Ah, sweet Charlene. In this week’s “Designing Women” episode, she was once again sucked into the mystic allure of fame. This time, it wasn’t her becoming a country-western star, like we got all the way back in season 1 in “Nashville Bound.” And it wasn’t her commanding the stage to share God’s word as a lady preacher, like she mentioned dreaming about in season 2’s “How Great Thou Art.” And it certainly wasn’t her taking center-stage of a dingy conference room to lead as jury foreperson of a criminal trial, like she said she dreamed of in this season’s “Miss Trial” episode. No, this week’s dream of fame is a bit more removed. A bit more vicarious. A bit more…stage mom.
That’s right: this one is all about Olivia. Petite. Charming. Her little bald head gleaming in the limelight. A Star is Born indeed.
Which got us (or at least, Nikki) in the mindset of baby and child models. So, let’s fall down the rabbit hole on child models a little bit and why not play a Grits Blitz along the way!
Here are some of our resources (bonus: there are a lot of cute baby pictures!):
An official Gerber introduction to the original Gerber baby and a New York Times piece about her life, written at her death.
Wikipedia includes a breakdown of Gerber babies chosen in recent years.
A New York Times profile of Anne Geddes’ recent work and another by ArtNet.
A Kidspot article and a Good Housekeeping one about what the Anne Geddes baby models are up to these days.
Resource for our Grits Blitz
Celebrities who were Abercrombie models once upon a time, according to Teen Vogue
Elle Australia article on celebrities who got their start as models
Buzzfeed’s take on the zany ways famous models have been discovered
Come on y’all, let’s get into it!
Or listen onApple Podcasts |Spotify | Google Podcasts | Amazon Music.
Transcript
Nikki: Hey, Salina.
Salina: Hey, Nikki.
Nikki: How's your hair doing over there?
Salina: So good.
Nikki: She has the pleasure or luxury, or maybe not so pleasure or luxury of being able to see a mirror while we record.
Nikki: I think she just caught herself.
Salina: So nice.
Nikki: She just caught herself.
Salina: I had a little alfalfa sprout.
Nikki: Anywho, hey, everyone else, welcome to Extra Sugar.
Nikki: So in this week's designing women episode, we had Charlene.
Nikki: She was once again sucked into the mystic allure of fame.
Nikki: But this time, it wasn't her becoming a country Western star like we got in season one's Nashville bound.
Nikki: It wasn't her commanding the stage to share God's word as a lady preacher like she mentioned dreaming about in season two's how great thou art.
Nikki: It certainly wasn't her taking center stage in a dingy conference room leading as jury four person of a criminal trial like she said she dreamed of in this season's mistrial episode.
Nikki: No, this week's Dream of fame is a bit more removed, a bit more vicarious, a bit more stage mom.
Nikki: Yeah.
Nikki: This one was all about Olivia.
Salina: Smile, honey, smile.
Salina: You look so pretty.
Nikki: This one's all about Olivia.
Nikki: Petite, charming, her little bald head gleaming in the limelight.
Nikki: A star is born.
Nikki: Indeed, Olivia and Charlene's tumultuous experience in the cold, hard modeling world got us thinking about baby models.
Nikki: Or at least it got me thinking about baby models.
Nikki: In fact, my note to Salina was literally, is this too obscure?
Nikki: If I go into baby models, is that too just me?
Nikki: Fortunately, she indulged me.
Nikki: She hasn't said a word about it.
Salina: No.
Salina: I was like, you want to take it on?
Salina: Great.
Nikki: So I think it'll be fun.
Salina: I'm sure.
Nikki: I promise it'll be fun because there's going to be a grit splits at the end.
Salina: Great.
Nikki: So I'm going to share a couple of various and sundry child model related snippets that I found in my research for this segment.
Nikki: We're going to talk about the Gerber baby, we're going to talk about Anne Gettis's babies, and then we'll end with our grit split, which is going to be celebrity Child Model Edition.
Salina: It's going to be so hard not to.
Nikki: Yes, yes.
Nikki: But we'll talk about this.
Nikki: Be thinking if there are any Gerber baby.
Salina: I know, I've heard before who that is, but I don't retain that information.
Nikki: Right.
Nikki: Well, I mean, who does?
Nikki: That's why we're here to do this, to help you study up in case you ever find yourself in like a weird trivia.
Nikki: Yeah.
Nikki: And someone just desperately needs to know who the Gerber baby was.
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: We're here for you.
Nikki: That's what this is all about.
