Whitney Thompson, 2008 winner of “America’s Next Top Model” has a lot of weight on her shoulders.
The only plus-sized winner of the Tyra Banks competition show quickly realized she had to represent beauty in all shapes, sizes and forms.
Now the “big” girl with bigger dreams — she already has a jewelry and candle line — is taking on the dating business.
The Big and Beautiful (thebigandbeautiful.com) caters to curvy women. It’s as simple as that.
“My biggest problem in online dating was that I would meet these guys and I would put on the site that I was a plus-sized model and then you know, guys wouldn’t want to date me,” she says. “But then I would just put a model and then when they met me they would be disappointed, so there was no happy medium.”
Which is why Thompson, now 24, says she set out on a crusade to ensure that other women wouldn’t feel the way she once did.
“If you’re a really tall girl or a really curvy girl and you’ve been trying to hide it all your life, instead you’re celebrating it,” she says. “Then you find a guy who likes really tall girls.”
The web site costs $40 a month and users can customize what they’re looking for, whether it’s a date, a hookup, or something long-term.
When asked if she’s concerned that the site will attract men who fetishize these types of women, Thompson says she has it under control — for now.
“We sift through the men on the site to make sure they’re not just chasing after these types of women,” she says. “You can tell if they’re chasers from their profile names or what they say in them.”
The site drew 95,000 users sin its first few days.
“Men want to meet real women!” she says. “
We have this idea in our head on what is sexy, like Calista Flockhart or Victoria’s Secret girls — these lollipops with breast implants. All of the plus-sized girls I know are attractive, they all have boyfriends; that’s what’s attractive.”
Thompson says she constantly had to prove that her body type was just as beautiful as the stick-skinny models she was competing with on “ANTM.”
“Girls in the house — some even my friends — would tell me that I’m fat, like Stacy Ann,” she recalls. “I’m like, yes, I hope you’re saying p-h-a-t, which I am, thanks.”
It was a tough environment and Thompson says that the girls were always on edge.
“We were running on fumes, running on no sleep, weren’t eating, it was super competitive,” she says.
But she does say it was all worth it in the end — especially because she was able to meet Tyra Banks, one of her heroes.
“She’s still the one celebrity when I’m in the room I’m like, ‘Oh my God, that’s her.’ I can’t talk. It’s weird because I’ve seen her a thousand times, I’ve been on her show and I’ve hosted with her,” she says.
Though she doesn’t keep in contact with Banks, she says she’ll receive messages from her here and there.
“She follows my career, but we’re not grabbing coffee together,” she says.
After she had won the title — which she admits was totally unexpected — the Hell’s Kitchen resident began feeling the jealousy from other girls, some her friends.
One example: Her friend and that year’s runner-up Anya Rozova.
“She had issues with me winning,” she says. “The last time I saw her — we would hang out all the time and I’d pay for her always — we were having breakfast and she called me fat. Like, seriously called me fat because I was eating and she was having coffee and she was upset. I was like, ‘Okay, here I am paying for your breakfast,’ so yeah, I haven’t talked to her since.”
She has also found that women in the real world were just as vicious.
“People would call me fat all the time from blogs or on the streets,” she says. “I really hate that word especially because I’m not. I’m muscular, I don’t have rolls, my BMI is where it’s supposed to be. I’m a girl, I’m human.”
These days when the Wilhelmina model isn’t flying to different cities for gigs, she’s enjoying New York City life.
Though she says she’s single, her mother — up from Florida for a visit — says that she’s going to meet her daughter’s new man.
Thompson may shy away about who she’s dating, but she’s confident about one thing: sex.
“Women have sex, curvy girls have sex, too — and there’s more to love. Because hey, there’s more to hold onto.”
