Supermodel Chrissy Teigen is famous for her sassy social media presence and her marriage to singer John Legend, but what was she up to before she took the world by storm?
She grew up all over the country
Chrissy Teigen was born in Utah and lived in Hawaii, Idaho and Washington State before her family settled in Huntington Beach, California, when she was a teenager.
She was discovered in a surf shop
Teigen was discovered by a photographer while working in a surf shop in Huntington Beach, California. “I remember talking to my boss at the surf shop — I had gotten booked for some stupid brochure,” she told The Daily Beast. “I was like, ‘This is my moment, I need the day off.’ And he was like, ‘Absolutely not.’ So I said, ‘Well, I quit then!’
She thought she didn’t have a model’s body
Teigen still has trouble calling herself a model. “I just never thought I was tall enough or skinny enough. [When I was starting] it was the time of the very thin, waify runway models. So, I knew I couldn’t do that.”
She was “old” when she was discovered
Teigen was 18 when she began modeling, which is considered a late start for the industry, where some careers begin as young as 4.
She was on ‘Deal or No Deal’
One of Teigen’s first jobs was as a substitute model on the TV game show Deal or No Deal, from 2006-2007.
Modeling wasn’t in her plans
“I always wanted to be a teacher or wanted to do something with food,” said Teigen. Today, her blog, So Delushious, is where she shares her love of good food.
She spent time in Thailand
The daughter of a Norwegian father and a Thai mother, Teigen visited her grandmother in Thailand often when she was growing up and has shared photos of herself as a child in the country on her Instagram.
She made her debut in ‘Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue’
Teigen’s big arrival on the modeling scene happened in 2010, when she appeared on Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue where she was named “Rookie of the Year.”
She did a lot of catalog work
Before she was shooting for magazines like Maxim, GQ, Cosmopolitan and Glamour and doing campaigns for Olay and Nike, Teigen’s main work came from catalogs. “To me at the time,” she said, “that was the biggest job ever.”
She lived in Miami
In the early days of modeling, Teigen spent four years living in Miami in an apartment with other models, who also did catalog work. “That’s where I got hope that you could make money just kind of being not a runway girl,” she said.
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