Should I Delete That? - How Not to be a Supermodel with Ruth Crilly

Episode Date: September 1, 2024

In this week's episode, Em and Alex are joined by influencer, writer and former model Ruth Crilly! Ruth has written a new book called How Not to be a Supermodel, all about her noughties escapades and modelling career. She shares her most glamorous and unglamorous moments, how her body image was impacted by her career and why she didn't make it to supermodel status.Follow Ruth on Instagram @ruthcrilly and buy her new book How Not to be a Supermodel here: https://geni.us/hownottobeasupermodelFollow us on Instagram @shouldideletethatEmail us at [e-mail] by Daisy GrantMusic by Alex Andrew Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It was almost a given because everybody knew that fashion models had to be really thin and so turning up and being told that you needed to be really thin wasn't that much of unused flash shocker because everybody knew that, you know, but it didn't make it any less stressful. Hello and welcome back to Shudder Delete That. I'm Alex Light. I'm M. Clarkson. How are you all? I'm actually painting my nails as we speak which is quite rude

admittedly it is it's very like teenager angsty teenager in every I refuse to look at your face came out in the noughties would you just please pay its attention

and eat your dinner would you not put your nail varnish at the table please I'm not doing a very angsty colour though look up on your father is speaking to you no they do look nice though pale pink really nice thank you honestly my nails

have gone to shit. I have done gel for years. Literally years and years and years, like 10 years and they've always been fine. And for some reason they just, they can't even grow like a millimeter anymore. So I've had to take a break from gels and I'm lost. That was your mistake. That was a mistake.

Never take a break. I don't want to know what's underneath there. I have not seen my natural nail. I had to. I have not seen my natural nail my naked nail in years. And I have no objection to. Always. Oh, I see like, Yesterday. Yes, I had my nails done yesterday. Oh, fun. Yeah, what my nails look like underneath all of those

chemicals is none of my business and I will stand by that. I mean, I do think like it doesn't really matter that much, but I'm getting down to like the nub of like where the nail can't actually come off any long. If I give it comes off, it's coming off skin and I'm like, I need to do something. Bad. Bad. Bad. Bad. Is that you're bad? Your nubby little nails. It should be. It should be. Do you know what? It will. be because I didn't really have a good. Oh no, no. My bad. Honestly, right. You know how people say like, oh, you know, I saw someone pick their nose and eat it? And you're like, did you? Did you just see someone pick their nose? Because that happens a lot. You kind of, like, people pick their nose a lot. Especially while driving, I've noticed a lot of drivers in their cars, obviously, because that's

what they're driving. They pick their nose. And it's like an absent-minded thing. It's just like, Tiddaloo, just pick my nose. Anyway, I've never believed that people actually eat what they pick. Have you? I've seen eaters. I've seen it. I've witnessed an eater on the train. And I felt my blood run cold. It was so disgusting. He was picking his nose and I was just watching him and I was like, it is gross what you're doing, mate. You're on public transport. This is a fairly busy train. Stop it. And it's gross. But imagine my horror when he took it. and put it in his gob. Right.

I will never be devil's advocate because the devil doesn't need an advocate because he's a devil. However, I'm going to be the devil's advocate. I'd rather he ate that than flicked it somewhere in our shared public space. I'm like, get rid of that, bro.

Do you know, agreed. Agreed. Either scenario is horrible. Both scenarios are horrible, but witnessing someone eat their own snot was just, it was just, it wasn't on my list for the day.

you know no no i hadn't factored it in to the day i find it's not very very much i i really struggle with it like but oh no it's like the one thing i'm really not squeamish i can handle i can handle it all but there's something about oh my babies my dogs my own car i was gonna say what you're like with arlo's well fine i mean she it's fine but it's like and she's got to an age now where we can blow her nose which is amazing but when we were in the so it up his face. It was bleak. It was long. I refuse to do that. I just refuse. I just can't. The thing is. I might change my mind. Well, yeah, I might if he gets a really bad cold. Exactly. No, it's terrible. It's disgusting. What do you mean dog? Dogs don't really have

better than have snots. But we'll get his eye bogies. Oh yeah. That's not snot there, is it always brings them to me. That's worse than snot to me. It's bogeys. Like I bogey are bad. Disgusting. Very bad. Yeah, okay. I'm with you. Okay. Now I want to know what snot is. I've realised I don't even know what's not is. No, I don't know what snot is.

I imagine it's, I imagine it's, I think it's a thing to carry out germs. I think it's like our body makes the mucus to like transport the bad stuff out. Yeah, it's nasal mucous. Yeah. Oh, no. Okay, enough. The people don't want this. It's Monday morning.

It's Monday morning. Fuck, how bleak. I'm sorry, guys. This is horrible. Anything bad for me? I mean, Wednesday and Thursday last Wednesday and Thursday were just quite bad basically I've got myself a whoop I think I've talked a little bit about my whoop before my whoop band and I was quite excited when I first put it on to measure my stress and I was particularly excited on the first day because it said I was only in the high stress zone for four minutes and I was like I am so chill I know what a zen person I are evolving true

until Wednesday, when you and I had a day together, we'll be recorded in the studio, and then I was like, oh yeah, I'll make the trailer for Thursday's episode. I bought the files home, and for reasons I can't even be able to talk about, everything just basically caught on fire and was so stressful,

and the following 24 hours, for a series of reasons, ended up being so stressful, and I cried like a hundred times. My watch was like, you are going to die. there's too much stress here you've been in the high stress zone all day i was like oh i know so this oh my god imagine if woup like create another an extra zone for you you like unlock a higher

level of stress i haven't i haven't gone back to it since wednesday or thursday but i am becoming quite fixated with my own stress levels and i'm really challenging myself to stay quite calm like when bad things happen or like when I find myself in stressful situations the challenge is to remain zen which if anything makes me feel very stressed what does it does it measure heart rate is that is that why it knows your stress rate at your resting heart rate your HRV like your heart rate variable it measures loads of stuff people can't know how I know you're stressed I commend it, yeah, and I'm not going to say yes yet, because I'm still in my early stage. Okay, okay.

