Naomi Campbell has tantrums not because she’s angry but frustrated with the industry and it’s lack of diversity.
In a compelling sit down with the UK Times Online Campbell discusses a range of topics from the absurdity that is ‘in’ right now because of her skin color to her charity work.
“I’m not saying I’ve always used my frustration in the right way,” she says, “but my gut instinct is to keep women of colour out there whether I’m still in fashion or not. I’ll be very happy when I’m 55 years old to pick up a magazine and see a lovely spread with a black woman. Then I’ll know that I didn’t work for all these years only to see it go backwards.”
“Last year New York was the worst of all the fashion-week shows. They didn’t use many black models at all,” Campbell says. “The black issue of Italian Vogue shouldn’t make it briefly fashionable to be black, then unfashionable again,” she says.
As more black models including Jourdan Dunn and Tyra Banks have appeared as a force in the industry Campbell feels as she can retire soon. “This time they [designers and editors] have stepped it up. I feel positive. That means that I can go soon.”
On her charity work: “Sometimes they are like, oh, you need to get out there and do what Angelina Jolie’s doing – and I’m like, I’ve been doing it, I just care to keep it more discreet. What she does is incredible but I choose to do it in my way.”
On her bad behavior: “I’ve done some things that were plainly just not right,” she admits, “and I take that on the chin 100 per cent. There have been many frustrations. But I don’t like using excuses. You know, if I did something wrong, I did something wrong – and I’ll pay the price for it.”
“I have learnt – I am learning, I should say, not to be provoked,” she says. “But if someone insults me, I’m still going to defend myself. I don’t take good to racial insults.”
