The most beautiful thin black women

Here are the most beautiful thin black women in the world that I know of who are also famous enough to be in the Wikipedia. Just my opinion, of course. This is a work in progress. I am open to suggestions.

Just where the line between thin and thick falls is a matter of judgement. I left off women who were close cases.

1. Vilayna Lasalle is an American swimsuit model and video vixen. Her face is perfect. She is part Brazilian and Louisiana Creole. More.

2. Jill Marie Jones (1975- ) is an American actress. She starred in the television show “Girlfriends” and was once a cheerleader for the Dallas Cowboys. I cannot take my eyes off her. More.

3. Naomi Campbell (1970- ) is a British supermodel from the 1990s. A great face and great legs. Somehow I never get tired of looking at her. More.

4. Sade (1959- ) is a Nigerian-born British singer from the 1980s. She has that otherworldly look, like a princess from a storybook.  More.

5. Beverly Peele was an American supermodel from the 1990s. I only saw a few pictures of her on the Internet back then, but she was great! More.

6. Lauryn Hill (1975- ) is an American singer from the 1990s. She was part of the Fugees and then later sang on her own. In 1998 she came out with “The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill”.

7. Ildi Silva (1982- ) is a Brazilian television actress from Bahia. She was discovered on the streets of Salvador and became a model. She says that in Brazil she is seen as neither black nor white. According to the BBC she is one-fifth African by blood and one-tenth native Indian. Her green eyes are Dutch. More.

8. YaYa Da Costa (1982- ) is an American model and actress. She came in second in 2004 on season three of Tyra Banks’s “America’s Next Top Model”. She beat Toccara Jones but lost to Eva Pigford. She is part Brazilian. More.

9. Bre Scullark (1985- ) is an American fashion model. In 2005 she came in third place on season five of “America’s Next Top Model”. More.

10. Rojane Fradique (1986- ) is a Brazilian fashion model from Bahia. She is tall (1.82 metres), extremely thin but looks like a work of art. In 2003 she placed second in Brazil in the Elite Model Look contest and 15th worldwide. More.

Of all my posts on this blog the one about thick black women gets the most comments by far. There I said I liked thick women more than thin ones. All things being equal, that is true. But in most cases all things are not equal and, as it turns out, a woman’s eyes, not her figure, matter to me more when it comes to physical beauty.

I think thin women are beautiful too. Proof of that is that I have written about nine of these women and their beauty already. The first two are on my list of the ten most beautiful women in the world – of any shape or any colour.

See also:

• What I find beautiful in women
• thick black women
• The ten most beautiful women in the world
• Lists of beautiful black women:
  • The most beautiful black women
  • actresses
    • Nigerian actresses
  • Brazilian
  • models

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Donyale Luna

Donyale Luna (1945-1979) was an American fashion model from the 1960s. In March 1966 she became  the first black woman ever to appear on the cover of British Vogue. She also appeared in a number of films by Warhol, Fellini and Otto Preminger.

She was beautiful and troubled, tall and strange. Like a shooting star she was here and then she was gone. She died of drugs at 34.

She was 5 foot 10 (1.78 m) and her measurements were 31-21.5-36 (79-55-91 cm), giving her a waist-to-hip ration (WHR) of 0.60. That is extremely low for a fashion model, but this was just before Twiggy changed everything.

She was born Peggy Freeman in Detroit. Her father was a mean man who was murdered when she was 18. She said he was not her true father, but a man who came from Mexico with the name of Luna.

She was discovered in Detroit by photographer David McCabe. Her mother wanted her to stay in Detroit and become a nurse. She went to New York and became a model. When she walked through the doors of Harper’s Bazaar magazine, they called her “an extraordinary apparition”. They put a drawing of her on their cover in 1965. It made her name.

She did not like New York:

There were bad things. People were on drugs or hung up on pot. There was homosexuality and lesbianism and people who liked to hurt.

So in December 1965 she fled to London and Paris, where she made $60 an hour (48 crowns an hour), a good rate in those days.

She was the first black woman on the cover of British Vogue, but her hand covers half her face so that you cannot tell she is black: she could be Italian or Middle Eastern. Reportedly that was done so its regular readers would not be upset.

But it was not just Vogue that had a hard time accepting her race. She did too. She did not like it when people brought up the fact that she was black. In 1968 when asked about breaking down doors as a black actress, she said:

If it brings about more jobs for Mexicans, Chinese, Indians, Negroes, groovy. It could be good, it could be bad. I couldn’t care less.

She lived the high life, hung with the Rolling Stones and discovered LSD. But then she began to act even more strangely. Beverly Johnson said she “doesn’t wear shoes winter or summer. Ask her where she’s from – Mars? She went up and down the runways on her hands and knees. She didn’t show up for bookings. She didn’t have a hard time, she made it hard for herself.” Her modelling days were soon over.

She appeared in some films: “Satyricon” (1969) by Fellini, “Camp” (1965) by Warhol and she played the lead in “Salome” (1972). You can see her on “The Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson” for December 12th 1966.

