I had dropped out of school and was a runaway, so I didn't have family to fall back on if I didn't work. I didn't have a lot of other options of making money other than modeling.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
When I started modeling, I was young and sort of a bit reckless - I wanted to make money and didn't really care about anything else.
I always wanted to have a family - that was one of my big wishes. And in school, I'd taken drama, and I'd always wanted to act. I did go to drama school in New York, Los Angeles and London, and I did small parts here and there, but I never really had the time. Modeling was always paying more.
I tried for modelling work but it was a bit slow and that's when I took a part-time job at McDonalds. It gave me income while I was waiting for my big break and at the very least I could eat.
My aunt put my cousins into a children's modelling agency, then my mum did it with us. Me and my sister got a few TV adverts, which was good pocket money. A director saw photos of me and asked me to do a short film.
I've done modeling since I was 18, but it didn't take off until I moved to Los Angeles. Modeling has always been something I've been really good at, and has been something that's helped pay bills.
I was very involved with school by the time I was 15 and wasn't working much as a model.
The entire time I was modeling, I was trying and failing at businesses. In fact, we would have started our business much sooner had I been more successful.
When I came out of school I didn't even think that modeling was a job.
My mother was asked to be a model when she was younger, but my father had not let her, so she was quite keen on me becoming a model. I just went off without telling my dad. I took off to Paris and never came back, but when I became a success and started making money, he was very proud of me.
Modeling was never anything that was a career choice. I did catalog work in Toronto to make money so that I could go to school.