I was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee. My parents were the typical middle class Americans. My father worked as an automatic door salesman and my mother stayed at home and took care of the house and the children. There were four of us - my sister, two brothers and me.

When I was four, we moved to Smyrna, Georgia and then, shortly thereafter, to a town called Paulding County which was in the middle of nowhere.
I was home-schooled because my parents wanted to protect me from the evils of the world. I spent most of my early childhood playing outside, reading books, playing dress up and singing to myself. As a young child, I had dreams of being a musician and a model; dreams of moving to New York; dreams of traveling the world; dreams of creating art and music. I wanted not only to be a model, but an artist. I wanted to be successful so I could use my success to help others. I always wanted to help people and, as a child, I thought that if I was famous, then, maybe, I could do something to help fix people’s problems or at least give support to those in need, not only financially, but through the art and music and work I did.

I wrote about it when I was young. I have the diaries I wrote then and it is funny (and interesting) to read them again now. I told my parents that I wanted to move to New York to be a musician, model and actress. They, on the other hand, wanted me to become a missionary. So, from a very young age, I devoured any and all information I could find on anything having to do with fashion, music, and the people who made it. I was reading their bios. I read every issue of Vogue religiously from the age eight and on as well as every other magazine. I studied the field.

I knew from a very young age what I wanted to do with my life, and from then on out, I set about to make the dream a reality. Then, things started to happen. I got involved with a dance troupe, which was my introduction to the arts and entertainment world. I was a ballet, tap and jazz dancer. I worked hard to do the best I could and the next thing I knew I was competing at competitions like, Star Search and other similar shows. I was in love with the lights, camera, costumes, and the lifestyle. I was on top of the world. I was a little girl on the rise.

Then, one day after practicing and competing for days on end, my back, which had been causing me some pain, went out. I couldn’t move. My parents took me to a doctor who told my parents I had scoliosis and I could no longer dance. I was crushed, but my parents noticed I had an ear for music so they dropped me into piano lessons. The piano became my best friend. Socially, I never fit in. My family was on the lower middle class side, so we couldn’t buy new clothes. I didn’t go to school and I wasn’t allowed to be involved with what I considered at the time the “normal or real world.” Instead, I spent most of my time dreaming of the day when I would escape. I also didn’t get along so well with my father. Life at home became more chaotic as close family members died, people I knew were killed, other people I knew committed suicide. Things got worse and worse in my life and I felt like everything was falling apart. I was an outcast in the eyes of my peers because I never went to school, never really watched TV, and was always around adults.

I got my first real break one day when I got scouted at a mall, the typical story. I begged and begged my parents to let me be a model because I wanted out of the world I was in. I wanted to get to New York. I wanted to make my dreams a reality, and modeling was the only door that made sense to me. My parents were afraid, hesitant, but they allowed me to go. I was really depressed and I think they were hoping that if I got involved with something like this, it would cheer me up. As I said earlier, I had lost a handful of people close to me in a short time period to death and I didn’t deal with it too well.

All of a sudden, I was surrounded by people twice my age. I was quickly sucked into the world of modeling. I was like a deer caught in the headlights. I was a child who had never been out of her small town and her protected world I went from that environment to being a model. The industry opened doors for me quickly and it helped that I was mature for my age and because I was comfortable being around adults, more doors opened for me. Elite New York wanted me when I was 16, but my parents said no. Then, the turmoil at home started. My parents tried to keep me safe, but, at the time, I only saw it as them trying to hold me back. Their decision to shut doors made me even more determined to open them. We began to fight and I began more and more involved with the people I worked with.

I started working with an agency and was doing runway shows. I started drinking wine and champagne. I couldn’t refuse because I had to be like them. I wanted to be like them. I acted like an adult, but I was really still a baby. I got bigger and bigger in the local scene and I was becoming a local celebrity. I was on the guest list at the age of 16 for all the parties and all the shows. I had free drinks, free clothing, free everything. I loved the creative people, and, because I was drawn to their lifestyle and their freedom, I started staying out and not going home. Then, one night, a model backstage offered me cocaine, and from then, things just got worse and spun out of control. It was too much for me to handle on my own.