She appeared in Playboy in May 1975 in a picture of her naked taken by her lover, Luigi Cazzaniga. Their daughter still lives in Italy where she is a dancer.

See also:

• The Luna Year – a Time magazine article about her from April 1st 1966.
• black fashion models
• Twiggy
• WHR: waist to hip ratio
• Playboy
• black racism
• crowns

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Jessica White

Jessica White (1984- ) is an American fashion and print model. Tyra Banks has called her “the model of her generation”. Although best known as a swimsuit model in Sports Illustrated, where she has appeared for each of the past five years (2003-2008 – a record for a black model), she is also a serious fashion model, having appeared on the runway for top New York designers like Ralph Lauren, Oscar de la Renta and Tommy Hilfiger.

She is that black girl in the Robin Thicke music video “The Sweetest Love” (2008).

She is the first – and so far only – black model to land not one but two make-up contracts: first CoverGirl at age 16 and then Maybelline in 2007.

She has also modelled for RocaWear, Sean John, Baby Phat and Victoria’s Secret, among others, and appeared in Harper’s Bazaar (twice), Teen Vogue and King and on the covers of Surface and Trace.

She is 176.5 cm tall (five foot nine and a half). Her measurments are 34-24-34 (86.5-61-86.5 cm), giving her a waist-to-hip ratio (WHR) of 0.71. She is thin with large breasts and long legs.

She grew up in in a rough part of Buffalo, New York. When she was seven her father got very sick and died. By 12 she was drinking and getting into fights; at 13 she began to smoke pot and at 14 she was raped by someone she knew. But that same year she went to modelling school and was discovered two years later. She went to Paris to become a model. Within six months she was modelling for CoverGirl, Chloe (Spring 2001) and the Gap.

In 2002 she moved to New York and modelled for the top fashion designers there. A year later she was in Sports Illustrated. That made her name.

Even though she was making unimaginable amounts of money, she was spending it even faster and went broke. She did not even have proper shoes for the snow in New York. She became a drunk and got hooked on cocaine too. She was growing up lost:

I felt like it was more important to them for me to make the money and become famous instead of concentrating on the person who had a soul who was lost and needed some help and foundation, and I wasn’t getting it.

In 2008 she moved back to Buffalo. “I never thought I would be back in Buffalo,” she said. “I had decided I was moving to London, marry some English guy and have some cute little biracial babies. It has to be God that I’m back here.”

She still models, but she is proudest of her work with troubled girls, girls who are like how she used to be. She wants to open a halfway house for them.

It was turning to God that got her off of drink and drugs. Now she has a different view of life:

The biggest part is realizing I’m not just here to take pictures – God makes all of that happen – but because I am a Christian, it is to shine and make a statement just for God.

See also:

• black fashion models
• The most beautiful black women models
• Tyra Banks
• Beverly Peele
• WHR: waist to hip ratio
• New York
• Christianity

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Beverly Peele

Beverly Peele (1975- ), an American supermodel, was one of the top fashion and print models of the early 1990s.

She started modelling on the runways of Paris at age 12. In 1989, by age 14, she had made her first million and became the first black woman to appear on the cover of Mademoiselle magazine. In 1993, at age 18, People magazine named her one of the 50 most beautiful people in the world. She appeared on hundreds of magazine covers. All the top fashion designers wanted her.

But then suddenly it all came to end.

Where Naomi and Tyra had wanted to be models since they were little girls, she did not. She said she wanted to be a plumber. So she was not willing to play the game. And when she got pregnant at 18 she had the baby against all advice: they said it would mess up her looks, that she would never work again. Even her mother would not to speak to her (at first). She did not care. The baby was more important.

After she had the baby she came back to modelling, but she failed to make a comeback. In 1997 she went into acting, but with small success.

She is one of the most beautiful black supermodels of all time, but because she rose and fell before the rise of the Web, there are not many pictures of her on the Internet, and what you see are not even her best.

She grew up in suburban Los Angeles but went to the school where her mother worked in South Central.

At 11 her mother made her take an etiquette course to learn “how not to be klutzy”. She learned to walk with grace. That and her long legs helped her to win modelling contests and before she knew it she was on the runways in Paris.

At her height she spent money so freely people called her C-Note. She had a three-floor apartment in New York. Because money came so easily to her so young, she had no idea of money management. She also started doing drugs. She was far from home and growing up too fast. After she had the baby, it was all over.

Ten years later, in 2005, she found a lost credit card in a supermarket and used it to buy a washer, dryer, refrigerator and other stuff for her house. It went to court and in 2006 the judge sentenced her to three years’ probation, 300 hours of community service and, of course, she had to pay back everything – and something else to American Express for their troubles.

In 2006 she went on the “Tyra Banks Show” to warn women of the dark side of modelling.

Peele first ran into Tyra Banks years before in Venice. Tyra at the time was 17 and broke in a foreign country. Peele helped her out.

Peele is six feet tall (1.83 metres). In 1989 her measurements were 33.5-22-33 (85-56-84 cm). That gives her a waist-to-hip (WHR) ratio of 0.67, which is on the low side for a fashion model.