Nikki: So I'm going to start on a little bit of a downer to the point that you just touched on, which is the Gerber baby.
Nikki: I did not realize that the very first Gerber baby passed in 2022.
Nikki: Did you know that?
Salina: I knew it was going to be death.
Salina: I almost cracked a joke and then realized you were going to definitely say that it was death.
Nikki: Yeah, I did not.
Salina: But that tracks.
Nikki: So Anne Turner Cook was the first ever Gerber baby, and she passed away at the age of 95 in 2022, after a very full, very influential life.
Salina: That's lovely.
Nikki: The least success of which was the fact that she was the Gerber baby.
Nikki: The Gerber baby that everybody pretty much recognizes.
Nikki: In fact, for most of her life, she never even shared that she was the Gerber baby.
Salina: Yeah, I think maybe I got my facts wrong on this one because I thought it was, like, Rosanna Arquette or something.
Nikki: Let's go there.
Salina: Okay.
Salina: I'll just be quiet, Salina.
Nikki: But first, we're going to back up.
Nikki: So we're going to go all the way back to 1928, when Dan Gerber was looking for the face of the new Baby food campaign coming out of his Canning company.
Nikki: Great year, Fremont Canning.
Nikki: It was an excellent year, 1928, except.
Salina: For, like, is that in that when the Great Depression kicks off, or is that 29?
Nikki: Probably all about in the same time.
Nikki: It wasn't a great year.
Salina: Oh, good.
Salina: Prohibition.
Salina: What else is going on?
Nikki: So to find the perfect little snugly, squishy love face, he held a contest that summer and had artists submit their pictures.
Nikki: Some were really elaborate oil paintings.
Nikki: Others were really simple sketches.
Salina: Oh, God.
Salina: It really was a long time, huh?
Nikki: It was a long time ago.
Nikki: So Dorothy Hope Smith submitted a really simple drawing of her baby neighbor.
Nikki: Hers was actually so simple that it was unfinished.
Nikki: So it was a tiny, little unfinished charcoal sketch which she promised the judges she would complete if she won the contest.
Nikki: But that never happened.
Nikki: She won the contest, but the judges told her the image was perfect just as it was.
Nikki: So it rolled out later that year in a good housekeeping ad, and then it was added to the cans.
Nikki: It wasn't long before it became an internationally recognized symbol.
Nikki: The drawing became the trademark of the company in 1931.
Nikki: Then it was added to every product and advertisement for the company.
Nikki: A decade later, Fremont Canning company officially became Gerber Products Company.
Nikki: At one point, a survey conducted in the US showed that many people thought the Gerber baby became someone famous, such as a little bit different timeline than, you know.
Salina: If I was her, I'd be like, are you kidding me?
Nikki: Humphrey Bogart, Elizabeth Taylor, or Ernest Borgnine.
Nikki: I think they predate.
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: Oh, they do.
Salina: Big time.
Salina: Yeah.
Nikki: The trademark of the Gerber baby has been shown in the United States public to be associated with the highest consumer loyalty, according to one survey in 1998.
Nikki: So like I said, at the top, for many years, Anne Turner Cook, who was the original Gerber baby?
Nikki: Not Humphrey Bogart or any of those people.
Nikki: She never actually admitted she was the Gerber baby.
Nikki: For a long time.
Nikki: She let that mystery simmer.
Nikki: She let the rumors about Elizabeth Taylor and Humphrey Bogart persist.
Nikki: There was one close call in the 1940s when an impostor family sued Gerber for royalties, claiming their baby was the original model.
Nikki: So the artist had to testify in court and identify her subject, who was not the baby, whose family was suing Gerber.
Nikki: But I guess that information stayed, like, low key because no Internet.
Nikki: And.
Salina: Didn'T they have something better to do?
Salina: Wasn't there, like, World War going on around that time?
Nikki: Money, that's sort of the problem.
Nikki: They wanted money, so it was a secret until Anne was ready to share it.
Nikki: And in the late 1970s, she agreed to help.
Nikki: In the 1970s, was the 50th anniversary of this thing happening?
Nikki: Yeah, this is a totally different lifetimeline.
Nikki: But in the 1970s, they were going to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the drawing, so she agreed to participate in the celebration.
Nikki: Anne later revealed in a 1998 interview that her mom had told her many years ago that she was the baby in the picture.
Nikki: She said her mom told her, quote, if you're going to be a symbol for something, what could be more pleasant than a symbol for baby food?
Salina: Isn't that nice?
Salina: That's nice.
Salina: Yeah, sure.
