Tyra Banks has reopened old wounds while reflecting on getting her start as a supermodel in the '90s when alleged rival Naomi Campbell was already a big name.
Banks, 45, says in a new interview with the Wall Street Journal that Campbell, 49, did "everything in her power" to make the younger model "go away."
The topic came up when the interviewer asked if their long-rumored feud was a "manufactured rivalry."
"No," Banks was sure to point out.
Banks, who booked a whopping 25 shows in her first runway season during 1991's Paris Fashion Week, added, "It wasn't a rivalry, and I'm very sensitive to that word because a rivalry is with two equals, to me, whereas one was very dominant. She was a supermodel and I was just some new girl that got on a plane from Paris and was studying fashion and magazines at a fashion library."
The California-born model, who went on to create and host the reality TV series "America's Next Top Model," describes her early days in Paris as "very painful."
"As much as I was booking every single fashion show, people didn't know I was going home at night crying my eyes out because a woman that I was looking up to seemed like she just didn't want me to be there and was doing everything in her power to make me go away," Banks told the Journal. "And I didn't understand that as a young girl. Like, 'Why is she doing this? This is so evil. This is so awful.'"
Banks added, "the adult me understands that she was reacting to an industry," implying that Campbell was responding to the media and fashion insiders pitting the two models against each other. She gave an example of, "'Naomi, look out, there's a black girl that's going to take your spot.'"
A rep for Campbell did not immediately return the Daily News' request for comment.
