The 55 year-old former supermodel Paulina Porizkova took to Instagram this week to get very real about her relationship with her looks.
Porizkova wrote a lengthy caption alongside a photo of herself getting a plasma pen treatment, which People Magazine reported is a noninvasive procedure to keep the complexion firm and wrinkle-free. It can be done as an alternative to lasers or injections.
After acknowledging that “real beauty” is about more than what’s on the outside, Porizkova opened up about what the impact the opinions of others can have on the way she views herself.
“I’m keeping this strictly about physical looks,” she wrote. “We all know real beauty is so much more than that- but that muddies this specific conversation. And here is a shot of me after a plasma pen treatment- cause I’m vain and want to be pretty.”
Porizkova went on to say that when she was 14 she was “terribly bullied in school” by other girls.
“I thought it was because I was so ugly. That is what I was told. I was told I looked like a moose, a plucked chicken, a drunken giraffe, and a dirty communist. (What does that even look like?),” added the supermodel, who was born in the Czech Republic.
She admitted that at the time, there were many aspects of her physical appearance that she wanted to change.
“Had I had the access to plastic surgery, I would have gotten my lips plumped, my teeth capped, shave down my square jawbone, breast implants and liposuction on my thighs, and I would have given my soul to be a cute 5’5 or so,” she confessed.
It was then that Porizkova’s career in modeling took off, and the conversation surrounding her looks started to change.
“A year later, at fifteen, I became a model in Paris , a model of what other women were supposed to aspire to look like,” she said. “But soon I was rewarded for exactly the parts of me I thought I hated.”
This experience taught the supermodel “an invaluable lesson.”
“I hadn’t changed. People’s opinions had,” she revealed, before admitting how “incredibly lucky” she was to find herself in that position.
“What happens to women who never get society’s approval of their looks? They are forced to give up or become fighters,” she wrote.
Porizkova ended her post by encouraging her fans to “own” their own beauty instead of trying to find acceptance from others.
“You cannot blame or judge either side, because this societal structure was set long ago, and it has grown over us like cataracts , clouding our vision to true beauty,” she concluded.
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