Nikki: So in between those years, like I mentioned, Anne had been busy building a life.
Nikki: Her family had moved from Connecticut to Florida in the 1930s.
Nikki: She got a bachelor's degree in English from Southern Methodist University in Dallas and then a master's from the University of South Florida.
Nikki: She taught junior and high school English and became the department chairperson of Hillsborough High School in Tampa, Florida.
Nikki: Her husband, James, was a criminologist.
Nikki: That's an impossible word to say, by the way, was a criminologist who was a major in the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office in Tampa.
Nikki: He passed in 2004.
Nikki: When she passed, she was survived by three daughters, a son, eight grandchildren, and nine great grandchildren.
Nikki: After she retired from teaching she wrote a series of self published crime novels.
Nikki: As for the image itself, what did Anne think about that drawing of herself?
Nikki: Well, she said all babies are appealing.
Nikki: The reason that drawing has been so popular is that the artist captured the appeal that all babies have.
Nikki: That sounds like something someone with nine great grandchildren would say.
Salina: Yeah, because I'm like, I'm sure there's an attractive baby out there.
Salina: Sorry.
Salina: It happens.
Nikki: It captures the best part of babies, which is just squishy snugglyness, not the crying poopiness, not the weird shaped head right after delivery.
Salina: Yeah.
Nikki: Anywho, before we leave Anne's story, I want to share two other little tidbits.
Nikki: She actually didn't receive royalties for her role as the official face of Gerber.
Nikki: She did receive one lump sum of $5,000 in 1951 from Gerber, which she says helped her put a down payment on her first home.
Salina: That's nice.
Salina: It still seems a little under for all of the Gerbers that have gone out, but that is nice.
Nikki: That's nice.
Nikki: Since 2011, Gerber, now a subsidiary of Nestle, has held a baby photo contest annually.
Nikki: They have aimed for diversity, and recent photos have included a baby with down syndrome, a baby with limb differences, and an adopted baby.
Salina: That's nice.
Nikki: Very nice.
Nikki: So reading about how Anne lived An entire Life in between being the face of Gerber put me in the frame of mind of other babies and child models.
Nikki: And so I started sort of Googling around that, and I came across an article about the former baby models of Anne Gettis.
Nikki: So in my opinion, when you talk about baby Models, when you talk about just pictures of babies, it's almost impossible to not talk about Anne Gettis.
Nikki: Even if you don't know that name, you know the imagery.
Salina: SometImes you just need a baby in a cabbage or something.
Nikki: So a New York Times profile of Anne describes it perfectly.
Nikki: Perhaps you've seen these images online or on a mug or greeting card or calendar.
Nikki: The sleeping newborn snuggling into tiny pea pods as if they are so many peas themselves.
Nikki: The babies wearing mouse outfits and dozing in old boots.
Nikki: The babies as butterflies, hedgehogs, cabbages, gnomes, worms, bumblebees, flowers.
Nikki: That's Anne Getis.
Nikki: Those are her images.
Salina: It always reminds me of the office because the character Angela loves those before she has kids, and there's like a big war over it or something because she has it up in the office space and they're like, I'm not taking down my blah blah blah until she takes down that stupid baby.
Salina: Calendar.
Nikki: And speaking like we talked about grumps in the last episode, she is the least likely person to enjoy an Anne Gettis Picture in my mind.
Salina: Yeah.
Nikki: So that's the appeal of the Anne Gettis ones, I think.
Salina: The sneaky Office people who seem one way and then like babies and cabbages.
Salina: So I tHink, you know, I do know.
Nikki: I will link to that New York Times profile which summarizes kind of like, the rise and fall of Anne's particular style of photography.
Nikki: But I think, more interestingly, a really neat pandemic project that she had.
Nikki: But I think what's more interesting is that it talks about this really neat pandemic project that she had, and then also these other projects that she's done to sort of challenge herself creatively and also pay her bills because the checks have fallen off.
Nikki: As it turns out, there's not a lot of calendars selling anymore.
Nikki: But one such pandemic project, two every year.
Nikki: Not Auntie.
Nikki: Really?
Nikki: Yeah, really.
Salina: Want to keep my workouts on and want to keep my bills on.
Salina: Grandma, I need to see it.
Salina: I need to see it.
Salina: I need it in my face to remind me.
Nikki: But is it always Ann Gettis?
Salina: Oh, God.
Salina: I mean, no, I can't say I.
Nikki: Meant the calendar sales for Anne have fallen off.
Salina: Okay, no calendar is still selling.
