Now nearly 30, A&E Heavy reality TV star Tess Holliday is all about changing minds about what sexy can be. The size-22 plus-sized model has made history as the largest lady to ever sign a major modeling contract. One shouldn't think, however, that the 29-year-old beauty happened into her new career by accident following her exposure on a national cable show. Tess' mom has been taking her to modeling calls since she was a just 15-year-old girl from rural Mississippi trying to find a voice in the world of fashion.
At 5'5" and 260-pounds, Tess Holliday fully expects everyone to assume that her life must have been an absolute hell before MiLK Model Management came calling not all that long ago, but the larger-than-life beauty wants everyone to know that they are wrong.
In an interview with SLiNK, Tess took umbrage with the idea that everyone that isn't a certain shape and size lives unhappy and unproductive lives ultimately just waiting for death to come realse them from their collective misery: (via Life & Style Magazine):
"People assume that fat people live miserable lives, that being my size is a death sentence"
"I think people need to be taught that when you get past a size sixteen you still have sex and you have sex a lot and that you have healthy relationships...That you live your life, have fun."
All that having been said, Tess wouldn't want you to think that it's been all smooth sailing getting to where she is today.
Holliday explained in the March 9, issue of In Touch that for years here mom would take her to audition after audition just to get her heart broken:
"My mom took me to modeling callsfrom the time I was 15...But they always told me I was too big."
Even more upsetting, says Tess, was the near-constant torment she suffered at the hands of some of her mean spirited peers and neighbors:
"They called me 'rhino', [and] pushed me into lockers.
"Some even sent notes to my house, saying they wished I was dead."
Well...now she's traveling the world as a famous model, and they are still mouth breathers stuck in rural Mississippi -- a fate worse than death, no doubt.