See also:

• The most beautiful black women models
• black fashion models
• Tyra Banks – another black supermodel from the same time and place with far more drive and discipline – but less natural beauty.
  
• Naomi Campbell
• Lisa Bonet – whose life offers interesting parallels

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Thandie Newton

Thandie Newton (1972- ) is a British film actress. She starred opposite Tom Cruise in “Mission Impossible 2″ (2000) and was Will Smith’s hateful wife in “The Pursuit of Happyness” (2006).

Born in London to a white father (English) and a black African mother (Shona), she grew up in England and later came to Hollywood. She was shocked at how much her skin colour mattered there – more than in Africa or England. Tom Cruise had to fight for her to star opposite him.

She says that both whites and blacks in Hollywood thought she could only play a black woman and, not say, just a woman. It would be like limiting Lauren Bacall to parts for Jewish women.

But it gets worse.

For some parts she is seen as not being “black enough”. And yet in at least one case a white actress got a part that she would have been great for: in 2006 in “A Mighty Heart” the half-black wife of Daniel Pearl was played by Angelina Jolie (white) and not by herself (half-black).  (On the other hand, Newton did get to play Sally Hemings, who was only one-fourth black).

Her beauty and sex appeal:

• In 2008 she was one of the most beautiful black women according to white people. In the lists that white English-speaking people make of the most beautiful women and put up on the Web, only Beyonce, Mariah, Halle and Tyra make more lists than she does.
• In 2002 Stuff magazine ranked her as the 48th sexiest woman in the world.
• In 2000 the readers of Black Men magazine picked her as one of “The 10 Sexiest Women of the Year”.

Some say she was born in Africa, but she says she was in fact born in London when her parents were there for two weeks. Her mother comes from Africa, from a country now known as Zimbabwe, but then called Rhodesia.  Newton says her mother was a Shona princess.”Thandie” comes from thandiwe, which means “beloved”.

She grew up in Zambia in Africa and in Cornwall in England. Growing up watching her mother dress as an African taught Newton to be proud to be black.

At 11 she went to London to study dance, but hurt her back and went into acting instead. While pursuing her acting, she got a degree in anthropology at Cambridge University.

When she first came to Hollywood she had a hard time getting parts in film – not only was she black, she had a British accent. But in time she got noticed.

Some of her films:

• 2008: W (out now – she plays Condi Rice)
• 2007: Norbit
• 2006: The Pursuit of Happyness
• 2004: The Chronicles of Riddick
• 2002: The Truth about Charlie
• 2000: Mission Impossible II
• 1998: Beloved
• 1995: Jefferson in Paris (plays Sally Hemings)
• 1991: Flirting

Doing “Mission impossible II” meant giving up a lead in “Charlie’s Angels” (2000) to Lucy Liu.

In 1994 she dated Brad Pitt.

In 1998 she married a British television writer and director, Ol Parker. They have two daughters, Ripley (2000) and Nico (2004). Ripley is named after Sigourney Weaver’s character in “Alien” and Nico after the German singer who was once part of the Velvet Underground.

See also:

• black actresses
• Hollywood
• The most beautiful black women according to white people
• Black Men magazine
• Sally Hemings
• Condoleezza Rice

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Bre Scullark

Brittany “Bre” Scullark (1985- ) is an American fashion model for the Ford modelling agency. In 2005 she came in third place on season five of Tyra Banks’s television show “America’s Next Top Model” (ANTM). In 2008 you sometimes see her on the “Tyra Banks Show”, as beautiful as ever. What eyes! And what amazing cheeks!

“Bre” (sounds like “Bree”) is what her friends have long called her.

After the show she landed a print modelling contract for Dark and Lovely hair colouring, appearing on their boxes. She has modelled for Prada, Valentino and Nicole Miller. She has been in television ads for Target, Old Navy and Pantene and is a spokesmodel for Ambi Skincare.

Magazines she has appeared in, among others: Vibe (June 2006), Essence, ElleGirl, CosmoGirl (June/July 2008), Hype Hair, Mahogany, Cover and Six Degrees.

You can see her in the music video “Change Me” by Ruben Studdard.

She has also been a television presenter on the show “Certified” for Music Choice. She is good on camera – or maybe it just seems that way to me because I am so taken by her beauty.

She is from New York, growing up in Harlem, which she has seen go from crack to Starbucks. She goes to the Abyssinian Baptist Church.

She had always wanted to be a model, but she never thought it would come to pass. But then one day she went down to Macy’s to try out for “America’s Next Top Model”. She and 2400 other women! That night she slept on cardboard on the pavement to keep her place in line. The next day she tried out. They kept calling her back and calling her back and then they sent her to Los Angeles: she had beat out 36,000 women all across the country for a place on the show!

Although she came a long way on the show, the judges felt that Nicole Linkletter and even Nik Place were better (but where are they now?). She was CoverGirl of the Week twice. Twiggy was one of the judges.

