Plus-Sized Model Renn: I Risked My Life To Be Thin

Crystal Renn’s success as a model didn’t come when she reached her ideal weight after a grueling regimen. It arrived when she came to her senses after that regimen and decided to be a plus-size model at age 18. She was never going to “meet the weight standards of a traditional fashion model,” she tells ABC News. At the time, she thought she would “lose my dream” of gracing the cover of Vogue; now, as a size 12 weighing about 170 pounds, the 23-year-old has hit the cover of its international editions four times.

“I ended up almost risking my life,” says Renn, who's plugging a memoir called Hungry. “My body started to rebel.” At one point, she stood 5’9” and weighed just 95 pounds, which still wasn’t good enough. But when she decided to just be herself, “my life and everything about me finally flourished.” And now she sees her figure for what it is: an asset. “It's being individual that works in what I do,” she says. “You will be set apart from the rest.” (More Crystal Renn stories.)