Of using it. So what's this space? It kind of sounds stressful knowing so much about your stress, you know? I don't really need to know how stressed I've been today. I already know, you know? Yes, it's kind of nice to see it as data. Like, it's kind of, I find it quite interesting seeing like my emotions as data, if not a bit harrowing. Oh, my God, I'm such a mess.

but yeah it also it measures your sleep and I've got 100% like sleep like it's really happy with my sleep and I'm delighted with myself I'm like gay good and I like Alex I'm like sorry I can't talk to you

how to go to bed because my watch told me too and then I go to bed but the problem is is because I'm pregnant and obviously I don't think it can quite identify what's wrong with me

but it clearly can identify something's wrong with me every morning despite doing everything right I wake up in the yellow zone and they're like you need to rest today and I'm like

you said that yesterday when is the resting done. Oh, I wonder if heart rate is faster while you're pregnant. Oh, it is. It absolutely is. And you're, basically, my heart rate's high. My resting heart rate is normally super low. And I'm like a dead person normally.

My resting heart rate is like in the 40s or 50s. And now I'm pregnant. It's up to like the high 60s and your HRV is higher. And apparently, this is why I'm interested. Apparently after you have the baby, the stats change like that. And I can't wait. see. Okay, yeah, so you have much more, obviously much more blood, so your heart has to pump faster to get it round. So it knows. They basically say that you're running a, like, basically

being pregnant, it's like running a marathon every day, like physically, like that's what's happening to your body. The data is indicating that that's true. That made me feel so much better when I was pregnant because I was like, I feel like shit. Yeah, no, absolutely. It's such a difficult thing to do. So anyway, that's that my whoop is my bad and my, it's, it's probably my good too. I'm curious. So too are like all the like American pharmaceutical companies that no doubt are mining this data. Like I'm sure I've just given this to everybody. So I think everybody. Yeah, yeah. This is like on brand after Elaine's episode last week. No, nothing is sacred. Nothing is secret. I'm literally like, what more do you want to know? I will

tell my phone when I bleed, like when I cry, when I sleep. What else do you want for me? A hundred percent, that's probably a stressful experience. Well, it definitely is a stressful experience these days. Okay, well, that is horrible. And you did have a bad week last week, and I felt very sorry for you. My bad. You know what? Actually, let my nails be the bad because I actually think. Because I'm not the guy on the train that ate is bogeys. Okay, I'm going to look. Okay, fine, fine. I'm getting very confused. This is my awkward. okay my nails was my oh my god i've fucked it all up i'm telling you three things and i'm not categorizing them okay one was the bad the nose one was my nails the third one i put up a

picture of my food this the saga continues i put up a picture of my food and i said oh not getting much better at taking food photos but this was so good okay because it wasn't the best photo ever um but also i would eat it so i was like i don't know it looks quite good I am just going to read you a selection of messages I received in response to this, okay? Number one, gosh, full stop. That's it, just gosh, full stop. Number two, oh my love, comma, that looks like cat sick. Number three, dear God girl, that looks like dog sick.

Number four, this looks like I shat myself and ate it and then threw it all back up. In brackets, meant in the nicest way possible. However, well done, proud of you. nothing. How funny? Nothing gentle about that last one. How funny. I was like, okay, it doesn't look that bad guys. Can everyone just leave me alone? What was it of? It was of whole wheat pasta, so it was brown pasta, which looks worse than, I know, I know, I know the recipe that you did. And actually, Alex made a comment about it, which I don't need to repeat. I think you've had, I think you've had enough feedback. Oh my God, what did he say? Nothing. Nothing. Tell me what.

what he said. No, I think we've reached our feedback quota. I don't think we have. I need to know. I'm taking this to him. I can't remember it specifically. I'm not sure it was that flattering. I'm sorry. I'm taking this to HR. Yeah. We don't have HR. This is the wild, wild west. Dave's all right. God. God help us. I know. Anything good for me? My good is that I went to a festival this weekend. And it was so fun. It was really fun. It was hard.

It was really hard. And I'm really struggling with like trying to display the balance between like good and hard things. Like things that are like on balance I'm enjoying doing but that I normally go home and cry afterwards. Like it's hard to kind of explain that all the time without something like a lunatic. But it was really nice. We went to the big festival. And we went on Friday night and I only managed an hour. But I did see Natasha Burneyfield.

And then we went on third. Saturday and I only managed to stay for two hours but I did see Kate Nash and then we went on Sunday and we managed to stay for way longer but it was like a total Arlo day on Sunday like it wasn't about us we went and saw like Bluey which she loved and then like the merry go round which everybody struggled with um I don't know why I thought that was a good idea but it was really fun and yeah I was so frustrated with myself because I had to go to bed before anyone that I actually wanted to see like snow patrol playing on sunday night and i missed them no i know oh my god snow patrol and i missed them but it's like what you're gonna do you know and cat burns so i love but i just

i couldn't do it i was too sick i literally on sunday i just went blue Alex is like this is let go you've gone blue we're going home i was like okay um so yeah it was a little bit sad but mostly i'm sad because my brother and his best mate down went rollerblading i don't know if you saw my sister's Instagram story over the weekend. No. But they went rollerblading after we'd left. Well, yes, except apparently they went, I mean, apparently, I'm not going to say this with any surprise.

Of course they were terrible at it. And they went down like a hundred times each. And we've got all these videos of them just going down. And mum said people were literally coming up to her and thanking her, like thanking them for like providing such good entertainment. That's so good. Two men just kept like just face planting down in a roller. full of children.

Like it's a festival thing and fit in a damn and like, yeah, yeah, we got this. And just get going down. That is fantastic. There is just nothing like it, truly. Nothing like watching people just going down. It's perfect. I'll send you some of the footage and I will see if I can get some permission to share some on the should I delete that Instagram. Please, please.

I'm jealous of Kate Nash. I, you know what? She has one of my favourite songs ever, nicest things. Yes. Nice thing. Yes. It's just. She's so good.

I just think, yeah, I think she's so great. I really, really love her. I'm desperate to get her on the podcast, and that was like my dream for how the festival was going to go, but was that I was going to run into her and be able to get her on the podcast, and I didn't. So, sad. Maybe a DM will do then.

I'll try. Yeah, she was really, really cool. I loved it. And you know what? I don't think I've got any awkwards this week, because I've been an exemplary human being. The only thing that I wasn't totally proud of myself for was I was trying to do that thing,

Wii you multitask, this was earlier this morning, and I was having a wee while trying to put my socks on, and I went on to autopilot while I was doing that, and I went to wipe my bum, and I realised I was about to wipe my bum with my sock. It's like, no! I caught myself in the nick of time. I was horrible. Well done, that would be horrible. That's really horrible. Thank you so much. It was, yeah, no, it was, yeah, it wasn't great, although I heard from someone the other day who had to have an emergency poo and use their socks as emergency loo roll and I thought that's actually a pretty good idea incredibly good idea yeah super smart not not ideal expensive like incredibly expensive very expensive imagine if every

poo had to be yeah to use very socks oh my god maybe that's where all the socks go it's people using them for lorole I bet you dave's doing that honestly oh god what a fetish oh god I got such an image now I don't want it I want to go I want this to be over well you You're in luck because it is. We have a great guest for you today. A really fun guest, actually. We've got Ruth Crilly, who is a former model. She's an influencer and now a writer.

She's got a book, How Not to Be a Supermodel. And that's basically what she came on to talk about is her not to be a supermodel. And guess what, guys, we passed with flying colours. We are officially not supermodels. Yay! Enjoyed this episode. It's really fun. Thanks, guys.

Hi Ruth. Hi. Hello. Thanks for having me. Thanks so much for coming in. We're so happy to have you. Aw. It always feels very feminine in here and lovely.

It is nice, isn't it? Women and lovely. It just does. No one really does all the soft. It's just all soft and I feel really at home. Oh, thank you. What a compliment. Yeah, you're in on the studio.

You're one of the first people to be there. We go. And we didn't even pay her to say it. Convening that we are renting it out. that's such a good praise thank you so much yeah thank you great feedback and congratulations because at the time of release at the time this episode comes out your book will have been out three four days should I hold it yes please do novel just even having it in my hands it's so good the front cover is bloody gorgeous I like you love it I'm a massive read and I've just got

walls and walls of books at home and so in a way it doesn't feel when I look at those I think it's not that special to have done a book but it's all I've wanted to do since I was typewriting stuff when I was about eight or nine and I feel like it's been a long time coming and it's so oh my god it's so exciting so it's how not to be a supermodel how not to be a supermodel it is a memoir about my 12, let's say, decade-ish as a model. And all of the mad, can we swear on this? Yes. All of the mad shit that happened.

So it's not a grim, oh my God. I mean, some of the stuff was bad, but it's not really written to be an expose of all the terrible things. Because I think that's been covered. It's more just me being a disaster magnet and just being able to find the hilarity in the most mundane situations.

Yeah. I think that sums it up probably. When you say it's been covered, do you mean like the darker side of the modelling industry? Yeah. Right. Yeah.

Okay. Also, I mean, and I do say that in here. There was a point where I thought I should be covering some of that stuff off because I started thinking, God, was I ever actually sort of treated really badly by a male photographer?

And then when I started going through my diary entries from the time and looking at everything that I'd written so far, I thought, well, really, actually I wasn't. and I'm not going to make that up. And I appreciate that my experience won't have been other girls' experiences, but I just wanted it to be,

I mean, it's just about me, really. It's not about the modelling industry. It could have been how not to be a bricklayer. I mean, it talks about the modelling industry, but it's more about me than that, if you know what to mean. Does that make sense? Yeah, totally.

Okay, good. Okay, so how not to be a supermodel. I feel like I've got some ideas for how not to be a supermodel. I think they'll be in here. They will be here. I think we've crushed it. Talk us through the title.

So when I first started writing the notes for this book, it was in about 2008. And I was sort of getting towards the end of the modeling career, if I'm honest. I'd got married. I needed to either go to Milan or New York or Paris and live there to start again in order to keep a modeling career going. And I just wasn't up for it. And I thought, you know what? I'm going to, so I'd already done a degree while I was modelling and I'd done a couple of postgrad courses in creative writing and journalism and then I was going to do an MA and I thought

I'm going to start writing the book about modelling and originally it was called the model handbook and it was basically a guide to how to make it big as a supermodel and then when I came back to it I thought hold on a second though I didn't actually make it as a supermodel and when I look through all of my notes, I'm there telling people how to walk in heels. I was awful at walking in heels. And I think that the distance of those 20 years or more since I first started modelling, I think the distance that I've had between myself as personnel and those experiences made it hilarious. When I look back, I thought, what an earth was I doing? What a mad job. What a crazy 10, 12 years I had and I thought I can't write the how to. It's got to be the how not to.

So that's how that came about. How did you get into modelling? I put a photograph of myself into a cardboard box in Topshop in Birmingham New Street. Whoa. I was in my second year doing law at Birmingham University and I think I might have been drunk but I can't remember and I was with my best friend who was also at Birmingham uni with me. And I think she said, just drop your photo in, drop your photo in. And you had to put your name, your address, your landline number, and I think your height or something on the right on the back of the photo. And my entry didn't get put in with all the others for some reason.

I think it got stuck. I like to, I'm sure they said it got stuck in the side of the box when they turned upside down, but it could be bollocks, couldn't it? And then months later, somebody called me and said, you know, we love your look. She should come down, come and meet us. And because I've always been really overly optimistic about things and unrealistic. I was like, yeah, man, I'm going to be a supermodel by this time next week. Bylaw degree.

