Andrej Pejic is a genetic anomaly of such staggering beauty that the title of New York’s cover story on the Bosnian-born model, The Prettiest Boy In The World, doesn’t feel all that hyperbolic. But as Pejic himself proves, he’s more than just a pretty face. Much more. He is hilariously deadpan, hyper-aware of how others perceive him (erroneously in most cases) and sarcastic when discussing his ascendency into modelling’s elite. Example? He threatens to release a sex tape should his modelling career wane, refers to his androgyny and the confusion it creates as “the situation” (only slightly less confusing than the other “Situation”) and recently faked a pregnancy using a styrofoam baby bump. Below, our favourite quotes from the prettiest self-deprecating boy in the world…
On trying to make it in London: “I remember it was raining and horrible…I was walking in a street without an umbrella-it was a really dramatic, kind of movie moment-and I was just like, ‘Oh my God, I came to London, I spent my mom’s money, I’m not even gonna get an agency…It was like Madonna going to Hollywood.”
On his first cross-dressing editorial: “Carine Roitfeld was just like, ‘Put him in Fendi! My agency did ask me if I was comfortable with it, but I’ve been dressing in skirts since I was very little, so for me it was, ‘Of course’.”
Totally deadpan on his previous jobs: “I was cleaning toilets in a strip club,”
On moving to Melbourne as a child: “I was like, I’ll go if I get a new PlayStation…That’s how you think at that age.”
On developing his personal style: “The way I need to look, it’s a very personal thing..When I started experimenting, it was to make myself feel happy, to look in the mirror and be satisfied. I never did drag or anything like that. It was always that I wanted to be pretty, to look beautiful, as a girl would want to.”
On gender: “In this society, if a man is called a woman, that’s the biggest insult he could get…Is that because women are considered something less?”
On the commodification of his look: “I know people want me to sort of defend myself, to sit here and be like, ‘I’m a boy, but I wear makeup sometimes.’ But, you know, to me, it doesn’t really matter. I don’t really have that sort of strong gender identity-I identify as what I am. The fact that people are using it for creative or marketing purposes, it’s just kind of like having a skill and using it to earn money.”
On celebrating: “I like to party. You know, quite hard-core partying. I feel like at this age, it’s appropriate.”
On his just as ambiguous sexuality: “You know, I wouldn’t say that I’m really a sexual person…But I do appreciate love, and I would love to experience it someday. I don’t think I have yet…I find myself to be quite sarcastic, and I wouldn’t want to be with someone who didn’t get that.”
On pranks and pretending to be pregnancy at the airport: “You know how those Victoria’s Secret models, they have a baby and then they pop it out and then the next week, they’re skinny and they’re shooting and they’re on the runway? Well, I was going to do it in a day. That was the idea.” [Note: customs agents later apprehended him when they suspected there might be drugs in his belly.]
On media attention: “My whole life is controversy. What can I do? I’m like Britney Spears!”
On his base fee: “I don’t get out of bed for less than $50 a day. I want to make that clear to America. This is a new age of androgynous supermodels. We don’t get out of bed for less than $50 a day.”
On post-fashion career opportunities: “When you think I’m going down, I’ll come back with a sex tape, do you know what I mean? I’d bring in latex, make it really fashion, really artsy. Do a proper sex tape.”
Read the whole interview here.
