| Selita Ebanks: Supermodel/Human Being By Diana McClure (Commission by Unleashed magazine) God definitely has a plan for Supermodel Selita Ebanks. If you try to get in her way she has 7 brothers, a wise mother, and a father in law enforcement ready to stop you dead in your tracks. This protective path has guided her right to Victoria’s Secret, an exclusive contract, and the perfect platform for the world to get to know the mind, body and soul of the lady Ebanks. Her favorite assets are her big eyes although her entourage says her long legs are her claim to fame. Legs she considers to be an illusion that’s taken her to the top in a frame that only stands 5’8” to 5’9”, depending on whom you talk to. Considered short by textbook model standards, Ms. Ebanks never met a challenge she didn’t like. One of her biggest but best challenges came in the form of her 6’4” Jamaican father whose response to her desire to model was, “Negative.” However, eventually he came around. “Abercrombie and Fitch called and it was my first paycheck and I think it was like $1500. To me as an 18 year old girl you’re like, ‘WHAT?! $1500 to do what?!’ That was per day. I was like, ‘Look dad, I’ll give you half.’ I’m bargaining at this point. I’m like, I gotta do this.” Ebanks, laughs remembering the story, “He said, ‘Well, you can go if I can go.’ I said, ‘OK, but dad you can’t embarrass me.’ So my father was there everyday, but no one saw him because he was in the bushes. I remember I was in my hotel room, it was a sliding door on the ground floor, you hear a knock. I’m like what the hell is that? I open the door it’s my daddy. How did you get here? What are you doing here? I was like dad you are insane. I feel very grateful for him though. Him and my mother.” Whether she’s tempting you to laugh with her through expressive brown eyes, or enticing you with a leggy stride on the runway, she moves like a lady’s lady. Very aware of other’s perceptions, Ebanks knows that people will treat you according to how you treat yourself. Something she learned growing up fast in the Cayman Islands where she spent the first 12 years of her life. And probably the same wisdom that got her strut on the Victoria’s Secret catwalk as of 2005. As far as perceptions go, Ebanks is smart. A perfect score on her English SAT helped land her offers from Columbia and NYU; as a High School student in Staten Island she was President and co-founder of a non-profit that countered the effects of peer pressure; and, during a high school internship at Spin and Vibe magazines she oversaw college interns. No wonder VS claimed her, “Victoria’s Secret - they love personality. It’s not just about being a model, it’s about being an entity, it’s about being an individual. They want a well-rounded individual,” says Ebanks as she jokes, ”Hey I didn’t know that was me?! And I’m sexy?” Throughout our session at the W Hotel’s Olives restaurant /bar in NYC, the phrase “What if?” echoed in and out of our conversation. It’s a question Ebanks loves to ask and one she encourages kids to ask through her volunteer work with youth. She founded Stardom Youth Foundation, in the Cayman Islands, in order to educate, motivate and encourage young people to pursue their dreams and think big. Ebanks also uses her newfound power to represent for the shorties through her role as Ambassador of Tourism in the Cayman Islands. She even sits in the front row of her old Cayman church and questions the Pastor, quenching her incurable itch to learn. Likewise, in the modeling game, photographers who can teach her something, like Marc Baptiste and Steven Meisel, keep her interested. Ebanks’ VS contract seems to have come at the right time in her career. “What all models aspire for is that contract (a beauty contract). And for me to have VS is extremely humbling. For me to stand side by side last year with the greats, Naomi Campbell, Tyra Banks, Heidi Klum, Giselle Bunchen. I never in my life ever dreamed that I could ever be accepted into that circle and I’m truly truly honored. This is a whole new world for me. The last year has been a learning experience. I feel like I’m starting all over again.” Although Ebanks works less now that she has an exclusive contract with VS, she has to bring her “A game” regardless of jet lag, sprained ankles or blemishes. From the beginning Ebanks’ father made it clear, this is a business, nothing more and nothing less. Focus and clarity have kept Ebanks from falling off her path even though she is very much a child at heart. Climbing trees, laughing, riding horses fast, dancing like mad – living life in awe of the magic of it – these are all things that inspire and bring vibrancy to the person that lays beneath the gorgeous guise of Ebanks the Supermodel. “If I have one or two drinks, I’m Janet Jackson. You can’t tell me nothing, get out my way, I’m break dancin’. Any dance you can do, I can do better. I don’t care. I’d take on Ciara if she was here. I might lose, but I would try. I love to dance.” There are two people (or actually three according to Ebanks’ good friend Brandon) in the slender, 115lb, 24” waist, body of Ebanks – Selita and Tiffany. In the vein of Beyonce and Sasha, both human being and entertainer exist and appear at their appropriate times. “There’s Selita, the island girl that loves fishing and playing basketball, cracking jokes and having burping contests. Then there’s Tiffany. I know Beyonce has Sasha. I have Tiffany. I always loved the name Tiffany. She’s that girl that works VS. She gets on the runway, she’s all smiles, flirting.” |