On the show she is probably best remembered for the Stolen Granola Bar Incident. She accused Nicole of taking her Granola bar. To get back at Nicole she emptied her Red Bull drinks and refused to pay for them. Looking back she now thinks the television producers took her Granola bar to set her off.

She says the show was a very humbling experience. Tyra Banks taught her how to handle herself as a young woman. The show changed her life, almost overnight, making her name as a model.

Her two heroes are Jesus and her mother.

She likes gopel music and hip hop, particularly Lil Wayne and T-Pain.

She has a butterfly tattoo above her left breast.

Some on the show said she was too short. She is 5 foot 8 or 172.5 cm, which is at the low end for models.

She says that if you want to model, do not let your skin colour or shade or your size stop you.

She says:

Succeed in stepping stones, never expect longevity in this career overnight, or it wouldn’t be well deserved.

See also:

• fashion model
• black fashion models
• Tyra Banks
• Twiggy
• YaYa Da Costa
• Harlem
• hip hop music
• Jesus Christ

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Marilyn Monroe

Marilyn Monroe (1926-1962), the stage name of Norma Jeane Baker, was an American beauty and Hollywood actress. She appeared in the first issue of Playboy magazine and in dozens of largely forgettable films in the 1950s. What she is most remembered for is her beauty and a life cut short.

The best-selling song of the 1900s was written by Elton John about her: “Candle in the Wind”. Andy Warhol’s most famous painting is of her. She is far more famous now than she ever was in life.

Her best-remembered films are “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” (1953) and “Some Like it Hot” (1959). She wanted to be a serious actress, not just a blonde beauty. She modelled herself on Jean Harlow and Lana Turner.

The daughter of a Hollywood film cutter, she grew up in Los Angeles never knowing her father and barely seeing her mother, who was in a rest home. In 1942 she married at age 16. Two years later her husband went off to war. While he was gone, she worked at a parachute factory and started modelling.

In 1946 she signed with Twentieth Century Fox as an actress, making $125 (150 crowns) a week. She coloured her hair, took the stage name of Marilyn Monroe and divorced her husband. “Monroe” was her grandmother’s name.

On May 27th 1949, short on money, she posed naked for some pictures for Tom Kelley for $50 (70 crowns). Four years later in 1953 those same pictures would appear across the country in the first issue of Playboy magazine. It made her famous.

She was different than most Hollywood beauties that came before her. In the 1940s they tended to be thin with dark hair and great legs. But Monroe had light hair (coloured, not natural), large breasts and an hourglass figure. She acted innocent and brainless, not worldly.

She shaped white American ideas of beauty and its effects can still be seen today more than 50 years later. The hourglass figure is out, but the blonde hair and large breasts are still in. Madonna in the 1980s and Anna Nicole Smith in the 1990s both modelled their look directly on hers.

Monroe was briefly married to baseball great Joe DiMaggio in 1954. Then she went to New York to study acting and there she had an affair with writer Arthur Miller. They were married from 1956 to 1961. He wrote “The Misfits” (1961), the last film she appeared in. He wrote her part especially for her.

Some say she slept with President John Kennedy in 1961 and maybe his brother Robert Kennedy. She certainly knew them.

She was found dead on August 5th 1962 at age 36 of a drug overdose. The police called it a “probable suicide”, but some suspect murder, perhaps at the hands of the Kennedys. The police said “probable” not because they thought it might be murder but because it is unclear if she meant to kill herself.

Her body is in a crypt in Los Angeles. Hugh Hefner, the founder of Playboy, owns the place next to hers.

In 1986 feminist Gloria Steinem wrote a book about her life.

See also:

• Hollywood
• white beauty: a brief history
• Playboy
• film
• Elizabeth Taylor
• Dorothy Dandridge
• Anna Nicole Smith

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Rosina Ferrara

Rosina Ferrara (1861-1934) was a beauty from the island of Capri off the coast of Italy. You see her picture in art museums all over the world because artists loved to paint and draw her, especially Frank Hyde and John Singer Sargent. For them she had an exotic beauty, one that reminded them of the women in ancient Greek art.

She had light brown skin, black curly hair and eyes like a panther. She looked like she was part Arab and part Greek. Some say that on her mother’s side she is related to Barbarossa, the Turkish pirate. She came from the town of Anacapri where the people are markedly Arab-looking.

Charles Sprague Pearce, a painter from Boston, said of her:

the tawney skinned, panther eyed, elf-like Rosina, wildest and lithest of all the savage creatures on the savage isle of Capri

Capri is a beautiful island near Naples. In the 1800s artists and writers loved to go there to do their work. The island was not only famous for its beauty, but also for its beautiful women, who looked exotic to the French, British and Americans. In the French imagination it was the sort of place where you might fall in love with a fisherman’s daughter (and later leave her).

And on that beautiful island of beautiful exotic women, some said that the most beautiful of all was Rosina Ferrara.

She was discovered by the French artist Chatran when she was about age 14. She became a model for Edward Vaux and then the British artist Frank Hyde.