I think I actually left before I'd even gone down to see the agency. Wow. See you later, guys. I'm off like Dick Whittington. and yeah then the rest was just history I just got on with it really did you leave your law degree yeah completely yeah oh my god how far through were you second year of three what did your parents say no what about they flipped do you know I can't remember it that clearly which means I've obviously yes they flipped but I was quite I was quite independent

in that I just did things the way that I wanted not in a naughty way but I you know I got a car as soon as I could get a car, as soon as I turned 16, the day I turned 16, I went and worked in McDonald's. So I went in after school, I went in at the weekends. I did double shifts because I wanted to save for driving lessons and a car. And I was just really determined about things. And then, you know, I didn't want to go to Oxford. I'd got a place at Oxford. I'd got all through all the interviews and stuff. I was like, no, I don't want to go to Oxford. And I made my mum change it to Birmingham, so I didn't have to leave home. So in some ways, I was really independent, but in other ways, I was a real home bird. And so I think, I don't know, they weren't

annoyed. I think my mum was a bit worried, but also they were both, my dad's dead now, but my mum, they're both quite open-minded. And so my mum and my stepdad and my parents and they're together, they're quite cool. They're a very cool couple. And, you know, they grew up in a time when it's like, yeah, guys, do what you want. live life so they're quite wildly and um yeah i think they were worried but they weren't i don't think they were disappointed i never asked actually well it won't be now did it go from yeah i think it worked out okay yeah yeah it's fine did it go then from like nought to 100 with the modelling no oh no okay in my head so i no it didn't but

weird thing happened do you know what it kind of did and if you compared it to other people's trajectory as I really struggle with that word it kind of did because my husband who's a photographer was in the agency

on my very first day of castings and he'd looked through all the girls because all the cards would be on the wall and he'd go no nobody's right he was doing a job the next day and he wanted someone that looked really rock chick and it was a job It was about the sex pistols and Nancy Spungent.

So it was somebody that looked really rock and roll. And they'd shown him my card and it had the most awful picture on him. He was like, oh God, no, no, no, everyone on the reject pile. And then he said, I walked in and he knew immediately that I would be perfect for this job. And so I did that job with him the next day. We didn't get together for years. I was like, you have to, it's all in the book. But the pictures were incredible.

And I did start, I mean, I did start to get booking. is a lot faster than I think some other people. I don't make any money for years. Did you not? Nobody does. No. Did you live with other models? No, I always refused to do that.

So I commuted from home for a year and a bit maybe, I think it might have been. So I just used to get up really early, get into my Metro GTI, drive down the M40 at 5.30 in the morning, do my castings, come back or I'd get the train. And then, luckily, we had friends of the family. I can't believe they even let me do this but they lived in West London and they had this little spare room at the back of their house

and they said Ruth can come in the week if she needs somewhere to stay she can stay with us she used to crash there nice amazing I just feel like that wouldn't happen now so you were like in your early 20s I don't know I'd like to think that we'd all do that for our friends kids

but then in reality I'd be like too expensive now some grothy teenager you'd already have someone in the spare room wouldn't you yeah and they'd be coming in too late and they'd be annoying you I used to come in so late And they didn't care?

They were just really tolerant, I think. I mean, I tried to be really respectful, but I remember one time when I was leaning really far out of the window because I was an avid smoker and they had a glass kitchen extension roof that was underneath me and I lent out too far. And my cigarette rolled down the glass roof and they were underneath and it was really dry. There might have been a drought or something and I just saw it with these leaves in the gutter. Oh, God. You know, and it starts to smold when I was thinking, I'm going to start to smold. set fire to

that house I could even see them through the glass below me oh god so they're frantically pouring water

down the thing think don't look up don't look up that sounds very Bridger Jones isn't there is sitting well she's over the glass

yeah she's like yeah she's like this is the vibe in a way is it I don't think anyone's actually said that but if you

imagined her becoming a model then I suppose it would be that that gives you a kind of idea of what the book's like in a way

that makes it sound really fun it is yeah what the book or the career the life do you know I wouldn't have changed it because I feel as though the experiences I had made me

who made me who I am in that it was just so mad and also possibly so dangerous and all of the other things that I would use to describe it yeah I feel like that You are formed by your experiences, aren't you?

For sure. So I don't think I would. There were really grim times. And overall, you know, by the end I was thinking, oh, my God, this is not fun. But equally, whatever job you were in in your 20s, you could have thought that about. I mean, very few people are lucky enough to just land something that they love. I think you're more likely to now. But then it was a very weird thing to go off on your own and not get.

You know, everybody that had gone out of school, they'd gone and they were getting proper jobs. There weren't very many people that were just thinking, no, I'm going to go off and do something completely different. I think that's a lot more common now, but then it wasn't. No, definitely not. It felt rogue at the time, I think, to do anything other than go to uni. I don't know. It felt like that was just like what you had to do if you could. Yeah. Or you went to a job. Right. There were two routes, weren't they? You know. You said dangerous before. What do you think was dangerous?

about it. I think as a lone female traveller, you can be quite vulnerable anyway. But when you're a lone female traveller and you're going for work, so you're beating to the rhythm of someone else's drum in that you've got to arrive at this time, then you've got to go and stay at this hotel, and then you're going to go and work with this person. You're not actually shaping your travel experience yourself. You're at the mercy of the people you're coming into contact with on those days and although you know not thank god nothing terrifying ever happened to me weird things happened to me you know and i think as a young woman who is being booked because they are good looking you know you're obviously turning heads actually lots of us were really weird looking

but it's it's a recipe for disaster in some ways isn't it yeah i think but it makes you tough Yeah, that is so true actually because you're just not in charge of your own itinerary you're on schedule you're at the mercy of these people who are paying you and when you're in a foreign place in a foreign city

and also when I'm no smart phones so if I got to I don't know a country in my phone didn't work because it was out of the bands because remember there were tri-band phones do you remember that? No! Oh my God!