 |
Apparently Tiffany has paid her dues. Not only does she rock super carat diamond rings (15 carats!) and watches, she has a long list of clientele (Clinique, MAC, Prescriptives, Maybelline) yet she has somehow stayed under the public’s radar. However, behind the scenes, folk are always watching, and this time it just happened to be VS. You may vaguely recognize her from 3 years in Trace Magazine’s Black Girls Rule collector’s issues, or her Complex cover, but more often than not, her photos reflect the images she sells, rather than the essence of Ebanks. Now I know you’re saying 15 carats, what?! Yes! She’s blingin’. But, since she earned it, Selita says, “I know the value of money.” When asked about overcoming obstacles, the thinker in Ms. Ebanks reveals itself like a blossoming flower, “You know what, I’m glad you asked that, I think it’s very important that people know that I am human. I’m not going to go around telling everybody my sad story, because I had a really hard life as a young person. I had to grow up very fast and mature and understand life for what it is and you know I’m still doing that to this day. As a young person I’ve witnessed things that I shouldn’t have witnessed or endured things that I shouldn’t have, but you know what, everyone has a sad story some way or the other. One person may not see it as hard for another person, but something that my mother always instilled in us was to appreciate what we do have, and to say it could always be worse. It could alwaaays be worse. You just have to roll with the punches and learn from it.” Selita/Tiffany seems to have applied her mother’s advice to her love life. On the topic of love, she expresses intrigue but responds simply, “I was in love with someone,” and concludes, “if you are not both willing to compromise a certain job or a certain time then it’s not going to work, unfortunately, and it didn’t work for me. So now I’m single!” At this point, she’s more in love with life than romance. But, she does know what she likes in a man, “OOOooh. I love funny men. I love funny aggressive, not too aggressive, I got 7 brothers. I‘ll kick your ass. I like a man that knows what he wants, whose career oriented and as driven as I am. Who’s spontaneous and funny.” Secretly, she likes football players, but often has trouble differentiating between whether a man wants her for her career or for her as an individual. Selita likes to kick back and watch a game, go to game, curse out some players, drink a beer, or take it to the hole on a sucka! She even loves to cook! Regrettably, some guys get caught up in Tiffany. “I once knew a guy who kept saying, ‘Oh my God, I’m hanging out with a supermodel.’ I’m like, ‘Where the hell is this supermodel at?! She’s not here right now I left that at work. Right now I’m just me.’” In today’s mass media women have to walk a fine line and as Ebanks notes, “These men’s magazines tend to forget about a woman’s intellect.” In line with this, she also comments, “I think it’s sad that men sometimes forget that women are human… I just like a guy who’s able to really see me and is not afraid of it.” Never one to be far from a laugh, Ebanks regularly seeks out the pure at heart. On the one and only hip-hop video/propaganda fest she’s ever participated in, Pharell’s Number One video, Ebanks hung out with the lone 5-year old on set, all day, telling potential lady charmers, “Look, I’m with my little man right now. We’re having a good time.” She says, “I was more intrigued by him than anyone else there because he was so intelligent and so funny and so raw and innocent.” Not surprisingly, she also had good things to say about Pharell, “Pharell’s very deep and intellectual, spiritual.” Like most people, Ebanks is more than her looks. Her personality bounces off the meter. Ebanks contagiously projects the energy of youth, excitement about life and, maturity from tough lessons learned. After endless conversation with the tape recorder on, and off, sippin’ on rum and ginger beer, it was obvious why kids and Victoria’s Secret shine in Ebanks’ reflection – she’s humble and pure at heart. Driven to succeed in order to inspire children, Ebanks believes, ”We as artists or as creative people or anyone in the media, I think it’s important for us to even give a hug. You never know the people you might touch…I always tell young people, ‘If you get an opportunity, you have to see it for what it is, take it, you gotta run.’ That’s like my whole life, this big great opportunity. Honestly, never in my life have I ever dreamed that I’d be sitting here right now - a cover story! I have to pinch myself to this day. I don’t care, 10, 20 years from now I’m still going to pinch myself, because it is the life, it’s very humbling and, I want to share that with so many young people. Let them know that, ‘It can happen!’” |