Cindy Crawford Says Oprah Winfrey Treated Her Like ‘Chattel,’ Objectified Her

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The supermodel Cindy Crawford is speaking out to slam Oprah Winfrey over a newly-surfaced 1986 interview in which she believes that the legendary talk show host objectified her.

Cindy Calls Out Oprah

Daily Mail reported that Cindy, 57, opened up about her interview with Oprah, 69, in the new Apple TV+ docu-series “The Super Models” which chronicles the lives and careers of Cindy and her fellow “supers” Naomi Campbell, Linda Evangelista and Christy Turlington. 

Cindy was just 20 years-old when she went on “The Oprah Winfrey Show” with her Elite Modeling Agency rep, John Casablancas. In a clip from the docuseries, Oprah introduces Cindy before saying, “Did she always have this body? Stand up just a moment, now this is what I call a BODY!”

Cindy seemed to have a nervous smile on her face as she complied by standing up and showing the audience and viewers at home her body.

“I was like the chattel or a child, be seen and not heard,” Cindy said as she she reflected on the interview in the docuseries. “When you look at it through today’s eyes, Oprah’s like, ‘Stand up and show me your body. Show us why you’re worthy of being here.'”

“In the moment I didn’t recognize it and watching it back I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, that was so not okay really,'” she added. “Especially from Oprah!”

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Interview Continues

Elsewhere in the interview, Oprah directed her questions to John, who spoke on Cindy’s behalf. When asked if the agency put Cindy through a “training period,” he replied, “With Cindy, it was much more psychologically she was not sure she really wanted to model… little by little, her ambition is growing.”

“She’s getting a sense, and I’m saying it now on this program, if she wants to she can be number one in the business,” he continued.

The clip had been available to watch on Oprah’s YouTube channel for years, but it was quietly removed sometime Tuesday night.

Cindy went on to talk about how difficult her life was at the time of this interview, saying that she would sometimes “pass out” from hunger during grueling photoshoot days.

“I was 20 years old, I had dropped out of college to model in Chicago and it was great. I was making $1000 a day,” she recalled. “The main business there was catalog. There was one main photographer, Victor Skrebneski, and he was the big fish in a little pond. Victor was definitely mentor in the fashion industry, when Victor said don’t move you didn’t move.”

“I passed out there more than once,” Cindy admitted. “Especially right before lunch, you pass out and you would faint. And then they would prop you back up and you would do it all over again.”

Watch Cindy call out Oprah for yourself in the video below.

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Cindy’s Upbringing

At another point in the docuseries, Cindy talked about her upbringing.

“I never felt like I looked special or different,” she recalled. “If anything, I wasn’t like the ugly duckling, but in my high school the pretty girls were like the little petite cheerleaders.”

“That was what the idea of beauty was in my small town,” she added. “I never even thought about modeling. I didn’t even know it was a real job. I didn’t know how I would get from DeKalb, Illinois, to a magazine.”

Oprah has yet to respond publicly to Cindy’s remarks about her.

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