So you had to have a tri-band phone for certain regions and then if you went to America, the phones wouldn't work at all. You had to have a completely different phone again. So, and even if you had a phone, all they did was send a text message. Right. So I would be out there and sometimes I used to sit and think to myself, not a single person in the world that I know knows where I am at this moment.

Nobody. That's scary. Which is quite freeing in a way, but I would sit in a park in Tokyo and just think, no one knows where I am in the world. I could disappear now. nobody would know you know it sounds so glamorous though doesn't it I know Tokyo

yeah without a trace in Tokyo simply impossible now when I when I look at films like lost in translation great film amazing film and I almost romanticise my experience because I look at her wandering around

and having this cultural coming of age and I almost think to myself that's what I did no because she was staying at the park Hyatt and I was in this tiny apartment just chain smoking because I had no money. She was married to a rich film director and didn't need to really worry about anything. She was just having a great old, she wasn't, I suppose, but you know, she was having a very

different time to the time that I was having this model. Definitely. Well, like penniless and yeah. So it's quite, you know, it's quite easy to look back on something and think, oh, that's great. But to be honest, there were times. when it was ultra-glamorous and ridiculous. And you've got, you know, an entourage of people because you're filming on a location outside and there's hair and hair assistants and makeup artists and makeup artist and makeup-parts assistants

and, you know, photography assistants and art directors and whatever and everyone's looking and you're in couture clothes. And who else gets to do that, you know? Does that go to your head? No, because at the same time, there'll have been somebody just before, hand saying you're too fat or you know you need a wee or you're cold or everyone's looking

at you a mixture of all of the aforementioned and then it doesn't just you know keeps you humble yeah brings you straight back down to yeah yeah i want to ask about that about body image and how that was being a model because obviously we've heard these like horrendous horror stories about being a model and being in the industry and just the intense scrutiny and pressure to be a certain size. Did you experience that? Yeah.

Did you? I had to be, everyone had to be so small. In fairness, the London agencies weren't as bad as, but that was just the given. There was nobody at all, not in the media. there were no journalists nobody was saying oh this is wrong or this isn't right yeah they're the same thing i know that but no one was calling anyone up on it because everybody was in that bubble

even parents even school teachers PE teachers were pinch i mean we used to have pinch an inch so you'd stand there and the PE teacher would if you could pinch an inch you were too weighty and you would you would do more laps really even weighty as a word it's like Like that's... Waiting. Yeah, that's gone, isn't it? Oh, my God. And, um...

Did that really happen? Yeah. Yeah. Jesus. That's sick. Hold on, what year were you born? 88. 88, yeah, 80.

I reckon it was, I reckon I was right, because I'm the last month of Gen X. And I, sometimes I think, I like to think I straddle both, but actually, I mean, I remember that really clearly. Yeah, bloody hard. then my sister, who's four years younger, doesn't remember that so much as being a thing. Amazing how quickly it changes, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The industry then, do you think maybe because you're saying that no one was calling it out within the within the world, like it wasn't an acknowledged thing that we should be having a more

positive attitude towards body image. And your experience at school had been pinching inch or whatever. Did it just feel then that you just had to, was there an acceptance or was it a sort of pressure that you put on yourself? Or do you feel like it was put onto you by the industry? No, I think it gave more of a pressure. I think that everybody had grown up with this idea that you, that slimmer was better. You know, if you turned on morning TV, then there would be women in Lycra doing exercises to get rid of their baby weight, for example.

And it was just, that was it, you know, it was, it was normal for that to be on and normal for the to be sort of recipe books that were all about, you know, fat-free recipes, for example. And so to go into the modelling industry and be told those kind of things didn't seem that far-fetched, I suppose, I should put it like that. It was almost a given because everybody knew that fashion models had to be really thin. And so turning up and being told that you needed to be really thin wasn't that much of unused, shocker, because everybody knew that, you know, but it didn't make it any less stressful. not so much in the UK but definitely when you went away it was hold on I'm going to find you

picture of me oh here we go so that's me in Tokyo the second time round okay and that's the photo that was sent to my agency to say that I was above my contract weight I think oh wait you had a contract weight not a contract weight but if you if you went to japan you had a contract and your measurements were part of that contract so if you fluctuated yeah then you would be then you'd be out of your contract and you used the word stressful before which feels like really accurate because it's like that must be so stressful and also when you've you know I'm 20 years old 21 years old and I don't really know how to to be a different body to the one that I've got at that point yeah I'm like hold on a second this has never crossed

my path before what do you mean it needs to be different to how it is yeah and you know the thing then was oh you just need to exercise more you know it's never really about eating and you can exercise until you're blue in the face and it can sometimes not make any difference to your actual you know yeah yeah your measurements with a tape measure so it was pretty stressful and that was the underlying I think that was one of the things throughout the whole career that kind of got to me the most really I mean you're right stressful it seems to the exactly the right word for it because I imagine like even if you hadn't thought about food and eating and your weight before that knowing that you can't move like up or I suppose you could move down

right and you could move down and people would be like yay in the in that industry but you can't move up that's terrifying that would suddenly make you so conscious of everything that you're putting in your mouth also what was really difficult is that you'd go into a london age to say go god darling you look amazing. Let's do lingerie polaroids while you, oh, you just look brilliant. You look brilliant. And then the polars come out. They go, oh my God, amazing, amazing, amazing. And then you'd go to Paris next day and they'd go, oh, a little bit, you know, a little bit too much on the hips or whatever. And then you'd go to Milan the next day and it would be fine. And you'd go somewhere else the next day and it wouldn't be fine again. And it was a bit like having a job

as, for example, I don't know, a French translator, but never really knowing whether you were that good at French. That's a really, really bad example. But you know, when you've got to have a skill, a particular skill for a job, and that is the one thing that you sort of need for that job to be a success for you, your body was that thing.

