Portrait: Out model Jessica Clark

By Chantal on Tuesday, December 15, 2009 - 14:41

What do you get when you combine a sexy accent, exotic good looks and intelligence? You get out British model Jessica Clark. Just how exotic are her good looks? Well, just take a look at this:

That is pretty exotic in my book and being of British, Indian and Iranian descent isn’t such a bad thing either.

Miss Clark first came to my attention in 2008 when she did an interview with AfterEllen.com where she talked, amongst other things, about her life and what it is really like to be a model (hint: not at all that glamorous, or good for your self-image for that matter).

At the age of 16, Jessica won a beauty contest and £5,000 which shot her to the top of the food chain in the modelling industry and was on the runways from Milan to New York before she could say ‘thank you’.

Though she has been modelling ever since, it was never her intention to become a model. She wanted to be a barrister and never thought she’d have a career as she found modelling disrespectful toward women. The main reason she kept modelling was because of the money, which she admitted to in the AfterEllen interview, and because she didn’t think law was her kind of career.

Although the representation of models on television (like in America’s Next Top Model) isn’t always accurate - it’s more bunk beds and small rooms, rather than luxurious villas – the cattiness and insecurities that you see amongst the girls are all true.

Jessica was one of the lucky ones; in the long haul Jessica didn’t burn out, nor lost her mind.

After a few years in the industry, Jessica couldn’t do it anymore. She had a meltdown and called up her New York agent backstage from a show, the agent brought her back to New York and got her clean. She had done coke and had various eating disorders and it took her a good year before she was somewhat back to normal.

Jessica doesn’t do runways anymore. It is a sacrifice she was willing to make in order to contain a healthier weight. Like she said, she “can’t do runway and not starve” herself.

Though Jessica has been out for quite some time, she wasn’t always as comfortable talking about it because she’d never know how people were going to respond – case in point being Usher, who was quoted saying that “women have started to become lovers of each other as a result of not having enough men”. This is pretty ridiculous if you ask me.