Emily Ratajkowski has recently explored other career options, such as writing. And when the model finished her book, My Body, she reawakened her love for “art”.
Emily’s desire “to be the artist rather than the muse”
In a recent interview, Emily opened up about how she always had the idea of building a model career so that she can be an artist.
“It wasn’t until the book was finished, and I was doing the audiobook, that I sort of realised that it was written into the text – this desire that I’ve always had to be the artist rather than the muse. Even when I left college and started modelling, it was with this idea of like, ‘well, I’m gonna make enough money so that I can be an artist and so I can make things’.
That’s why I even started to really model full time. So it feels extremely gratifying and fulfilling to now be the person who’s created something, rather than a piece of someone else’s vision.”
What else inspired her to be a model?
Emily started her modelling career at age 13 and revealed that her love for Britney Spears played a big role in her decision. That and a financial need, as this was around the time when the US economy collapsed.
“There were definitely a bunch of factors that came into my decision to model, and some of them were just cultural, not even personal – like the stuff I write about the way I looked at Britney Spears and the way I thought about powerful women as being “attractive” – that I think made modelling appealing,” Emily told Vice in an interview.
“And then yeah, personally, it was also the timing. I graduated high school in 2009, right after the economy collapsed, and money was really on my mind in maybe a way it wouldn’t have been had I not kind of lived through that. So I think it was a culmination of things. I did choose it though. My mom always tells this story of me being 13 and saying, like, ‘Okay, I’m ready, I want to try modelling’. And that was my choice. But also, as a 13-year-old, I probably didn’t totally understand what I was saying I was ready to try.”