Supermodel Twiggy says men never did 'awful things' to her because she always had a chaperone

The sixties icon went to shoots with her boyfriend or manager 

Sophie Gallagher
Thursday 28 November 2019 13:20 GMT
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(Rex Features)

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Twiggy says she “never really” had men harass her during her modelling career because she always took a chaperone to photo shoots.

The 70-year-old supermodel says she has started to reflect on her own experiences after the emergency of the global #MeToo movement, which saw thousands of women – and some high profile celebrities – talk about sexual harassment.

Twiggy, real name Lesley Lawson, told the January edition of Platinum magazine: “Now all this has come out about all these men that have done awful things.

“It never really happened to me because I always had a person with me. I was never hit on at all. I was lucky because I was so innocent and green.”

The British cultural icon, who rose to fame at the age of 16, regularly went to shoots with her then-boyfriend Justin de Villeneuve, who later became her manager.

Twiggy and boyfriend Justin De Villeneuve
Twiggy and boyfriend Justin De Villeneuve (Rex Features)

Although she did admit that she had met “a couple of horrible photographers” early on in her career she had largely positive experiences because De Villenueve was there.

“[One] told me: ‘You’re far too young, come back to me when you’re a woman’,” she says. “I went outside and cried my eyes out. He was awful.”

In the interview Twiggy also discussed the rise in cosmetic surgery, which she says leaves people looking like a “chipmunk”.

“I could do with a bit [of surgery],” she admitted, before explaining her reluctance to go under the knife. “Mainly it’s because I don’t like the look of some people who’ve had too much work.

"I don't like those filler things they pump into people's faces. They look like chipmunks."

Twiggy retired from modelling in 1970 at the age of 21, saying: "You can't be a clothes hanger for your entire life."

She was appointed a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the new year honours for services to fashion, the arts and charity.

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