A former Victoria’s Secret model by the name of Bridget Malcolm has gone viral after shutting down the brand’s toxic atmosphere.
The brand is not a stranger to criticism and recently announced how it will be replacing its “Angels” with the “VS Collective,” which will include athletes, activist and actors as the lingerie brand’s new spokespeople.
In a TikTok video captioned “too little too late Victoria’s Secret,” Malcolm reveals just how unhealthy and underweight she was while walking in the 2016 Victoria’s Secret annual fashion show.
The 29-year-old admitted “I found my bra from the 2016 Victoria’s Secret fashion show. It is a size 30A, I am now a size 34B which is healthy for me.” Malcolm puts on the bra during the video to show just how small the size is for her now-healthy body.
She then revealed a picture of her wearing the 30A bra in the fashion show, continuing with: “Look how big it was on me, the sadness behind my eyes from the 2016 show breaks my heart.”
She goes on to allege that the former chief marketing officer for L Brands, Ed Razek, rejected her for the 2017 Victoria’s Secret show. She claimed that he said her body “did not look good enough” when she moved up to a 30B.
She ends the clips with: “Victoria’s Secret your performative allyship is a joke” in response to the company’s rebranding.
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Malcom claimed that she was “groomed by an older man, sexually assaulted multiple times” and eventually developed eating disorders, PTSD, depression, anxiety and a reliance on alcohol, Xanax and Ambien all before she turned 18 years old.
On her 26th birthday, she had a breakdown and was unable to leave her house for a year “without having panic attacks and severe anxiety” and “suicidal ideations.”
The model has since returned to the industry, working with brands that make her feel safe and has decided to speak out now after she reached a healthy point in her recovery. She is speaking out because she is “a strong believer that the fashion industry needs to change” because her “job should not include abuse.”
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Razek resigned from his role at L Brands, the parent company of Victoria’s Secret, in 2019, days after the lingerie brand hired its first transgender model. The year prior, Razek urged how the Victoria’s Secret fashion show “should not” feature “transsexuals” because it would disrupt the “fantasy.”
In the past few years, the brand has attempted at diversifying its image amid backlash and sinking sales. The announcement of the “VS Collective” follows the cancellation of the annual Victoria’s Secret Angel’s runway show in 2019, which had run every year since 1995.
Martin Waters, CEO, recently admitted to the New York Times how the company had been “too slow to respond” to the changing world.
“We needed to stop being about what men want and to be about what women want,” Waters said, adding that the Victoria’s Secret Angels are no longer “culturally relevant.”