But it's subjective. And that's the impossible thing. It's like whether or not you can speak French, I suppose, would be objective. Yeah. Well, it depends, actually. No, it is a terrible example. No, it's not, but I mean, like, because you could speak French to me and I'd go,

well, that was impressive. But then you can speak French to a prison and they'd be like, the fuck. Yeah, to have your body being or anything about you, I mean, it's the same as being, it's the same vulnerability I imagine as being a writer or a poet or an artist or, but then you've got the added intricacies of like your feelings. Yeah. Which is really hard. And also the fact that I can't be hungry.

This sounds mad, but we've got this genetic thing in my family. And if we go more than about three or four hours without eating, we lose the plot. Really? I mean, full mental and physical breakdown. So first of all, I just can't think properly. And then I get really angry and then other things start happening in my brain. But then I get such bad hunger pains. It feels as though my stomach's digesting its own self.

and then I start shaking like this and then I mean there's been times before not actually when modelling but before that and times since when I've actually just had to lie on the floor because I've just thought I'm just going to be sick if I stand up and it's been through not you know having

maybe I've got a blood sugar thing I was going to say it sounds like blood sugar it does I think it is a blood sugar thing and I've been tested loads of times with stuff like that but I do think that maybe I've just got a really sensitive level you've got super fast metabolism Maybe. My husband's like that.

He eats all the time. I mean, my brother, he's six foot four, six foot five. And he, sometimes you think, is he actually malfunctioning? But it's not because he's really hungry. And my son's now like that. Yeah. And so I could never do the thing of not eating enough. Just wasn't on the cards.

Yeah. So in a way, that was kind of a blessing. And I think that's maybe why I escaped unscathed. terms of sort of how I feel about my body and diet and things like that. I find it really interesting that you can't like emerge and skates from all of that. And I bet that a lot of your peers didn't in the industry. I don't know. No, when I think about the people I know, all pretty resilient actually.

I'm thinking this when we interviewed Jody Kidd and she said the same thing. Yeah. And it is kind of, it does feel like when you hear models speaking back on their experiences so many of you had kind of a really positive yeah i don't know yeah which is nice i think it's more you have to detach yourself from your body and almost your body is a tool because i don't really have many emotional responses to the way my body looks yeah which sounds weird you think it'd be sort of obsessive i mean i have to put my i'd be lying if i said i didn't look at it and want it to always look within a certain way

because I think that's never going to change for me. I was brought up in an era when that was drilled into us and then I was a model. There's a lot to undo. Yeah. But at the same time, I don't obsess about food. I don't look in the mirror and obsess over my body. I never feel, my body never makes me feel unhappy.

I suppose I could put it like that. Okay. That's great. So you're fairly neutral about your body. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I can look at it and go, be negative about it

but equally I'm just quite easy going about it I suppose which is maybe weird but when I do think about my peers most of them are quite similar and also a lot of them have the same attitude to getting work done stuff like that not fussed at all about having anything done

that's really interesting what you said about being did maybe that's it is being detached from your big having to be detached from your body and see it as something that's like a, like a vessel for your work. Yeah. Like a, I'm trying to think of the right analogy,

like not like a CV, but like it's, it's your job rather than... Yeah, but also if you've been able to recognize that the feedback is so different where the product is the same, then I suppose that is quite helpful for realizing that you're not really the problem. It's just you're not right for the,

specific job yes yeah and that's a kind of that's a bit of a gift that I suppose when we talk about the effect that modeling has on like normal people or not modeling the effect that the fashion industry beauty industry whatever and the air brushing and all of that sort of thing it's it's more like you guys have pinned the end product is pinned as like the beauty ideal that young people look at and we're like well that's beauty ideal but when you're being made the beauty ideal it's a bit easier I don't know I'm explaining this very well but it kind of feels easier for you to be oh well I'm not that ideal that's fine i'll get the next campaign or because you were still booking some jobs just not every job yeah i mean you would book very few jobs for the amount of jobs that you went for so it was

almost sort of like a constant failure in a way just failing every job into you go for that's horrible but you that was it that was again that was just the job that's amazing i'd take one rejection and be like right well see you it's awesome for me i knew it i knew it everyone was right about me bye What is the best thing you ever did in your career? Okay, I've got a few questions. I've got like, what's the best thing? What's the most glamorous thing? What was the worst thing?

The best job I ever did was a hair commercial for an American hair brand. And they flew me to Cape Town first class, which I've never done since. Wow. World away from business. Is it? What? Oh, my God.

Oh, like pulling that? You get as much food as you want at any time. You have a butler, right? Like per person. Per person. No. Pajamas. So that was really good and it was and that was the biggest money job that I ever did.

Okay. Because it was commercial. Right. In those days, you used to get buyouts but per region. So you'd get a buyout for America, for example, North America and Canada. And then it would get bought out for Australia and you'd get paid all over again. And per period. So it's, you know, let's say.

for a six-month period I'd get, it went on for years and I'd get a call and she'd be like, darling, good news don't go, yeah, sunsilk again to say yeah. Another region. And there would be another payment.

So that was the best one that I ever did. Okay, that's great. It almost made the whole thing worthwhile. It was the worst one. Just generally when I had to, there was one I did on a beach and it was in November and I was in like petticoat nighties.

Oh God. In the sea. No. In, where? In the UK? Oh, in Kent somewhere. And everyone else was in massive puffer jackets, hats, scarves, gloves. I mean, it was freezing. I was standing in the sea with the petticoat trailing into the water.

So, you know, it was amazing I didn't die. Oh, my God. And then all these schoolboys were on their way to school and they started throwing stones into the water. Oh, God. I was just thinking. Stoning. I was being stoned.

in the sea freezing to death and I just used to hate being cold anything where I was cold and also anything where there wasn't an access to the toilet so I've got a real thing if I need a wee I want to be able to go for a wee fair enough I hate not being

that's why I can't do festivals I need food yeah need a wee and I want to be warm I hate that about festivals as well I hate that about festivals Louise yes not knowing you were a current UTI person no I'm not actually

And I'm actually, I've got a really sturdy bladder. Yeah, I can go for, like I go for days. But a festival that just freaks me out because I once went to a festival and I was wearing dungarees. Did you wee in them? I, no, worse, way worse. I took the straps off the dungaree and the strap fell down into the loo. Oh no. And it was full of poo.