Sargent arrived in Capri in 1878 when she was 16 or 17. He went to visit Frank Hyde, telling him what kind of model he was looking for. He showed her Rosina:

When he saw her he was so fascinated with her that he made three studies in profile of her, all of which he painted in my studio.

Sargent would go on to paint her 12 times during his year on Capri. Sargent tends to make people taller and thinner than they are, but he is good at catching their mood.

Sargent did not pay her for modelling, by the way. Instead he gave her a sculpture he made of her.

In addition to Chatran, Vaux, Hyde and Sargent, she has also been painted by George Randolph Barse (husband), Alfred Stevens (lover), Charles C. Coleman (good friend), Jean Benner and Charles Sprague Pearce (that painter from Boston). Many of these paintings are in private collections.

In 1883 she had a daughter, Maria Carlotta. No one knows who the father was. Some say it was a prince. She was famous enough and beautiful enough where that would not be out of the question.

In the middle 1880s she was the mistress of Alfred Stevens, a Belgian painter.

In 1891 she married an American painter, George Randolph Barse, and went away with him to live in America, in upstate New York in Katonah. She died of pneumonia at age 76 in Flushing, Queens in New York City.

See also:

• Simonetta Vespucci

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The most beautiful American women

Here are the ten most beautiful American women that I know of who are famous enough to be in the Wikipedia. I know not everyone will agree. It is merely my opinion.

I have made lists of beautiful women for Brazil and Nigeria, so it is about time I made one for America where I live!

I only count those born in America. Some of these women are no longer at the height of their beauty. I take that into account.

1. Vilayna Lasalle is an American swimsuit model and video vixen. Her face is perfect. From Texas. More

2. Jill Marie Jones (1975- ) is an American actress. She starred in the television show “Girlfriends” and was once a cheerleader for the Dallas Cowboys. What lips! She is not beautiful in an ordinary way, but somehow I cannot take my eyes off her. From Texas. More

3. Maria Shriver (1955- ) is the first lady of California. She used to be an American television news presenter in the 1980s. I would eat my Corn Flakes and just look at her, barely hearing the news. What a jaw! She is over 50 now, but even now she looks better on television than in still pictures. From Chicago. More.

4. Kim Kardashian (1980- ) party girl and friend of Paris Hilton. Did not like telling her grandmother that her sex video was on the Internet. From Los Angeles. More.

5. Sanaa Lathan (1971- ) is an American actress. She is probably best known as the heroine in “Alien vs. Predator”. I saw her in “Disappearing Acts” (2000) and could not take my eyes off her. Looking at her is like eating ice cream on a summer day. From New York. More

6. Gabrielle Union (1972- ) is an American actress. I will watch any film she appears in. From Nebraska. More

7. Ann Curry (1956- ) an American television news presenter, like Maria Shriver used to be. Again, I would just look at her and barely hear the news. Born in Guam, which counts as part of America.

8. Angelina Jolie (1975- ) is an American actress, regarded by some as the most beautiful woman in America. She often tops Google’s image search for “the most beautiful woman in the world”. She looks like a character out of Dick Tracy, but somehow her strange looks work and make her beautiful. What lips! From Los Angeles.

9. Lela Rochon (1964- ) is an American film actress. She was in “Waiting to Exhale” (1995). I first saw her in 1983 when she danced with Lionel Richie in “All Night Long”.  It has been hard for me to take my eyes off her ever since.  From Los Angeles. More.

10. Tamara Tunie (1959- ) is an American actress who was Jessica on “As the World Turns”. She is the only one on this list that I have seen in real life: I saw her in 1995 in Central Park in New York where she played Helen of Troy in Shakespeare’s “Troilus and Cressida”. She was beautiful! And to think she was already 36 then. From PIttsburgh. More.

See also:

• The ten most beautiful women in the world
• The most beautiful Brazilian women
• The most beautiful Nigerian actresses

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Brazilian models

Not only does Brazil have its own fashion industry, some Brazilian models are among the top supermodels of the world. Of the five top paid models in the world in 2007, three were Brazilian:

The best paid:

1. Gisele Bundchen (1980- ): $33 million (2.6 million crowns), the top paid and richest model in the world. She is worth about $150 million (12 million crowns) and has appeared on over 500 magazine covers. She left Victoria’s Secret in 2007. From Rio Grande do Sul. She is German on both sides of her family. 1.80 m. WHR 0.67.

4. Adriana Lima (1981- ): $6 million (a half million crowns). Spike TV in America says she is the hottest girl on the planet. More on her below. She is from Salvador, Bahia. She is part Swiss, black and native Indian. 1.78 m. WHR 0.69.

5. Alessandra Ambrosio (1981- ): $6 million. People magazine says she is one of the 100 most beautiful people in the world. From Rio Grande do Sul. She is part Italian, part Polish. She has wanted to be a model since she was eight. 1.78 m. WHR 0.67.

Kate Moss of Britain is #2 and Heidi Klum of Germany is #3.

