I was always told to avoid being famous just for being famous. That's something that has always stuck in my mind. I like to work. It helps if you like what you do.

I've always been very shy of doing television. I've always said 'no.' Not to be disrespectful to anyone - I didn't want to say 'yes' and then let people down.

I'm not going to wallow in self-pity and not live my life. There are always going to be some falls in life for everybody, no matter what career you have. You have to roll with the punches and keep going.

When I started out modeling, there weren’t casting directors and there weren’t stylists, so you just dealt directly with the designer. We were all much closer back then...

My features are completely ethnic.

Patrick Demarchelier was the one who got me my first Vogue cover. It was French Vogue - I think in ’87 or ’88. I think I was the first black model to be on the cover of French Vogue, which was shocking to me because when I asked them about it, they were like, "Oh, no. We’ve never had that before."

I’ve been offered jobs by companies that supported apartheid many times in the 25 years of my modeling career, but I have never taken one of them. I have to refuse that money, because I’m not going to work against my people. They’ve suffered enough.