Oh. And it was horrible. What did you do? I just pulled them down. I couldn't take them off because I didn't have any pants on. pulled them down like just around my waist and it's just like I just want to I've just got to go home I've just got to leave so I love with the poo straps with the poo straps I weed on the seat at a portaloo once you weed on the seat yeah I thought the seat was up oh oh and did it splash back at

you I was really drunk no I literally just sat on what I thought was a loo balls and it was okay how did that feel you sat down horrible I was so drunk I can't I can't stand embrace no I can't do it I'm really thankful for you guys not reacting so badly to my story because that is like one of my deepest chains. So thank you. I think, did it all just sort of spread and then spread up and... Yeah, and then I had to go home. Yeah.

It all ends the same way, doesn't it? If you ever see someone leaving a festival, you know why. They've wet themselves. Something happened in a portally. Oh, yeah, I'm not good. I have to have... I just, I don't even think... It's not a luxury, is it?

It's a basic requirement. It's still like a human, right? It really does. It really does. Going back to the public stoning, I wonder how you, because you now work on Instagram and you're still like public facing even though you're not modeling anymore. How have you found like the societal reaction to you being a model? Because I feel like for a time people were so judgmental of women within the profession

and it was just like you could just, I don't know, label people as bimbos or, not taking them seriously and how have you felt that i think by the time so i started my blog in 2010 and it was really before social media kicked off it that wasn't even a phrase i don't think that'd even been invented as a phrase actually and i feel like by the time anyone would have had had a judgment about it my blog was bigger than the modeling career and so i had sort of proven myself and when i was modeling you didn't have any public facing times you know you weren't ever with the public people saw a magazine there wasn't any connection between you and the public so there was nobody to really judge you wouldn't have

in a way it was a simpler life because the internet didn't exist what was anyone going to say to you let's say write a letter to the paper how would you ever have known what they thought of you yeah or they told your mum oh wouldn't that be nice to give back to that now it was yeah and i reckon And 80% of my, the jobs that I did aren't even on the internet. It was before the internet. So it would have taken two days to upload a image file, you know. So it's not, it's archaic and tucked away in that era, which was why this was so fun because I was writing about that time.

And in some ways it felt so innocent. In a lot of ways, it feels very similar. But, you know, it was an innocence to the fact that nobody could directly judge you. You just never know. So it was easier not to care. It's kind of an amazing time. Like, brutal. Like really brutal.

Brutal to be famous in that time. Well, yes and no, because yes, the headlines are horrific. But if you can, if you shut the, if you don't buy the papers, then you don't know. The papers were massive, though. That's true. I think it's easy to forget that the papers were the social media, so everybody got heat magazine. Yeah, of course. And if you were on the train, everybody had the metro paper out.

Nobody was on their phone because phones couldn't do anything on them. Yeah. And so I suppose if you were on every front page and you didn't want to be, it would have probably been almost as damaging as social media. But then, yeah, you don't hear the voices, do you? No. You get the voices of 10,000 comments all saying different things. You know, you didn't have that extra layer of judgment and conversation.

It would have been easier or harder now if you were doing it in this era. I don't know. I don't think it's the same. From what I hear, it's not the same job. So you don't even do castings anymore, I don't think. Do you not? I think they send a tape of themselves. I mean, I had a really heavy bag, big portfolio, shoes, A to Z.

Yeah. You know, it was lugging everything around with you. And you would go to eight or nine castings a day, sometimes more. Bloody, yeah. All over London. That's just be exhausting. And you might get out, out of those. might get one option and an option was the possibility of a job and maybe out of 10 options you

know five options you might get one of them confirm as a job god so it was a hard slog to actually get anything a hard slog and i don't think it's like that anymore i don't i think you just send a little selfie tape of yourself yeah i guess the social media now isn't it's kind of almost like your portfolio your instagram page i bet yeah so in that way it's probably easier but i don't know why did you did you like officially quit muddling or did you just did it kind of taper out and you just it tapered out I started my blog because I knew that I really was at my tail end I just couldn't do anymore and then I think they crossed over by about two years and I was so busy with the blog because it really took off me nobody was really doing it

there's a handful of people and so once brands started to get involved there weren't very many people to do those brand deals and so it very quickly got really busy and modeling jobs didn't pay anywhere near as well as a social media job where you own your own platform and media so you're in effect you're getting both fees aren't you know the magazine you're the magazine and it just got to the point where the agency you know I was just turning stuff down and saying no I can't do that no I can't do that and it just wasn't interest really all my interest to keep on doing it. But it did feel like a sad day.

Did it? Yeah, I remember the agency phoning up and saying, oh, have you got a minute? And I think I was breastfeeding my son. Do you know, I think I stayed on the books for years and years and years. My last modelling job was 2012. But I think, I remember I was breastfeeding him. So I think they kept me on the books for another five years.

Wow. And they rang you and said, yeah, love them so much. They were just amazing. You know, in a time when they felt like there was no. no duty of care. They actually did really care. I mean, they really looked after us. So, yeah.

Got nothing but nice feelings for them. Can you give us a few pointers on how not to be a super market, please? The first thing you need to do is not be quite tall enough or this is in the noughties, not now. Okay. What height are you? Five eight. And what did you have to be? I mean, that was okay.

It was an okay height But if you were 5'10 You'd have done a lot You know, that's what they really wanted And for shows Really you needed to be 5 foot 10 5 foot 9 at least We could, okay this is the first one we've done that

We're not tall enough Excellent, excellent, yeah You're doing well so far You have to hate being cold And hungry And just generally You know Not being in nice places

to shoot you quite like being cold i do maybe you could be a safe model oh my god this is going really well really well yeah maybe can you walk in heels no oh hold on you're leaning back towards me here you're on team not okay what else um can you handle just absolute idiocy standing there listening to people be idiots for very long periods of time while they're discussing very small items of clothing that don't really matter whilst you're there freezing cold. Of course, I'm a people pleaser. She's supermodel. You were born for this.