Here is who I think are the most beautiful Brazilian models, of the ones I know of. Some no longer model, but they have all modelled at some point:

The most beautiful:

1. Taís Araújo (1978- ), from Rio, became the first black actress to appear as a main character in a telenovela on Brazilian television. She is a presenter on the television show “Superbonita”, about how to be beautiful! More.

2. Adriana Bombom (1974- ) is a Carnival queen from Rio. She she was once one of Xuxa’s helpers. What a body! More.

3. Ildi Silva (1982- ) is a television actress from Bahia. She was discovered on the streets of Salvador and became a model. More.

4. Rojane Fradique (1986- ) is a fashion model from Bahia in the north where most people are black. She is tall (1.82 metres), extremely thin but looks like a work of art. In 2003 she placed second in Brazil in the Elite Model Look contest and 15th worldwide. More.

5. Raica Oliveira (1984- ) is a model from Niteroi, near Rio. She now lives in New York with her mother. She has been on the runway in Paris and Milan and in many fashion magazines and makeup ads. She is friends with fellow Brazilian models Adriana Lima and Ana Beatriz Barros.

6. Adriana Lima (1981- ) She has modelled for Victoria’s Secret and Maybelline. She is friends with Raica Oliveira. More.

7. Fernanda Tavares (1980- ) is a supermodel from Natal.

8. Camila Pitanga (1977- ) is a Brazilian model and television actress from Rio. Best known in Brazil as Bebel on the telenovela “Paraíso Tropical”. Ildi Silva, listed above, plays a secretary on the same show. Her father is black, her mother is white.

9. Lucy Ramos (1982- ) is a model and television actress. She is best known for her role in the show “Sinhá Moça”. She was born in Recife in Pernambuco. More.

10. Marina Montini (1948-2006) was a beauty from Rio in the 1960s and 1970s. She was so beautiful that men painted pictures of her, especially Di Cavalcanti. Her heavy drinking brought her to an early end at age 58.

See also:

• fashion models
• black Brazilian models
• The most beautiful Brazilian women
• Brazil
• WHR: waist to hip ratio
• crowns
• models:
  • Adriana Lima
  • Rojane Fradique
  • Adriana Bombom
  • Ildi Silva
  • Taís Araújo
  • Lucy Ramos

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Hoopz

Nikki Alexander (1983- ), better known as Hoopz, is an American hip hip model. In 2006 she won the first season of the television show “Flavor of Love” on VH1. Hoopz is the name Flavor Flav gave her because she likes to play baseketball.

In August 2008 she was in “I Love Money”, another reality show on VH1, and in September she will appear on the cover of King magazine.

Most of the women on “Flavor of Love” are more body than beauty and seem more interested in becoming rich and famous than being with Flavor Flav – who, admittedly, is old enough to be their father. But Hoopz seemed different. From what I saw of the show, she had beauty and seemed to have a sense of dignity, a rare thing in reality television. She seemed to like Flavor Flav for himself.

The point of the show was to find Flavor Flav a girlfriend, but they were already casting for season two before season one was done. Hoopz said she was never in love with Flav – none of the women on the show were, not even New York. It is all just made-up for television.

She hated New York, who came in second.

Even before “Flavor of Love” she was not a complete unknown. She was an Internet model and in 2005 she won King magazine’s Web Girl of the Month. She was also in a Will Smith video and later appeared in Big Tigger’s 2006 swimsuit calendar as Miss April.

She has modelled for Titanium Girlz and Eye Candy Modeling.

Like most hip hop models who have reached this stage she is working on becoming an actress – a hard jump to make.

She has a good figure, but most of all, she has beautiful eyes. Her reported measurements are 34C-24-36 inches (86-61-91 cm). That gives her a waist-to-hip ratio of 0.67. She is 5 foot 2 tall (1.57 m).

She grew up just outside of Detroit, the oldest of six daughters. Her father is black, her mother is Italian-American. She looks kind of like the Hollywood actress Stacey Dash (whose mother is Mexican).

She has appeared in at least two music videos:

• Will Smith: Party Starter (2005)
• Lil Keke: Chunk Up the Deuce (2006)

Some say she had an affair with T.I. His girlfriend, Tiny of Xscape, was certainly afraid it might be true: she pulled him away from Hoopz at a party and then later bad-mouthed her on the radio. When Hoopz was later asked if she had an affair with T.I. she would only say, “That’s my homeboy; we just cool.”

In 2006 she was arrested for fighting with a policeman. The police came to her house when her neighbours complained of loud music. She was speaking her mind when one of the policemen “grabbed me by me neck and I just remember flying down these steps. While I’m falling, I gripped on to him and we fall. Now we wrestling and two more cop guys come and jump on me”.

See also:

• HOOPZ Online – her website.
• Flavor of Love
• hip hop models
• King magazine

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Lisa Bonet

Lisa Bonet (1967- ) is an American actress best known for playing Cosby Kid Denise Huxtable on “The Cosby Show” and “A Different World” in the 1980s. On the day she turned 20 she ran off with a rock musician, Lenny Kravitz, to get married. It did not last but they had a daughter, Zoe Kravitz, in 1988.