My parents tried to put their foot down, so at 17, decided to move out. I met another model, a guy, who was 24 and we ended up getting a place together in the city. I was still modeling and so was he, but he had a drug problem and so I was left carrying two people’s weight. He ended up being abusive and I ended up having a designer friend of mine kick him out. I was still doing well as a model, but things began to spin even more out of control. A few days after he left, I was robbed. Someone took all of my money and CDs. Needless to say, I was in a mess. A photographer approached me one night and offered me a job to fly to Boca Raton, Florida and shoot for a magazine. I, being young and starry eyed, heard the word “magazine” -- a national magazine no less -- and I agreed. I had no idea about the trouble I was about to get myself into. The shoot turned out to be a nightmare and very bad things happened to lots of the models there, including me.

After that, I returned to Atlanta and was a mess because I didn’t know where to go or who to tell about what happened in Florida. Instead, I kept my mouth shut and just kept working. I had a dream and I wouldn’t let it go. I got a plane ticket and I went to New York. I went to see ID Model Management. I took my book and went to see Raven, the booker at the time. I was 17 and alone in New York with only $100 to my name. I stayed for a little bit and quickly realized that I wasn’t ready. I was afraid of ending up with another bad boyfriend again, so I went back to Atlanta and waited until I turned 18.

As soon as I turned 18, I started posting on the Internet for work and I was also going to agencies. Atlanta is very commercial and while I worked, it wasn’t enough to make a living. Also, I had dreams of building a recording studio and moving to New York. Both of those dreams would require a good amount of money and I knew I couldn’t make it in Atlanta, so I began going back and forth between Atlanta and New York. I started posting my images on the web and all of the sudden my email was filling up with photographers who wanted to shoot me.

I was one of the first on the Net, and I saw the freedom it allowed. I wanted to see the world and I wanted to model and save money so I could build my recording studio. I was soon shooting with a ton of local photographers. I discovered the world of fine art modeling. I loved fine art, so when I was offered lots of money to do some black and white nudes, I did it. I saw big models doing nudes so I thought it was harmless, but then, when I went to New York to do what I thought was a harmless shoot, I realized it wasn’t all harmless. I was backed up against a wall and what I ended up doing was not art.

Afterwards, for the second time, I was afraid and didn’t know what to do so I left and didn’t say anything and just kept working. But, from then on, I was afraid. I was afraid to go to the big agencies because I thought they would know about the shoot I had done and want nothing to do with me. I thought I was ruined so I tried to do the best I could in the underground. I rose to the top of the fine art, glamour, fetish, bondage, and b-movie world. I never cared about being a star. I just wanted to make enough money to make music, move to New York and make beautiful pictures.

I traveled the world over, from city to city. I booked all my own work. I managed my own money. I made enough to move to New York and to build the recording studio I always wanted to create. I then took three months away from modeling and funded a full-length album, Beta. While making Beta, I stopped doing any work that didn’t fall under the art, fashion or high end fetish/glamour work category. I was huge as a Net model, and soon the top glamour, fetish and art photographers were contacting me. But I wanted to do fashion, so I began working with an agency in New York. I booked two magazine editorials and a catalogue quickly and I was shooting with a ton of photographers. I re- did my website, “killed” my former professional name/alias and started working under my real name.

Then came the chance to go to Milan and I grabbed it. I went to Milan for almost two months. When I got there, at first I was told I was too short by all the agencies, but I didn’t stop trying to succeed there. Eventually, I met Carlo Bistolfi, a photographer who shot me. I then went back to an agency that had turned me down and they took me on this time. They sent me on ten castings a day. I got booked for some editorial and catalogue work and, right before I left to return to New York, I shot with a photographer who shoots for Vogue. He tied to keep me in Italy, but I had to come back to New York to take care of my world here. I left Milan in late November 2002 with a new book and a good agency and I returned to New York. My agency in Milan wants me to come back and there are other agencies in Munich, Paris and London that have asked me to come to them, but, for the moment, I am staying in New York to focus on producing another music album and my modeling work here.

I achieved what most girls only can dream of achieving. I learned a lot along the way and some of the lessons were very hard ones. I want to share the things I learned with you. I had to learn alone, but you won’t have to. So now let your journey into modeling world begin.