Cindy Crawford's father thought modelling was 'another name for prostitution'

Supermodel Cindy Crawford said that her father thought modelling was a euphemism for prostitution. The 57-year-old, who became one of the world’s most popular pin-ups in the 1980s and ‘90s, has also admitted that she initially struggled to convince her mum and dad she was on the path to a lucrative and respectable career. “My dad really didn’t understand that modelling was a real career. He thought modelling was, like, another name for prostitution,” she said in a preview for a new documentary show The Super Models about her dad John’s reaction to her going into modelling.

Crawford’s father and her mother Jennifer Sue Crawford-Moluf were eventually supportive and went with her to her first modelling appointment.

The model added in the preview she “never even thought about modelling” before she ended up in the business. She said, “I didn’t even know it was a real job. I didn’t know how I would get from DeKalb, Illinois, to a magazine.”

In 2016, Cindy told Vanity Fair about how she did her first modelling job aged 16 when she was still living with her parents. She said, “When I was 16, Roger Legel, a local photographer in my small town of DeKalb, Illinois, asked to photograph me for the college newspaper.”

“I agreed, and he shot this picture at the backyard pool of my high school boyfriend. I was still a teenager and dreamed of becoming something big – a nuclear physicist or the first woman president, the two biggest jobs I could think of.”

“Doing this first shoot changed my life. The photographer encouraged me to go to Chicago to try to find an agent. I went to Chicago, ended up signing with Elite, and from there started doing catalogue shoots as well as working with Victor Skrebneski – the most important photographer in Chicago. This one photograph opened my eyes to a whole new world and started me down the path of modelling.”