Since then she has had some small parts in mostly small films, but she did star with Will Smith in “Enemy of the State” (1998 ) and appeared in “High Fidelity” (2000).

I loved her as Denise Huxtable. I was into her. She was not just beautiful and great to look at, she was also like me back then: confused, well-meaning but hopelessly self-centred, the same ISFP personality. In “Enemy of the State” I could not take my eyes off of her.

She had a fashion sense of her own, so even her clothes were interesting to look at. It makes her seem less dated than the other Cosby characters.

Like Lenny Kravitz she is half-black, half-Jewish: her father, a music teacher, is black and her mother is Jewish. They split up when she was little. She was born in San Francisco but grew up mainly in New York and Los Angeles.

She felt like the black sheep of the family: after her father left, she was a black child in a white family. Her grandmother was racist.

Although her parents were atheists, her two best friends growing up were God and her dog. She is Jewish by race but not by religion.

At 11 she started appearing in television ads. In 1984 when she was 16 she was on “The Cosby Show”, which became the number one television show in America.

In 1987 she wanted to get rid of her good girl image, so she appeared in “Angel Heart” in love scenes with Mickey Rourke, some of which had to be cut to keep the film from becoming X-rated. She lost her good girl image but she also lost her part on “Cosby”.

Bill Cosby, however, put her in another show, “A Different World”. Same character but this time away from home at college. After awhile she started coming in late to the studio or not at all. In 1991 she was fired. This was at about the same time she was breaking up with Lenny Kravitz.

When she met Lenny Kravitz she was famous, he was not. He only became famous later. His first two albums, “Let Love Rule” (1989) and “Mama Said” (1991), are partly about her. His star was rising just as hers was falling.

They split up in 1991 and divorced in 1993. It was a rough marriage. She said he was not faithful. That is the trouble with rock stars.

She got sick of Hollywood and cut back on her acting to spend more time with her children. She has at least two: Zoe and Lola, born in 2007 with actor Jason Momoa

For palindrome fans: “Lisa Bonet ate no basil.”

She says, “It’s okay to be a freak”. (Not a palindrome.)

She practises yoga and does not eat meat.

– Abagond, 2008, 2015.

See also:

• Bill Cosby
• The Cosby Show
  • Sabrina LeBeauf – fellow Cosby Kid
• Cree Summer – fast friend, also on “A Different World”
• ISFP
• Jewish
• New York
• black actresses
• The most beautiful black actresses
• Creoles

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Vida Guerra

Vida Guerra (1974- ) is a Cuban American video vixen or hip hop model, best known for her beautiful bottom. She first appeared in 2002, in FHM magazine as an “ordinary babe” in lingerie. She was a nobody then, but readers liked her so much that FHM brought her back. Soon she was appearing in King, Smooth, Black Men and Playboy (July 2006) as well as some music videos, like “Shake Ya Tailfeather” in the summer of 2003.

In 2004 she was FHM magazine’s Model of the Year.

In 2006 she was Black Men magazine’s Sexiest Woman of the Year.

AskMen.com puts her somewhere in the 60s between Fergie and Carrie Underwood.

She is a Latin beauty with white skin, long black hair, high cheekbones and a great figure: her measurements are 34C-25-37 (86-64-94 cm). That gives her a waist-to-hip ratio (WHR) of 0.68. She is 5 foot 3 (1.60 metres) and 115 pounds (52 kg). In person she looks shorter and older than her pictures.

Given her success at both FHM and Black Men magazine it seems she appeals to both black men and white men in America. In fact, her look is right between black and white ideas of female beauty.

For example, her WHR of 0.68 makes her just thick enough for most black men but still thin enough for most white men.

There are plenty of black models with bigger bottoms than her, like Buffie, Bria and Angel, but they seem to be too big for most white men. Vida is just right: not too big, not too small.

Her skin colour too: white. If she looked at all black, like Melyssa Ford or Esther Baxter, she would lose many of her white male fans. On the other hand, if she were Anglo instead of Latin American, she might be “too white” for some black men. That is how it seems. So again, she stands right in the middle.

But if she is white, why did Black Men magazine pick her as their Sexiest Woman of the Year? Over the years they have tried out different sorts of women to see what sort of beauty works in practice among black men in all parts of America and the West Indies. They found that what plays best are light-skinned women with long black hair and big bottoms. Like Melyssa Ford. Or Vida Guerra.

Vida Guerra was born in Havana Cuba. Her family came to America in 1980 when she was six. They lived in Perth Amboy, New Jersey near New York.

She has always loved modelling, but did not get her big break till she was 28, which is old for a model.

She heard that FHM wanted to do pictures of “everyday babes” in lingerie. She sent in her pictures and the rest is history.

She is trying to get into singing and acting, but with little success so far.

In 2005 some naked pictures of her got out on the Internet. She said someone broke into her mobile phone, but her record company at the time said she was behind it and dropped her.

