Iconic 1970s supermodel Beverly Johnson has revealed how she starved herself – not even drinking water – to keep her super-skinny 46kg figure.
The famous beauty, now 63, started her career at a tiny 56kg, but was deemed “too fat” and told to lose at least 10kg to book work.
To slim down, she stopped eating entirely, fuelling her body with coffee, alcohol and drugs.
“I was eating nothing, zero,” she told People magazine. “I drank black coffee, a sip of broth if things got tough, and in the evening, a glass of champagne as a pick me up. We didn’t even drink water. We thought it was fattening.
Beverly in her heyday in 1977.
“The skinnier you were, the more fabulous you were. Drug use was encouraged. It was like ‘Oh my god, you are chiselled to the bone.’
“All of the things you needed to be a high class model: high cheekbones, bright eyes, that was all provided by the drugs. It was like being offered a drink. It was one of the perks. People around us always had it.”
Beverly was the first black woman to grave the cover of Vogue, appearing on the front of the fashion bible’s August 1974 issue.
Beverly’s groundbreaking Vogue cover.