Salina: But wouldn't that be weird?
Salina: I don't have children, and I have babies and cabbages up here.
Nikki: So I was just sitting here thinking, I've seen your workout calendar, and I didn't process that it was Anne Gettis.
Nikki: And then I was like, I just did this entire bit, and you didn't once mention that you yourself are obsessed with them.
Salina: I'm a huge Hank.
Nikki: Oh, my gosh.
Nikki: I thought you just surprised me with the most amazing piece of information I've ever.
Salina: You have to say, obviously, she has inspired a horde of Instagrammers, because everyone does stuff like that with their kids now, where they put them in these cute little position, like, it may not be a cabbage, but it's something in that vein.
Nikki: Our next door neighbor just put a baby in a pumpkin for Halloween.
Salina: I did read an article where I guess parents got in trouble because they made their kid a turkey, and they opened up the oven and put them.
Nikki: Jeez.
Salina: It's not like they turned the oven on.
Nikki: Just stop.
Nikki: Just don't put a baby in an oven.
Salina: I mean, it's not the best idea.
Nikki: But they're going through it for the first time.
Nikki: They don't know anything about parenting.
Salina: Sometimes you stick a baby in an oven.
Salina: It wasn't turned on.
Nikki: It's so interesting that you say that, because these profiles that I'll link to in the show notes talk a lot about, like I said, the rise and fall of Anne and basically how she used to have these enormous budgets for doing these pictures because she would have to set up these very elaborate stages and these very elaborate settings because they didn't do a lot of Photoshop back then.
Nikki: So now a lot of parents can take a funny picture and Photoshop it so it looks like something she was actually doing this.
Nikki: She had these elaborate harnesses set up.
Nikki: She had these elaborate things.
Nikki: It was crazy.
Nikki: And so she went from that to this world when me with my iPhone can take a really cute picture of my baby in a pumpkin and have the same style.
Nikki: So it's been challenging for her.
Nikki: She has really struggled with that because there was an element of artistry to it that she thinks has been taken away.
Salina: That's fair.
Salina: And I want to be very cautious about.
Salina: It's not for me.
Salina: But that doesn't mean I'm not downing her at all as an artist, just because you have commercial success doesn't mean that you're not an artist.
Salina: That's BS thinking in my mind.
Nikki: Yeah.
Salina: Hey, have all the success you can get.
Salina: Take it with both hands.
Salina: I say.
Salina: Yeah.
Nikki: And she actually said in one of the articles that she's always appreciated the work that she's done philanthropically.
Nikki: I think the organization, wrong.
Nikki: But like a march of dimes like organization, if not March of Dimes.
Nikki: She's done some really amazing work with them.
Nikki: And so she's been known for this commercial success, which she appreciated.
Nikki: She's talked a lot about how financially, that was amazing for her, but she feels like it's kind of short shifted the other work she's done, so she's been grateful to be able to lean into that a little bit.
Salina: Yeah, that's nice.
Nikki: But one of the pandemic projects that she did that's relevant here, it was an Instagram series called Baby, where are you now?
Nikki: And she revisited some baby models from her early days in the 90s, nearly 20 years later, to see what they were up to.
Nikki: So as far as I can tell, she put out a call and said, like, if you are the parent or the child who modeled for me, reach out.
Nikki: So it was really a time capsule to look at just simply from the perspective of seeing the pictures because, oh.
Salina: My God, did they dress them up again?
Salina: Like, okay.
Salina: Because, you know how that was like, a trend for a while.
Nikki: Yeah, they did not in this circumstance, as far as I saw.
Nikki: But I cannot reiterate enough how there was a period in 1998 where you could not go anywhere and not see one of these baby pictures.
Salina: Yeah, that's very.
Nikki: Seeing the original pictures.
Nikki: I mean, there were calendars, coffee table books, like, anything you could imagine to slap a picture on, they had one.
Nikki: So it's crazy to see the original pictures and then just, of course, sort of like this weird.
Nikki: What is time realization when you fast forward to these little, tiny, squishy newborns, and then they're full size adults, like, complete whiplash.
Nikki: And she gives a little bio of what they grew up to be.
Nikki: So there was everything from an environmentalist to a competitive Olympic rower to a lawyer.
Nikki: These two of the boys, they were twins.
Nikki: They're now musicians.
Salina: Can't you see the Onion article, though?
Nikki: Oh, yeah, definitely the whole thing.
Nikki: One of the profiles I read, the reporter said, and I'm not sure if I linked to this one, so don't hold me to this.
Nikki: But the reporter said something like, the entire time I talked to her about her career and about this period of time in this very particular segment of baby photography, I almost expected her to acknowledge what a joke that all is, how silly this whole thing is.
Nikki: She was like, she never did.
Nikki: This was her artistry.
Nikki: This was like how she approached art.
Nikki: And this meant a lot to her.
Salina: Yeah, I mean, that's why I don't want to poo on, you know what I'm saying?
Salina: Like, beauty and all that's in the eye of the beholder.
Salina: And what people fancy is what people fancy.
Salina: I don't ever want to take a giant dump on that.
Nikki: Well, and the journalist was a really big fan.
Nikki: And I think in her mind, she was sort of like, why do I like these silly things?
Nikki: This is nonsense.
Nikki: And so it was almost refreshing to hear Anne take it as seriously as she did.
Nikki: It wasn't a cash grab.
Nikki: It wasn't like, what can I do to sell things?
Nikki: I think so because there was heart in it.
Nikki: I will say that I wanted to find out whether these baby models ever got paid or not.
Nikki: Kind of thinking about that Gerber thing, I found more about how certain celebrities Celine Dion was.
Nikki: One actually paid Anne to come take her baby's photos.
Nikki: There is a picture of.
Nikki: I think it was Celine Dion.
Nikki: Like, the babies hanging next to Celine.
Nikki: There might have been one where they put it in, like, a gauzy dress to make it look like it was back in.
Nikki: Had some.
Nikki: She had some interesting.
Nikki: This there was one photo I saw that looked like an amniotic sack with the baby in it.
Nikki: It was like a little bridge too far for me.
Nikki: I think it's beyond cabbages and boots.
Salina: Sounds like aliens, but.
Nikki: Exactly.
Nikki: That was the vibe I got.
Nikki: But that was.
Nikki: Celine Dion paid a lot of money for Anne to take her baby's photos.
Nikki: There was some royal person somewhere who paid her to come take their photos.
Nikki: So I was interested in that because I was curious, seeing these kids fully grown, like, was their paycheck from Anne the reason they got to go to college or something?
Nikki: Because you hear that sometimes, like, with pageants and modeling as children, that it pays the bills.
Nikki: But I couldn't find anything.
Nikki: But all that leads us to our next segment.
Nikki: Salina.
Salina: Oh, good.
Nikki: Which will be grit splits.
Salina: Can I correct one thing?
Salina: Yes.
Salina: Rosanna Arquette.
Salina: I didn't look up anything.
Salina: I'm not thinking about the Gerber baby.
Salina: I'm thinking about the suntan lotion.
Nikki: Coppertone.
Nikki: Yep.
Salina: That's what I'm thinking about.
Nikki: Okay.
Salina: So I was in two different.
Nikki: She was.
Nikki: She was.
Salina: Maybe.
Salina: I can't remember.
Salina: I'd have to look it up.
Salina: I have honestly not looked it up because I'm so afraid that I'm going to stumble onto something that's in this grit splits.
Nikki: Oh, okay.
Salina: So I've been trying to honor.
Nikki: You're honoring that.
Salina: Honoring it.
Salina: And so I can really fail.
Nikki: Shoot, I wish I had looked up the copper tone.
Nikki: Maybe that's.
Salina: But I totally can.
Salina: I totally can.
Salina: Come back next week, y'all.
Salina: Maybe we'll remember to tell you.
Nikki: Okay, you want to grit splits.
Nikki: Okay.
Salina: Greed split.
Salina: Greed split.
Salina: Splits.
Nikki: Grid splits.
Nikki: You ready?
Salina: Yes.
Salina: Someday we're definitely going to make a video of this.
Nikki: You have it all in the storyboard in your head?
Salina: Definitely.
Salina: Well, the end is definitely the grit splits.
Salina: Yeah, you know it.
Salina: We snapped our neck not in half, but, like, around.
Salina: Okay, go on the beat.
Nikki: So I found several articles about celebrities who got their start as child models, and it got me thinking this would be an excellent game.
Nikki: Okay, so I've got four questions in different formats, but they're all about celebrity child models.
Nikki: I had to keep it fresh.
Salina: Sure.
Nikki: I couldn't do two truths and a lie for everyone or something.
Salina: Oh, okay.
Salina: All right.
Nikki: And I want to add, I'm using the term child loosely.
Nikki: I'm using the most basic definition of it, which is under 18.
Nikki: I had intended to start as baby models just to be, like, super on the nose with the episode, and that was very challenging.
Nikki: So we had to open it up a little bit.
Salina: So under 18, do I get an Anne Gettys calendar?
Nikki: That was the only reasonable stakes I could come up with, was that I would get you an.
Salina: Is kind of expensive, though.
Nikki: Well, let's play and see how you do, and if you do really well, and I just feel like you deserve an Anne get us calendar.
Nikki: It can either be your prize or your consolation prize.
Nikki: We'll see.
Nikki: So the first question, the first group of potential answers is all about Abercrombie models.
Salina: It's so funny that you said that, because when you were like, I tried to keep it below 18, and all I could think about was all that scandalized Abercrombie models.
Salina: But, yes, I'm like Ashton Kucher Wild.
Nikki: It was crazy.
Nikki: Looking back, the early aughts, the early 2000s was just the Wild West.
Salina: My friend Taylor got those magazines, and it was like soft p***.
Nikki: There were everyone young looking, like 18 year old.
Nikki: And to me, 18 is just so young, fully nude, just all nips.
Nikki: There was a car, a jeep.
Salina: Said what?
Nikki: I said, I'm trying to remember which celebrity this was.
Nikki: She's Malin Ackerman.
Salina: It was.
Nikki: Malin Ackerman is in a jeep with no clothes on with a bunch of boys around her with no clothes on.
Nikki: You can't see body parts, but you can't see nipples or anything, but you can tell she's nude.
Nikki: Yeah, it was just wacky.
Nikki: And she was only, like, 19.
Nikki: She's not in this answer, but she was only, like, 19.
Nikki: I did not.
Nikki: I couldn't even shop at Abercrombie because the clothes weren't big enough.
Nikki: So I don't think they wanted my kind.
Salina: Who doesn't need a $65 T shirt?
Nikki: This is what I'm saying.
Nikki: I did buy some Abercrombie jeans recently, and I get the hype.
Nikki: I get the hype.
Salina: All right.
Nikki: A sweater and a sweater.
Nikki: I did a sweater and a bodysuit to go under the sweater.
Nikki: Yeah, it was a whole outfit, but it was one outfit.
Nikki: And then I had to put a pause on the spending for a little while so I could save for my next outfit.
Nikki: Anywho, yeah, not the point here.
Nikki: Abercrombie models.
Nikki: Which of these four celebrities was not an Abercrombie model as a child under 18?
Salina: What do I not want on my sandwich?
Salina: Go.
Nikki: Okay, so we have Taylor Swift, we have Jennifer Lawrence, we have Emma Roberts, and we have Mila Kunis.
Salina: Oh, my God.
Salina: Three of those are way too young to be an Abercrombie model.
Salina: In my.
Nikki: Uh oh.
Salina: Okay, go over the list one more time.
Nikki: Taylor Swift, Jennifer Lawrence, Emma Roberts, and Mila Kunis.
Salina: I want to say Taylor Swift.
Salina: Tell me why I'm wrong.
Salina: Is that your final answer?
Salina: Screw it.
Salina: Either way, I'm getting an Angetti's calendar.
Nikki: You are incorrect.
Salina: Okay.
Nikki: She did model for Abercrombie in 2003 at the age of 14.
Salina: Oh, my goodness.
Salina: That's very young.
Nikki: Jennifer Lawrence modeled in 2006 at the age of 16.
Nikki: And Emma Roberts modeled in 2005 at the age of 14.
Salina: But the one who made sense age wise didn't.
Nikki: She was not an Abercrombie model, but her husband, Ashton Kutcher, was.
Salina: I thought maybe they bonded over that.
Nikki: But he was in his early 20s.
Salina: With the 14 year olds.
Nikki: Probably Mila did model Young.
Nikki: This will be a blast from the pasT.
Nikki: I found something.
Nikki: Where?
Nikki: She was in Lisa Frank magazine in the early 90s.
Nikki: So question number two.
Nikki: This is a true or false question.
Nikki: Amanda Seyfried.
Salina: I don't know how to sephried.
Salina: Let's see if we can pronounce it all the wrong ways.
Nikki: Amanda S.
Nikki: True or false?
Nikki: Amanda Seyfried got her start as a model on a series of teen books.
Nikki: Bonus points if you can tell me what series.
Salina: Okay, well, then I think the answer is true.
Nikki: That's correct.
Nikki: Should I save that part for after?
Salina: Thank you.
Nikki: You're welcome.
Salina: That was nice.
Salina: One step closer to that calendar.
Salina: So let's see if that was her break.