See also:

• big bottom girls
• WHR: waist to hip ratio
• Black Men magazine
• video vixens
• race and beauty
• magazine
• Buffie the Body
• Melyssa Ford

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Jourdan Dunn

Jourdan Dunn (August 3rd 1990- ) is a British model from London. Now 17, some say she is set to become the next Naomi Campbell, the next big black supermodel. She will be on the cover of the July 2008 issues of both American Vogue and Italian Vogue. The Italian one will be the first all-black Vogue ever.

In 2008 she became the first black woman in 11 years to model for Prada. The last one before her was Naomi Campbell in 1997.

She has helped to turn modelling away from the issue of weight towards that of race. As someone said, she has made black the new black

Dunn is in great demand: she has been on dozens of catwalks in London, Paris, Milan and New York in the past year. She started modelling only in February 2007.

She was discovered in 2006 by the Storm model agency, the same one that found Kate Moss. They discovered Dunn in a Primark in Kings Mall in London trying on sunglasses with her friend.

She is from the Greenford part of West London, where she lived with her mother and two younger brothers. Her heroes growing up were Tyra Banks and Naomi Campbell. People thought she was simple-minded when she told them she wanted to be a model.

Now in 2008 she lives in New York and is with the Women Management agency.

Even though the fashion industry is Hitler white, casting directors and clothes designers have been falling over each other to have her model for them. It seems they like her presence and grace, the way her long neck, eyes and high cheekbones give her an otherworldly look.

She has noticed the lack of women of colour in the fashion industry:

London’s not a white city, so why should all our castings be white? I go to castings and see several black and Asian girls, then I get to the show and look around and there’s just me and maybe one other coloured face. They just don’t get picked. I hope it’s because the designer just didn’t think they were good enough as a model, but I don’t know.

She wants to do something about it when she gets older:

I’m really ambitious. When I go back into education, I’m going to do business studies. Naomi’s idea is good; I’d do an agency for black girls and Asian and Spanish, because there aren’t enough of them on the runway either.

She is 5 foot 10 (1.78 metres). Her measurements are 33-24-35 inches (83-60-89 cm), giving her a waist-to-hip ratio of 0.67. She says her best feature is her legs.

She says, “I am one of those lucky people who can eat anything and don’t put on weight.”

She seems like a sweet, down-to-earth girl who has not let her sudden success go to her head. At least not yet.

She is friends with Emanuela de Paula of Brazil and Honorine Uwera of Rwanda.

On television she likes to watch “The Eastenders”.

See also:

• black fashion models
• The all-black Vogue
• Naomi Campbell
• Tyra Banks
• WHR: waist to hip ratio

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Omotola

Omotola Jalade Ekeinde (1978- ), also known as Omosexy, is one of the top actresses in Nollywood, the Nigerian film industry. Known all across English-speaking Africa and beyond, only Genevieve Nnaji clearly outshines her.

She is probably best known for “Blood Sisters” (2003), “The Prostitute” and, the film that made her name, “Mortal Inheritance” (1996). She has been in more than 250 films. Most Nollywood films are cheap, straight-to-video affairs.

In American terms she is sort of like Toccara Jones with the acting talent of Uma Thurman.

According to this blog, she is the second most beautiful Nigerian actress. I would watch a film just because she was in it. She is one of those women that it is hard for me to take my eyes off of. She has an amazing body, a full African figure. Her eyes seem a bit small and far apart, but I love her face all the same. Especially her mouth and the way she moves it.

Her beauty is even more amazing when you consider that she has had four children. She had them pretty early so it was easier for her to get back to her old shape. But now that her body knows a larger size, she has to fight it, exercising every day (walking) and watching what she eats (plenty of fruit, turkey and chicken without the skin).

She says the secret to being beautiful is to love yourself. Get that right and all else will follow.

It was easy for her to get into film: not only is she beautiful but she has natural acting talent, making characters come to life. Producers wanted her in their films!

In the early days her mother stopped her from taking certain parts: she was a strict Christian and brought up Omotola that way. It seems to have stuck with her. For one thing, Omotola has been married to the same man for 12 years. That is a long time for the Nollywood set.

Her father, the manager of a Lagos country club, died when she was young. It made her more serious than most. It also made acting possible: her father would not have allowed her to act, but with him gone they needed the money.

Omotola is Yoruba, but speaks English as if it was her mother tongue. Maybe it is.

In 2006 it was discovered that film producers were paying her and other top stars huge sums of money. So they were not allowed to act in any films for a year. Some thought Nollywood would fall, but it made it through. In the meantime Omotola went into singing. She came out with one album and in 2008 is working on her second. Her first one was not so great.

Like Angelina Jolie, Omotola is a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations. They sent her to Sierra Leone and Liberia, two countries torn apart by war. The people there have seen her films and love her.

Her song “Feel Alright” was playing everywhere in Nigeria in April 2009. Here is the YouTube video:

My mini picture gallery:

See also:

• omotola.tv
• The most beautiful Nigerian actresses
• big bottom girls
• Nigeria
• film
• United Nations
• English
• Christianity

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