Supermodel, entrepreneur, and media mogul Tyra Banks is honored with the prestigious Luminary Spotlight Award at the 2025 ESSENCE Black Women in Hollywood celebration! Watch as Tyra delivers a powerful speech, reflecting on her trailblazing career, breaking barriers in the fashion and entertainment industries, and uplifting the next generation of Black women in media.
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00:00Hi everybody. How's everybody doing? Good? Well I am super touched and I want to speak to
00:14one person in this room and I'm gonna try not to cry.
00:20I want to speak to my mother and she's here. Mama can you raise your hand and wave?
00:30I want to speak to my mama because one thing that you said is resilience
00:37and that's not just me saying oh yeah girl you got knocked down keep getting up.
00:42That was somebody pulling me up, pulling me up.
00:50I remember and for y'all that were born after 1995 there was a time when there were no cell
00:58phones. There was no uber. There was none of that and I can remember living in Paris, France as a
01:06young model and going through hell and I walked three blocks to a pay phone and I called my mama
01:16and I said I can't, I can't continue. I have to, I'm just coming home and she says I didn't raise
01:24a quitter. That is not what we do and I kept going on because of you mama. I was paid 90 percent less
01:37than somebody that was less known than me and I cried and I said mama I'm not gonna sign this, I
01:45can't sign this and she says you will sign that because perception is reality. So you're gonna
01:52sign that and you're gonna be everywhere and then that perception is gonna make that next check
02:01worth what you are truly worth.
02:06And I signed it shaking and she was right. So thank you mama. Thank you.
02:16I want to thank Essence magazine because I remember being a young model in Paris and getting a phone call
02:28that Essence magazine wanted 19 year old me on the cover of their magazine
02:33and this it brought me to tears because that was my vogue. That was the magazine that was on
02:40our coffee table every single month and then cut to October 2024 when I decided to step on that
02:54damn catwalk again for Victoria's Secret Miss Tiana Taylor and I was like am I just gonna do this and
03:05just step away? But then Essence called again and said we want you on the cover of our magazine.
03:15So I came out of modeling retirement on a runway with Victoria's Secret and came out
03:21of modeling retirement at 51 years old on the cover of Essence magazine this month.
03:26I have dedicated my life to expanding the definition of beauty.
03:41Over 20 years ago I created a television show called America's Next Top Model
03:46and I fought and you guys have no idea how hard we fought to bring the diversity to that television
03:58show at a time where it didn't exist. To show different beauties at a time when the world was
04:04like what you casting that and what and what is that? A time when people in the fashion industry
04:11were telling me oh you putting the girls in the hood on your show? I was like why can the girl
04:16from the trailer park become a supermodel but the girl that's chilling in the park in the hood can't?
04:24And we fought and we struggled but we made it happen. Did we get it right? Hell no I said some
04:31dumb but I refuse to have my legacy be about some stuff linked together on the internet
04:43when there were 24 cycles of changing the world.
04:52We all evolve.
04:54We all get better together and I am so excited that I and so many of us has opened that door
05:03for others to follow and now my 51 year old dimple, cellulite, bigger tummy, 10 million times bigger
05:13titties is walking through that door that I opened with all of us behind us on that runway saying
05:21baby it's just beginning. Thank you so much mama.