Cindy Crawford Slams Oprah for Treating Her Like 'Chattel' in Old Interview

Cindy Crawford sharply criticized Oprah Winfrey for her interview in 1986, in which the TV host asked the supermodel, who was 20 at the time, to display her body in front of the cameras. Crawford, 57, reflects on the experience in the now-streaming Apple TV+ documentary The Super Models, which discusses the careers of Naomi Campbell, Linda Evangelista, Christy Turlington, and Crawford, all of whom achieved fame in the late '80s. 

An excerpt from the documentary, per The Independent, shows Winfrey introducing the aspiring model to The Oprah Winfrey Show in the first few seconds before asking: "Did she always have this body? This is unbelievable. Stand up just a moment, now this is what I call a BODY." Crawford, accompanied by a representative from Elite Modelling Agency, John Casablancas, then sheepishly stood up in front of the studio audience and showed off her figure. 

Regarding the moment depicted in this new documentary, Crawford said, "I was like the chattel or a child, be seen and not heard. ... When you look at it through today's eyes, Oprah's like, 'Stand up and show me your body. Show us why you're worthy of being here.'" Crawford added, "In the moment I didn't recognize it and watching it back I was like, 'Oh my gosh, that was so not okay, really.' Especially from Oprah."

Winfrey also asked Crawford's representative a number of questions in the clip, including whether Crawford went through a "training period," to which Casablancas replied, "With Cindy, it was much more psychologically she was not sure she really wanted to model… she didn't see her potential as clearly as we did… for her, it was more a question of mental stability." "Little by little, her ambition is growing." Casablancas added, "I'm saying it now on this program, if she wants to she can be number one in the business."

The documentary also features Naomi Campbell discussing her experience with racism early in her career as a supermodel. In a particular instance, she recalled when a taxi driver presumed that she lived in Brooklyn because she was Black. "I would put my hands out many times on New York City streets, and the taxis would fly by," Campbell said. "Then Christy would put out the hand and they would stop. The guy would be like: 'I don't want to go to Brooklyn,' and I'm like: 'I'm not going to Brooklyn.'

"I was just like, why is he saying that? It didn't strike me until, you know, Christy would have to stand out in front of me, get me a taxi to get it to work." Previously, Campbell has spoken openly about the racism she faced when she started her career. In a personal essay for CNN Style in 2021, she wrote, "From attending auditions and performing at an early age, I understood what it meant to be Black. You had to put in the extra effort. You had to be twice as good."