Tyra Banks and the Intimacy of the Icky

Tyra Banks—creator of the smize, fashion’s high priestess of the televised makeover, woman who built a global empire on cheekbones and camera angles—has revealed something you can’t quite un-hear: she enjoys digging dirt from the bottoms of her feet and popping pimples. With the same deadpan enthusiasm she once reserved for teaching young women to “find the light,” she now offers this detail like it were a skincare tip on America’s Next Top Model. It’s less shocking than it is oddly magnetic—like watching royalty take out the trash and wave.

What do we do with a confession like this? In an age when public figures are endlessly curated and algorithmically sanded down, there’s something jarring about a woman so synonymous with beauty welcoming the grotesque into her personal canon. But Banks isn’t interested in shame. “It feels so satisfying,” she said, almost serenely. That’s the part that makes you pause—not the act itself, but her comfort in owning it, unfiltered, unbothered, and unapologetically human.

Beneath the Heels, the Dirt

This isn’t about hygiene. It’s about honesty—intimacy even. We’ve entered an era where audiences want vulnerability with the polish, gross-out with the glamour. When Banks gives you her blemishes, she’s playing a different kind of power move: dethroning the immaculate image she once constructed. And perhaps, in her mind, elevating the mess as a new kind of luxury—something private, primal, untouched by social media filters and red carpet stylists.

There’s also a quiet rebellion in her words. A refusal to participate in the aesthetic perfection she once dictated. In the same way punk made a mess of pop, Tyra’s small admission hints at a model gone rogue. She’s not trading in beauty—she’s baring the scaffolding. It’s oddly reminiscent of the moment when Marilyn Monroe admitted she slept in nothing but Chanel No. 5. Only this time, it’s exfoliation by excavation.

The Glamour of the Grotesque

What’s curious is how the internet responded not with horror, but glee. The meme-ification of Tyra’s confession was immediate, yes—but it wasn’t mocking. It was bonding. A strange new form of parasocial closeness. If supermodels can get dirty, maybe we’re not so off-track ourselves. If Tyra can indulge in the disgusting, maybe beauty isn’t about distance, but proximity—how close we’re willing to get to the real.

Or maybe we’re simply starving for anything that feels unscripted. Maybe the new frontier of fame isn’t curated candor but authentic cringe—the kind that feels as human as it does headline-worthy. Maybe that dirt under Tyra’s feet is more honest than a million filtered selfies.

One wonders, after all this time, if Tyra is still selling beauty—or finally, and more seductively, selling the truth.