… crashing the DSquared casting. I was like ‘Sh*t man, I got to do something,’ and there were still castings going on. DSquared didn’t even request me. I just crashed the casting, got put on option, then got released, then got called back, and then I got the show and the show led to the Ciara video [for “Sorry.”] But that’s a whole different story.”
“Now I’ve gotten to a point in my career where I can call [racism] out and people will respect that. But that was one of the things I had to do to get to the point where I could be an advocate for talking about certain issues like that. Because I’m sure it’s still happening. No one knew it was happening to me, but if I say it now, other black male models will say ‘That happened to me,’ ‘That happened to me yesterday.'”
“When you’re a black boy in modeling, you have to be the cream of the crop. They’re only signing you if they see the star in you and think you’re definitely going to blow up. A lot of the guys I was going into the industry with were already established, Tyson Beckford included. It was really really difficult to get into the door. Not even getting in. Once you’re in the door, you still have to fight to maximize the limited space you’ve been given. So, yeah, I can get a Marc Jacobs call, but there’s gonna be all those other established black boys there, and on top of that I have to compete with the white boys, which is already hard enough. It’s a double competition and you’re starting at the very bottom of the barrel.”