Alexina Graham is one of the most recent Victoria’s Secret Angels, and the only naturally red-haired one at that, however the 29-year-old model who has joined others like Gigi Hadid, Bella Haidid, Kendall Jenner, Behati Prinsloo, Candice Swanepoel, Adriana Lima and Josephine Skriver wasn’t always so lucky and has faced her fair share of bad modelling gigs and agents.
In a recent candid interview on the podcast The Not So Simple Life, which is hosted by fashion models Kylie Vonnahme and Sophie Longford, Alexina revealed how she was body-shamed by her former agent and also opened up about her recent battle with Covid. Alexina, who is from the Midlands in the United Kingdom, also spoke about her story of becoming a model, how she managed to become an Angel, how she cured her adult acne after being wrongly diagnosed by her dermatologist, they also discussed the future of the Victoria’s Secret fashion show, and if it will ever make a comeback, among other things.
Talking about how she got the Victoria’s Secret gig, she said, “My agent called me and said they had some good news and when they said I was becoming an Angel I said ‘Shut up!’, I didn’t believe it… it was so surreal I couldn’t believe it.” She went on to add that it was because the girls were constantly competing with each other that they would be eating and training harder, she said, “VS don’t tell you to be skinny they don’t tell you lose weight, its just the girls’ mentality and how we are all competitive with each other.”
She shared how she was gorging on chocolate cake after her VS casting call as she had tried for two years and not gotten the gig, she shared that when she was told she got a call back, she exclaimed, “I’m eating chocolate cake!”
However, past modelling experiences weren’t as pleasant, and Alexina divulged, “They (her agent) said to me, ‘babe, you’re too fat’… and the next day…I walked into the agency with a McDonald’s (meal)!”
When asked what her routine is to prepare for the VS show, she said, “I can eat whatever I like I am quite lucky when it comes to metabolism, but I would workout twice a day before the show and before the casting but more or less I can eat whatever I like. Not like pizza or anything, but a balanced diet.”
Alexina also trains four times a week, doing weight training and Muay Thai to keep her lean figure looking picture-perfect at all times. She said, “It really helps with my mental health too, especially now when we’re just stuck in the house with nothing to really do outside anymore. Like you can’t go to a comedy club, you can’t socialize in a big groups so for me being stuck in the house I need to interact with somebody else.”
Talking about her difficult battle with adult acne and how it was wrongfully diagnosed as rosacea by an American doctor who just saw her and put her on excruciatingly painful medication, courses and treatments for rosacea, “That’s why sometimes I feel like think American doctors just want money, in England if you go to the NHS its free.” She also said that if she could do it all over again she would have gotten a second opinion, or headed to England for treatment. Her current doctor advised her to be ‘less stressed’ and to not eat too much ‘crap’.
Alexina also shared her skin journey on her Instagram handle sharing pictures of her breakouts, she captioned the video, “YouTube just released on my Acne Journey!! From the beginning, when I was first diagnosed wrong with rosacea, to meeting @phpaesthetic and with him working on getting my skin clear and healthy with creams, light peels, vitamins and micro-needling. Head over to my YouTube to see it all!! BUT it you don’t like blood- I highly recommend skipping the micro-needling at 5.50 to 6.18- there is quite a bit!”
In an interview with Glamour UK, Alexina had shared how she reacted when she found out she was a VS Angel, “I found out when I was having dinner with one of my best friends, just in a restaurant in Soho, New York. My agent sent me a screenshot of an email saying, ‘you are joining the VS family in 2019!’ So, I called her thinking she was joking, and she said, ‘no it’s true!’ So, me and my friend just got champagne – it was such a great way to find out! We kept it chic though, darling!”
Alexina was also diagnosed with Covid-19 in March spoke about her symptoms, “So I had the red eyes, I had fever of 107 degrees, I lost the use of my body I couldn’t really walk or anything, I had stomach pain, diarrhoea and sickness and I couldn’t breathe very well.”
Alexina also shared that her younger sister took care of her when she was sick and given that the model couldn’t talk and had a sore throat, her sister handed her a small blackboard so she could write instead of talking. Alexina also spoke about one incident when she was in the bath and read about a young girl who had died from Covid-19, and how she became emotional and began to cry. When she tried to get out of the bath, her legs collapsed under her weight and she fell naked on the floor. She said, “My sister asked my why I didn’t call her for help and I said it’s because I want to do something by myself, I have always done everything by myself.” Her younger sister then rest Alexina’s head on her lapt and said, “Great my 30-year-old sister lying naked on the floor, crying.” Alexina reminisced laughingly, “I kept saying ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry’.”
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