A top fashion industry player stormed out mid-interview with ‘60 Minutes‘ host Tara Brown, after becoming agitated with the line of questioning.
The report – which aired on Channel 9 last night – was an explosive look into the exploitative nature of the modelling industry, where young girls are starving themselves to meet the impossible standards required.
Much of the report focused on French ex-model Victoire Macon Dauxerre, who battled anorexia during her time in the industry and penned an memoir in 2016 called ‘Never Skinny Enough: the Diary of a Top Model‘.
In 2010, 17-year-old French model Victoire weighed a slim 58 kilos – yet was told she was 10 kilos overweight for the runway. #60Mins pic.twitter.com/ecqHWAv7jk
— 60 Minutes Australia (@60Mins) April 2, 2017
In the course of things, Brown lined up an interview with Carole White, owner of Premier Model Management, to address claims made by the tell-all. (Dauxerre was never signed to Premier Model Management, but worked for a rival company.)
The interview started off well, if by “well” you mean White becoming highly defensive when probed about the expectations on models to stay thin (she demanded proof of models dealing with anorexia, and insisted that her models simply had fast metabolisms to keep off the weight from the Big Macs and chips they were apparently eating all the time).
But it was when Brown asked her about Dauxerre’s claim that models would lie about their real size to get booked for fashion week, in the hope that they would lose the weight by then, that White began to get quite agitated.
“Not here,” she said, appearing to visibly lose the train of her argument. “Your words are really quite strong, actually. It’s sort of quite annoying me. ‘Lying’.”
Brown attempted to placate her and move the conversation along. “I’m not trying to annoy you, Carole, but there’s clearly a problem in the industry with people being asked to do stuff that is unhealthy,” she said.
“I’m very happy to answer, but I don’t like your terminology and I don’t like how you’re asking me the questions.” She turned to the camera. “You still fucking filming me? Just don’t.”
She stands up. “I’m really annoyed because I thought this would be quite a broad interview,” she says, walking out of the office with a dejected Brown offering a “thank you for your time.”
You can catch up on the episode here.
Photo: 60 Minutes.
