she was born, people asked me if she was adopted—she had this pale skin, these gray eyes, and this sandy reddish hair. Plus, when she grew up, she was almost six feet tall and built like a gazelle with big boobies. I was a human, and my daughter was some alien Amazonian being from that race of people we call “supermodels.”

  But when I saw that tape of her yelling at Tiffany, it was like I was watching myself.

  It was me up there talking to Tiffany.

  Everyone’s always teased me about how I look when I get upset. My eyes turn into little slits and I talk through my teeth and I point. My. Finger. With. Every. Word. ’Cause I’m tryna drill my message into your brain.

  And that’s exactly what Tyra was doing.

  And everything that was coming out of her mouth was a version of something I’d once said to her.

  The apple doesn’t fall far from the I-look-crazy-right-now-but-I-swear-I’m-not-I-just-believe-in-you tree.

  Tyra: At first, I wasn’t sure we should air it. I mean, yes, I have gone far on TV. I’ve worn a prosthetic suit to expose the harsh judgment of obese people, dressed as a man to show how people responded to rap posses, posed as homeless, and pretended to be a stripper to find out why the heck men are so enthralled with G-strings and pasties in public places, but all of those big moments were produced.

  This wasn’t.

  It was unplanned.

  It was raw and real.

  It was emotional. Maybe even too much, because it made people uncomfortable.

  It was one of the few times in my life that I had lost control, when I cracked and everything came spilling out. People pressure celebrities to be perfect, but this was one of my most flawed moments.

  Did I want to put it out there for all the world to see?

  * * *

  • • •

  I’VE ALWAYS TOLD MY Top Model girls that perfect is boring. I got that from my mama (and Eve even said it to Lindsay Lohan’s character, Casey, in the cult movie that I starred in, Life-Size). But of course, when I said it, I wasn’t just talking about looks. I was talking about life.

  The only way to live a perfect life is to not take risks, to just sit in a little box and never go after what you want or reach for your goals (because, God forbid, ya could try and ya could fail, and that sho’ ain’t perfect). When you care a lot about someone or something, you’re more likely to do imperfect things. Ya know, like freak out and yell.

  So, what was I gonna do?

  Try to sweep the imperfections under my Kool-Aid-colored red wig, or air it out, even if it got a little messy?

  Well, Mama always taught me not to be afraid of messy.

  Even if it was a hot mess.

  Carolyn: I thought people needed to see this side of Tyra. It showed that she was an emotional human being, and a human being who cared. Sometimes too much.

  “I don’t know, Ty. I’m thinkin’ you need to put this out there,” I said. “People need to see that you’re not some impeccable lil model chick that produces some TV. You are really real. For real.”

  Tyra: So on the air it went, and the whole world saw the crazy me, the mama bear side of me. I’ve been misinterpreted a million times when talking about this, but I don’t regret airing it. Top Model is not just some reality show I do on the side to make some money—it’s a platform for me to change lives and the perception of beauty, and this moment just showed how much I care.

  I am who I am today because my mama mama’d me (yes, mama’d is an official word, as of now) like nothing you’ve ever seen before. She was a G. She managed the early parts of my modeling career and sacrificed a lot (no, actually, all) of her own dreams so that I could make mine come true. Every accolade I get, every accomplishment I’ve achieved, all my iconic moments and catchy coined phrases (Smize, boo!) are because of her. I am her creation. Her FrankenTy.

  Carolyn: My daughter, Tyra, yeah, the supermodel and business mogul (gosh, that sounds awkward to say because, really, she’s just my baby girl), is here today and not ummm . . . shall I say, crazy, because of how I parented her. Yeah, she might make up her own words (Ty, I’m your mama, and “pot ledom” still confuses the hell outta me), have some questionable taste in men (child, that “successful” actor didn’t have a phone or a car), and Lord, does that girl have gas (she’ll clear a room and try to blame it on somebody else). But I’m
still gonna go ahead and give myself that pat on the back because her accomplishments and spirit—they are honest and pure. Tyra has a good heart, so I guess I must have done something right, right?

  Tyra: I decided to write this book with my mama because my story is bananas but even more bananas when people can see that my whole journey is wrapped up in her crazy story, and her crazy story is my crazy story. When my parents got divorced, she moved into a one-bedroom apartment with six-year-old me and my twelve-year-old brother. Within a year, she got us into a two-bedroom. A year after that, we moved into a three. She was a junior-college dropout who got promoted at every job she ever had and held her own in boardrooms with MBAs and CEOs. The only thing Mama ever got handed to her on a plate was some bacon, and even then, I probably came along and took it away because I was worried about her diabetes.

  Whether you’re a mama or a daughter (or a son or a father—hell, you know we’re inclusive over here), I think there’s something you can take from our story. Maybe it’s how far we’ve come, how hard we’ve fought, or how much we’ve loved, but we hope it inspires you on your own journey.

  Besides, Mama and I had to do this together—she’s the one with the elephant memory, so I’d be calling her seventeen times a day anyway. I might remember we were there, but she remembers what we wore (I had on my bro’s air force jacket and a backward baseball cap; she had on her gold hoop earrings and a red cowl-neck sweater), what we ate (barbecue chicken pizza with a basket of gooey garlic bread), and what song was on the radio (Salt-N-Pepa’s “Push It”).

  Mama was younger than me in this photo, and dang—she was bangin’!

  So now I gotta push it real good. I gotta press rewind and go back to the beginning of Mama’s and my story here . . . rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr . . . to when I was born? Nope, a little more . . . rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr . . . (I’m rewinding a tape here—you remember those? Oh right, you probably don’t) . . . rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. OK, now that’s the spot.