Former Victoria’s Secret Model: ‘I Felt Like a Piece of Meat’
Published at | Updated at
John Parra/WireImage for Victoria’s Secret(NEW YORK) — When Kylie Bisutti was 19, she entered a model search and was chosen from among 10,000 women to become a Victoria’s Secret Angel, the beautiful supermodels who serve as the lingerie line’s brand ambassadors.
Bisutti retired her wings a few years later. At the time, Bisutti said, she wanted to pursue more wholesome modeling jobs because she was a Christian. But in a new interview in the New York Post, Bisutti explains why she decided to turn her back on the catwalk for good.
“I was being paid to strip down and pose provocatively to titillate men,” she said in the interview appearing on the paper’s website Wednesday. “It wasn’t about modeling clothes anymore; I felt like a piece of meat.”
The former model, now 23, says she was hit on constantly by photographers and male models.
“Once, a photographer actually pushed me up against the wall and tried to kiss me,” she said in the Post.
In the interview Bisutti says that when it came to Victoria’s Secret, she and other models were encouraged to play down relationships unless they were married to celebrities because “I was supposed to be flirting with everyone all the time.”
Victoria’s Secret wouldn’t comment on that allegation.
Bisutti lives in Montana with her husband and she says life outside the limelight is sweet.
In her new book, I’m No Angel, Bisutti says she wants women around the world to know beauty is not about looks, but about what’s in someone’s heart.
“Turns out God had a plan all along. I’ve never been more content,” she said.
Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio