Top Model walks away
Andrea Muizelaar overcomes anorexia, survives attack on vacation
Natalie Alcoba, National Post Published: Friday, March 14, 2008
Tyler Anderson/National PostAndrea Muizelaar, the first winner of TV show Canada's Next Top Model, is back in Whitby after being attacked while in St. Lucia.
After being crowned Canada's first 'Top Model' on television two summers ago, Andrea Muizelaar uncovered an ugly side of the fashion industry, and walked away.
Too frail to even open a door, the anorexic teenager was encouraged to keep up her waif-like physique while she waited to cash in. Instead, she dished out more of her own money to keep the painful dream alive and she continued to keep herself dangerously thin.
Eventually she walked away from the business. And she says it built up her toughness -- something she unexpectedly needed on what was supposed to be a carefree Caribbean getaway last week.
"Anyone who knows what an anorexic goes through, honestly, you already have a very strong backbone," the 21-year-old Whitby resident recounted in an interview yesterday.
"Now, you add Top Model to that, having the guts to walk away from everything in front of the whole world, take all the criticism that you read [about you]... " she said, leaving the thought unfinished.
After quitting modelling, she started a group on the social networking Web site Facebook to "take a stand against the pressures of fashion/Hollywood/The Media." Before and after photos contrast her former skeletal frame with the healthy young woman she is now.
"I'm at a good weight," said Ms. Muizelaar, who has talked to local schools about her experiences and wants help to write a book. She now works at a bank and is taking courses in business administration.
It was practically impossible to get healthy as a model, she said, recalling a photo shoot after winning Canada's Next Top Model in 2006 when she was told not to waste her time with a personal trainer.
"This is real world," she was told. "It's long and lean that sells, not long, lean and muscular."
Comments like that came all the time. "I was told in my skinniest stage: 'You gotta tone up your stomach; it's a little too big'," she said.
The pressure to be "the right size" was palpable. "People were telling me every day how good I looked at my skinniest, saying: 'Oh you look so great, so great, keep it up.' "
Meanwhile, she was losing toenails and unable to open doors.
"Coming home was the best thing I could do for myself," said Ms. Muizelaar, who credits her supportive parents for giving her the drive to go after her dreams, and the strength to walk away.
Modelling turned out to be a lot less lucrative than she thought, which made her decision easier.
"If I was making the outrageous amounts of money that young women believed they're going to make, I'd probably still stick it out," she said. "The only way to make money in that industry is to get contracts, and they don't come easy."
Add to that the fact that the $100,000 Top Model contract had to be taxed, plus the lawyers' fees she was paying to fight off a former agency that was trying to sue her, and there was not much to show for her modelling career.
But having left those difficult times behind, she found herself forced to survive a more dramatic ordeal last week. She and a friend were stalked and violently attacked while on vacation in the Caribbean.
"I thought Top Model would be the hardest thing I ever do and get over, but nothing compares to what happened on that island. I thought I was going to die," she said.
The sun was shining on St. Lucia when Ms. Muizelaar and a friend ventured off their cruise ship last Thursday and up a hill. It was the last leg of a fantastic vacation, and they wanted to get some nice photos. Two men followed the pair on their way down. Suddenly, a third came out from behind a bush.
Her friend was punched and had a knife put to his throat. She barely remembers what happened to herself. "All I know is I remember him breathing on my neck," she said. "But I got loose because I was screaming, screaming out of control." Her attacker must have also been armed because she had cuts and bruises on her arm.
Ms. Muizelaar ran as fast as she could, pounded on a local car that was coming up the street, and begged the driver for help. A few burly women lumbered out of their homes to her defence with baseball bats in their hands. But the culprits had already fled, and Ms. Muizelaar's friend, who suffered a concussion in the melee, was at her side.
She does not have kind things to say about the police, who she said have barely helped her, nor the cruise ship that did not warn travellers of any danger on land.
She wants her story to serve as a cautionary tale, but she is taking the trauma in stride.
"If this had happened when I was Top Model-free, I would probably be a lot more messed up than I am right now," Ms. Muizelaar said.
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