Salina: And Mean Girls was in four.
Salina: Didn't have to be before that.
Salina: Like Twilight didn't have that kind of COVID It's too young for Babysitters Club.
Salina: I'm out.
Salina: What is it?
Nikki: I wish I had a video of you thinking about this just now.
Nikki: It is literally that always sunny in Philadelphia GIF.
Nikki: Where he's, like, all the things going.
Nikki: So you're right.
Nikki: It was true.
Nikki: It was the Sweet Valley High books.
Salina: Oh, that makes a lot of sense.
Salina: Okay.
Nikki: She also appeared in several limited two ads with Layton Meester.
Salina: I have to tell you that Sweet Valley High is really something I forgot about until right now.
Nikki: I'm glad I could take you there.
Salina: That was nice.
Salina: Thank you.
Nikki: So question number three is going to veer us into the world of celebrity kids who became child models.
Nikki: I'm going to preface it with, this is a zany story.
Salina: Oh, okay.
Nikki: If I've ever heard it, it's lost to the sands of, like, other celebrity gossip in the recesses of my pea brain because this felt like brand new information.
Nikki: Okay, so Daisy Rebecca Lowe is a 34 year old English model who got her start at the ripe old age of two.
Nikki: She carries her mother, Pearl Lowe's surname.
Nikki: Her mother is a former singer songwriter who turned fashion and textile designer.
Nikki: Daisy has been featured in Vogue, Italia, W Magazine, and she's appeared in shows for Marc Jacobs and Louis Vuitton.
Nikki: The real twist, though, is that until she was 14, she believed her father to be Braunner Handwergger, an ex lover of her mother.
Salina: Okay.
Nikki: However, a paternity test revealed that her father was witch Grunge Rock 90s celebrity.
Salina: Okay.
Nikki: A celebrity who had, until that point, her early 20s.
Nikki: Until that point, he had been her godfather.
Salina: This sounds really familiar.
Salina: Okay.
Salina: All right, lay it on me.
Salina: Jerry Cobain is one of the ones that's going to be in this group of people.
Salina: Is it?
Nikki: I don't have any.
Salina: You have to guess.
Salina: Oh, you're not giving me a multiple choice.
Nikki: He's a grunge rock 90 celebrity.
Salina: Well, that's about, I want to say, Kurt Cobain.
Salina: That can't be it.
Nikki: I think there are only.
Nikki: Yeah, there's only a handful you could think of.
Salina: And then me trying to do, like, name recall on a 90s grunge band.
Nikki: What if I say glycerine?
Salina: Oh, I do know this story.
Salina: It's the bush front.
Salina: Oh, my God.
Salina: Why can it?
Nikki: 16 stone.
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: I just can't believe.
Nikki: I can't think of his name right now.
Salina: I know.
Salina: Gavin Rothelle.
Nikki: There you go.
Nikki: That is such a wacky story.
Salina: Okay.
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: Did that contribute to him and Gwen Stefani?
Nikki: I don't actually think so.
Nikki: It happened before it happened, and she.
Salina: Knew, and it was like, that was not the problem.
Nikki: So he and Gwen got married in 2003 or 2004.
Nikki: This happened.
Nikki: I don't think I wrote it down, like, 2007, 2008.
Nikki: And then he and Gwen broke up in 2018.
Salina: Yeah.
Nikki: So I don't know that she didn't know, but.
Nikki: So what happened was, at some point, Daisy's mom suspected Gavin as the father.
Nikki: I guess they had a really close relationship for five years during her marriage to this other guy, and that's the man who Daisy always thought was her dad.
Nikki: But finally, sometime in the mid 2000s, like I said, I think it was 2005 to 2008 ish.
Nikki: Her mom got a really wild hair that they should find out for real.
Nikki: So she said, let's get a paternity test.
Nikki: Gavin threatened to never talk to her again if she went through with it, but she did anyway.
Nikki: And he kept his word.
Nikki: He cut off all relationship with Daisy's mom.
Nikki: He and Daisy did eventually come to some sort of agreement where he was her godfather.
Nikki: They had a really close relationship until this happened.
Nikki: And then I think there was a little time where they didn't talk, where he finally came around and was like, well, I can't punish her for this.
Nikki: This wasn't her fault.
Nikki: So they do have a relationship now, but I don't remember this story at all.
Nikki: But apparently the mom, Pearl, I think, was her name, she revealed all of this in a memoir at some.
Nikki: What I think Gavin had an affair with a nanny, is what I think was alleged, and that's why he and Gwen broke up, I think.
