Christy was ignorant & rude
Next up was campaign day, something we were all excited about, yet scared of, because with every campaign comes an elimination. Nigel tells us that we’ll be filming a 15-second commercial for Cosabella lingerie, and that the winning team will have a lingerie collection named after them. I instantly thought the “Margaux” bustier sounded pretty sexy and that I wanted to win this. Nigel goes on to say that we’ll each have to portray a sexy, sweet or conservative woman in the commercial. I knew immediately that I wanted to be anything but conservative, but I was willing to fill whatever role my team didn’t want to play. Brittany jumped at the idea of sexy, mentioning how she’d been in Maxim before. Marlee was not very comfortable showing off much skin so she sided with sweet, and Stephanie took one for the team and said she would play conservative. So that left me with the choice of playing any of the roles, and I thought sexy would be the most fun because it’s the total opposite of my personality. I’m very much a goofy tomboy, but it’s fun to be sexy every once in a while.
We decided to go with matching blue lingerie to make the commercial more cohesive. It’s less distracting for the viewer’s eye, that way they can just focus on the actual style of each lingerie set. After we were all dressed in our lingerie, Coco showed up to coach us on how to do a lingerie campaign. I know a lot of people must be thinking, “What does Coco know about lingerie? She doesn’t even model it.” But Coco is a performer and a chameleon (just watch the video below, if you don’t believe me!), and like she said, she’s watched enough lingerie commercials to know what a good one looks like. She tried to instill a few basic thoughts in us: the most important one was that sexy is powerful. She wanted us to be strong, confident women and that alone would sell the product. She didn’t want us touching each other at all on set because that was “another kind of commercial” meant for a “different audience.”
Next we got to style our look. We chose to wear peep-toe Sam Edelman sling-backs, no jewelry and paired our look with tousled hair and a light smoky eye — simple yet elegant.
Later on set we met Guido Campella, vice president of Cosabella, and Brian O’Carroll, who would be directing the commercial. I was so excited to work with a new director and that I had another client to impress. The best part about The Face is that we got to work with real clients that we could potentially book future jobs with, so it was important to impress them every chance we got.
It was time for the games to begin, and Team Karolina was first. Christy switched up her role from conservative to sexy right in the middle of shooting. This may have had something to do with her earlier opinion about being “miscast” and how she felt she didn’t know how to play conservative. After all, she didn’t “run every day to wear a potato sack.” But I guess that completely outweighs her actual job, which is to be a model and play whatever role is given to her, including ones that may cover up her “smokin’ bod.” Hmmm. Needless to say, she switched to a much sexier bra and matching panties, and she definitely showed off her body, but at what cost? Even if Karolina knew every one of Victoria’s Secret’s models, I don’t think it would be enough for their team to score a win.
We were the second team to go up. I was feeling confident about what Coco had gone over with us back in the loft, and we all knew what roles we were going to play and how to play them. Once we got on set and the bed was set on fire — yes, our bed literally had fire shooting out of the bedposts — we all had our game faces on and were ready to work. Coco did an amazing job at directing us, and even though Karolina felt she was being bossy, Coco was just doing her job, and that was to coach us. Her coaching combined with Brian O’Carroll’s laid-back, confident direction made the entire process run smoothly. This was the first time where I felt I was actually working, like any other job, and I became completely unaware of the cameras all around me. We all really worked together, stayed in character and followed direction. I don’t think we could have done a better job with the time we were given. I felt Team Coco had this one for sure.
Last to go was Naomi’s team. They, like Karolina’s team, seemed very confused about which role each girl was supposed to play. Sandra continuously flopped from overly sweet to overtly sexy. Zilin also seemed a little too sweet and sexy at times for her conservative role, but I think because Jocelyn chose sexy she did a good job. I would have been interested to see if she could have done an equally good job in a different role, like conservative. Team Naomi tried their hand at a pillow fight, something Team Coco tried first but was cut out of the aired material. Honestly, I didn’t know what Guido thought of Team Naomi, other than his blatant curiosity about whether any of her girls had done a lingerie shoot before. That doesn’t sound like he was feeling too confident about their performance.
After watching our performance versus the other teams, I was 100 percent sure, without a shadow of a doubt, that Team Coco was going to win. Even Guido’s comment about me being one of the strongest on my team was too much to bear. But in the end he loved the “aloofness” of Zilin and chose Team Naomi. I’m pretty sure the entire cast and crew was shocked about that decision. Even members of Team Karolina came up to us afterward completely flabbergasted, commenting on how Team Naomi’s commercial looking like “soft-core porn” versus our tasteful display of Cosabella beauty. So now the world can go out and buy Cosabella’s special edition Never Say Never panty packs with Jocelyn, Zilin and Sandra’s faces on them. Enjoy!
This was an emotional loss for Team Coco, and Sandra’s dramatic celebration of screaming, jumping and running around was like pouring salt on our wounds. None of us deserved to be put up for elimination, let alone to be sent home. Coco had a tough decision to make — I’m sure she was terrified to send any of her girls in the ring with Naomi Campbell choosing their fates, but someone had to go. Coco came into our room on the verge of tears, saying how the decision was killing her and how we all did an amazing job, but in the end she had to pick someone. I knew I was going to be safe, and figured Brittany probably was too — we both performed well in the test shoot and in the campaign, so it was between Marlee and Stephanie. But out of complete fairness she chose Stephanie again. Stephanie had totally stepped up her game but her overall performance just wasn’t as strong as the rest of us. So she was going to have to face Naomi in the elimination room, her second time there.
Karolina chose Christy for switching up her role mid-commercial and confusing their entire team. Christy felt that experience paired with her “extremely long legs and bombshell hair” were enough to keep her in the game. Ironically, after talking all of that crap behind Stephanie’s back, Christy couldn’t even muster a defense in front of Naomi, making it all that easier for Naomi to tell Christy that she was “not The Face” and saving Stephanie. Naomi definitely made the right choice, making Stephanie and Team Coco very happy.
The show closed with Christy sitting down in front of the lone makeup table to wipe her face clean and speak her parting words. “I feel that the total wrong choice was made. Just because this is a model competition, I’m 5’ 11.5” and 117 pounds, and the girl that got to stay is about 5’ 8” and probably 165 pounds.” Again, modeling, according to Christy Nelson, is one word: “classy.” Being a model isn’t about having one set of characteristics. There are so many different models that are of different heights, weights, skin colors and textures and with varying facial features. So for Christy to say that she was built for this over Stephanie was totally ignorant and rude and she should be ashamed to call herself a model. I’m just glad we all got to see this side of Christy. The Face is one of the few reality television shows that is actually “real” on occasion. I assure you none of the girls knew that Christy was like that. Good riddance and tune in next week to see what happens!
The Face airs Tuesdays at 9/8c on Oxygen.
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