You listen to me do that all the time. I just think, let's stop rolling cameras, let's get her out there. Yeah. There's time to show you. Well, for your catwalk. Wow. That must be, I think one of the hardest, I always think this about actors. I could never be an actor, primarily because I couldn't stand around all day and just

wait and make you do the same take over and over again just wait oh i thought you were going to say the fear because i have a recurring dream that i step onto a stage and nobody's even told me i'm in a play and the curtains go back and i'm just stood there that's horrible what what's the name of the play let me try and cobble something together but you know give me something here it's a recurring that's bad isn't it that's an anxiety dream sure oh yeah i've had it in my life but i think even worse in that, I always think being a comedian must be the most awful, scary job. If you want to take me to, like, the worst place,

like, I know there are like bad places on this earth to go and visit. Now, in my opinion, is worse than the comedy store. Like, I genuinely, no, it makes me not to cry. Because of fear for them. Because my fear for them, because I'm such an empath. But they're always, oh, God, don't. I'm like, oh my God, and then they go out.

But they're always good at the comedy store. No, no, no, you laugh if no one else is laughing to please them. Oh, absolutely. No, no, no, I won't because I don't want to embarrass them. them by being the only laugh. So just let it die. I have to just let it happen and that's the worst thing about it. But it's like the night where there's the

button where it's like where the don't, the don't night where if they're not funny they get donned. And Alex took us there. I have to happen twice. No, that's horrible. It's genuinely, it makes me not to cry. I don't think you can be an act on stage and no one's going to heckle you, right? No. At the RSC. Are they? Let's face it.

And if they don't laugh, you know, there's no real feedback from the audience. Comedy. Oh, my God. I just don't know how people do it. I find it the idea of it terrifying. They're made of steel. Yeah, I'd rather be told that I was like ugly than that I was like profoundly unfunned. Like it would be easy, it would be so much easier to be rejected from literally any other job than like you are painfully unfunny. Everybody here hated you. Ah, I would die. I would die. I would never. I think it's also because your very essence of being as a comedian is to please people to the maximum degree, isn't it?

Yeah. If you don't, I mean, it's just, oh, it's just total and utter failure. Other jobs you can fail a bit, but that one. But also, like, for you in modelling, it's like, okay, so you don't think I'm great, like, H&M, but Topshop might want me. And, like, I've got comedians, no, like, if you don't like me, like, you're just anyone. If you don't like me, no one's going to like me.

Like, if no one in this room finds me funny, then no one in any room is going to find me funny. I couldn't go to Edinburgh Fringe for this reason I mean either I can't do it I can't watch any people do even when they're on Instagram when it's like clits at their comedy I'm like nope

I'm not putting I'm not putting us through that I even prefer to watch yeah the televised version of someone's tour 100% yeah yeah yeah it's the best bit because I know it's going to have turned out okay yeah yeah yeah it's all been fine the highlights

and if it's not you can pause it and you can leave the room and you don't have to make eye contact with them or think about them going home to their moms or their cats Oh, I'm going to make me so upset. Well, there we go. There we go.

Join me for my next book, How Not to Be a Comedian. I can't wait. I'll co-write that one with you. Thank you so much, Ruth. It's been so fun to talk to you. Book, link to your book, How Not to Be a Supermodel is going to be in the show notes. And people can find you on Instagram at Ruth Quilley.

And I also read the audio book myself. Oh, lush. Nice. Did you enjoy doing that? Weirdly, no. No, it's really, really hard. It's hard, isn't it? I thought that I was going to love it.

But there's one thing just speaking like this, but actually having to read stuff from the page, and it's got to be word for words, really difficult. I got obsessed with my breathing. Did you? Obsessed, yeah, obsessed. I thought why I called you, because I was having a panic attack. Yeah, yeah, and they kept saying, can you stop.

I think I do that anyway, I go like this, and they said you can't do that. So it's all I thought about was my breathing. And I was like, I'm going to, I can't breathe. It's in your brain. It's in your brain, and that was it. My bad one was I mix up path and path, for example. Okay.

And in any one sentence, I can do a flat A or I can, I can, you know. Oh, I see, because you're from the Midlands. I'm from the Midlands, but married to a southerner. Oh, God. And spent a lot of time in London. Recipe for disaster. Disaster. Or disaster.

Well, that sounded weird, didn't it? Disaster. It sounds weird when you say that. Are they disaster again? Disaster. Yes. Oh, that sounded weird. You said disaster.

Oh, I don't know. I'd say disaster. Say disaster. Disaster. Doesn't sound right for me. He's a bit west country there, disaster. Disaster. That was weird.

Because my husband's Irish and he's just like those. Yeah. Yours. Yeah. And the bath. And like, Olo started saying bath now and I'm like, oh, weird. Yeah. It's like I'm going for a bath.

I'm like, okay. Yeah, I say bath. But so in a sentence I could say, I'm going to go and run the bath because I love to have bath. I know that's a rubbish sentence. That is difficult for an audio book. It is very, very, very. difficult and so I would think how did I do the last or the last one yeah it got really

confusing I like that because people on their toes yeah also I feel like if you wanted to torture someone you could just make them read out their own diary entries sit them in a room by themselves with a microphone it was a bit like yeah like just read out your diary entries for like three days and also I spot yeah and you spot all the mistakes oh my god luckily it hadn't gone to print though actually so we got six that wouldn't have been found us But mine had, there's so many. And I was like, I've read this so many times. Other people, don't tell them.

No, no, no. Everyone will go looking for the metal. It was perfect. It was like, perfect. Thank you, Ruth. Thank you so much. Should I delete that is part of the ACAS creator network.