Nikki: Sorry, Gavin, if that's not true.
Nikki: It wasn't this.
Salina: Okay.
Nikki: All right, so question number four.
Nikki: Let's talk about where models were discovered at a young age.
Salina: Them all.
Nikki: I'm going to give you three models.
Nikki: Three models and three locations.
Salina: Oh, Lord.
Salina: Okay.
Nikki: And I want you to match the model to the location.
Salina: You got something for me to look at?
Nikki: You need a pen?
Nikki: You can write it down.
Nikki: So we've got.
Nikki: First up, we've got Kate Moss, Cindy Crawford, Chrissy Teigen.
Nikki: And if you spell that last name right on the first try, you're better than me.
Salina: Okay.
Nikki: All right, so then the three locations are going to be a surf shop, a football game, and an airport.
Nikki: Okay.
Salina: Cindy Crawford, football game.
Nikki: Okay.
Salina: Kate Moss Airport.
Salina: Chrissy Teigen, surf shop.
Nikki: You earned yourself an Anne, get us calendar, Salina.
Salina: I got all those.
Nikki: Right.
Nikki: All right, so, Kate Moss, in 1988, at the Kennedy Airport.
Nikki: She was 14 years old.
Nikki: She and her dad had been waiting three days for a flight back to London when a brother sister management duo discovered her and offered her a modeling gig, which obviously turned her into one of the most famous models of all time.
Salina: I might know the Cindy one.
Nikki: Okay.
Salina: I think that's, like, a Pam Anderson kind of story.
Nikki: Well, maybe it is.
Nikki: I'd never heard this.
Nikki: So, the year before she graduated high school, as the freaking valedictorian, Cindy Crawford was picked out at a football game in her hometown by a local photographer who gave her her first cover in the Decab night weekly, which was a local magazine, not DeKalb County, Georgia.
Nikki: It was, like, Decab County, Illinois, or something.
Salina: Yeah, there's a few of them, the.
Nikki: Old decabs, but, yeah, apparently, she had been sort of trying to pursue a modeling career the year before she had gotten an offer, but it turns out it was, like, a really mean joke from some kids in her school or something.
Nikki: Oh, God.
Nikki: So I think she was skeptical when this person approached her, but it ended up being her first cover.
Salina: You should always be skeptical.
Nikki: I think that's right.
Salina: I mean, just for the abuse part.
Nikki: This last one would be less surprising to me personally than being at like a high school football game somewhere in Illinois.
Nikki: So working in a surf shop was Chrissy Teigen.
Nikki: So she was 18 and working in a Huntington beach, California surf shop.
Nikki: She thought she was going to grow up to be a teacher or like that.
Nikki: She would do something with food, is what she said.
Nikki: But a photographer associated with Billabong.
Nikki: So they had this photographer came to this surf shop to do some sort of business, discovered her and offered her a modeling gig for Billabong.
Nikki: And she was like, okay, wow.
Nikki: But that seems less surprising to me.
Salina: I almost said her and Kate.
Salina: A surf shop in Kate Moss?
Nikki: Yeah.
Salina: But then I was like, no, England, who's surfing?
Salina: Yeah, they get in the water.
Nikki: It was really hard.
Nikki: Chrissy Teigen was the wild card on this one.
Nikki: I almost didn't put her in there because it felt really obvious to me.
Nikki: But it is what it is.
Nikki: I owe you something.
Nikki: And get us something.
Salina: I love being owed things.
Nikki: I don't know if I'll make it a calendar.
Nikki: I don't know if it'll be a calendar.
Nikki: I think it'll be something more obscure than that.
Salina: Like an email with her name in the.
Nikki: No, I think it'll be like a 3D printed model of a baby and a cabbage or something.
Nikki: Something you really can't get away from.
Salina: Perfect.
Nikki: Thank you for playing along.
Nikki: So that will wrap up this week's segment.
Nikki: I'll put all my sources in the show notes on SweetTV.com in case anyone wants to dig around a bit on their own.
Nikki: You know the drill.
Nikki: Sweet TeanTV on Facebook and Instagram.
Nikki: Sweet TTV pod on TikTok.
Nikki: We're on YouTube.
Nikki: Just search Sweet Tea TTV podcast.
Nikki: And I just mentioned our website where you can find transcripts for each of our episodes, all of our old show notes, and a support us tab where you can find ways to support the show.
Nikki: As always, thanks for listening to this.
Salina: Week'S extra Sugar Wam.
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