By Mark Gray
12:12pm PDT, Sep 21, 2023
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An interview Oprah Winfrey conducted nearly 40 years ago isn't aging well. In 1986 — when Cindy Crawford appeared on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" alongside Elite Model Management founder John Casablancas — Oprah marveled at Cindy's appearance, telling the then-20-year-old to "stand up [for] just a moment." After Cindy did, the famed talk show host said, "This is what I call a body." On the Apple TV+ docuseries "The Super Models," Cindy reflected on that appearance and cringed. She feels like she was treated like a "child," she said.
Click through for Cindy's thoughts on that interview and the subtle way Oprah reacted…
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Things were different in 1986, but with time comes wisdom. Thinking about that appearance on "The Oprah Winfrey Show," Cindy Crawford said, "I was like the chattel or a child to be seen and not heard. When you look at it through today's eyes, Oprah's like … 'Show us why you're worthy of being here.'" In the moment, Cindy "didn't recognize" what was happening. She now feels she was being talked down to. "Watching it back, I was like, 'Oh my gosh, that was so not OK really' — especially from Oprah!" she said on the Apple TV+ series.
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Cindy Crawford retired from full-time modeling in 2000. Interestingly, modeling was something she never really considered growing up. When she was younger, she wanted to be a "nuclear physicist or the first woman president."
After posing for a local photographer, she was bit by the modeling bug and wanted to pursue it as a career. Her father, though, took some convincing. "My dad really didn't understand that modeling was a real career," she said of John Crawford. "He thought modeling was, like, another name for prostitution."
Eventually, both of her parents became very supportive.
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While on "The Oprah Winfrey Show," the legendary talk show host asked Elite Model Management founder John Casablancas if Cindy Crawford had to go through a "training period."
"With Cindy, it was much more psychologically she was not sure she really wanted to model… little by little, her ambition is growing," he said in 1986. "She's getting a sense, and I'm saying it now on this program, if she wants to, she can be No. 1 in the business."
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Back in 2016, Cindy Crawford spoke to Vanity Fair about her first-ever photoshoot, which was snapped by the pool at her high school boyfriend's house. The photos were published in a college newspaper.
"Doing this first shoot changed my life. The photographer encouraged me to go to Chicago to try to find an agent," she said. "I went to Chicago, ended up signing with Elite, and from there started doing catalog shoots as well as working with Victor Skrebneski — the most important photographer in Chicago. This one photograph opened my eyes to a whole new world and started me down the path of modeling."
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Cindy Crawford said modeling was no picnic. "I was 20 years old, I had dropped out of college to model in Chicago and it was great. I was making $1000 a day," she said. "The main business there was catalog. There was one main photographer, Victor Skrebneski, and he was the big fish in a little pond. Victor was definitely [my] mentor in the fashion industry — when Victor said 'don't move,' you didn't move."
"I passed out there more than once — especially right before lunch, you pass out and you would faint. And then they would prop you back up and you would do it all over again," added the former "House of Style" host.
