Cindy Crawford reflects on ‘traumatising’ haircut in her early career

‘I was in shock and I just sat there in a hotel in Rome crying. And people wonder why I’ve never really cut my hair since then — that’s why. I was so traumatised,’ Vogue model admits

Supermodel Cindy Crawford has opened up about the “traumatising” haircut that she once endured.

In the new Apple TV+’s The Super Models documentary, featuring standout brand muses Naomi Campbell, Linda Evangelista and Christy Turlington, the brand muse spoke candidly of how her long locks came to be the style that stuck. She started by recounting the start of her career in her hometown DeKalb, Illinois, when photographer Roger Legel requested she model for him at the age of 16.

Crawford went on to explain how she landed her first noted shoot in Rome with acclaimed fashion photographer Patrick Demarchelier. And while the job should’ve felt more like a dream come true, the 57-year-old claimed to have a traumatising experience.

Prior to flying out for her “big break,” Demarchelier asked that she chop her tresses. However, both she and her agency opted to deny his demand. Luckily, the photographer still wanted to book her for the job.

“I was so excited, it was just a great opportunity,” Crawford confessed. “The very first night, they send the hairdresser to my room to give me a ‘trim.’ They comb my hair, put it in a ponytail, and chop my ponytail off without asking.”

“I was in shock and I just sat there in a hotel in Rome crying. And people wonder why I’ve never really cut my hair since then — that’s why. I was so traumatised,” she continued.

The mother of two expressed how, at the time, she felt as though she’d lost control and no longer could make decisions for herself.

Crawford admitted: “I really felt I was not seen as a person who had a voice in her own destiny. It wasn’t that I didn’t like my hair short, it was that I hadn’t voted myself into having short hair.”

For her, this placed doubts in her mind about further pursuing a modeling career. She thought: “If this is what it means to be a model, I’m just not ready for this.”

Crawford eventually paved her way in the industry in a manner that represented her authentically. But she continued to receive reccomendations from her team as new oppurtunities were presented to her.

When Crawford was asked to pose for Playboy, most of her confidants advised her not to accept the offer. “Everyone in my life at the time thought I shouldn’t do Playboy,” she recalled in the second episode of the show. “My modelling agency didn’t feel that that fit into the types of jobs I should be doing. I think the brand still had a connotation to it that maybe scared some people off.”

“I understood the platform of Playboy and what that symbolised,” Crawford pointed out. “I don’t know, there was just something about it that intrigued me. So against the advice of my agents, I said ‘yes.’”

However, she had her stipulations. “But I said: ‘You don’t need to pay me a lot of money. As long as I can have control of the images, and I wanted the right to kill the story if I don’t like it,’” Crawford remarked.

Later in the docuseries, the A-lister touched on her relationship with Richard Gere. Following their initial introduction in 1988, the two were infatuated, eloping in Las Vegas four years later. Crawford – who was only 22 when she met the on-screen star 16 years older – and the Pretty Woman lead called it quits in 1995.

“In the beginning of a relationship, when you’re a young woman, you’re like: ‘You like baseball? I like baseball. You’re really into Tibetan Buddhism? I might be into that. I’ll try that,’” she said. “You’re willing to kind of mold yourself around whoever you are in love with.”

“I just think your twenties for women is such a time where you’re starting to come into your own and feel your own power and connect to your inner strength,” she added.