Opening up about her days as Victoria's Secret Angel, the model reveals she turned to a substance called phentermine after realizing her body had changed around the age of 25.
- Oct 21, 2021
AceShowbiz - Former Victoria's Secret Angel Erin Heatherton was so desperate to look good at the height of her run with the lingerie giant she took "bathwater meth" to keep the weight off. The beauty reveals she took a substance called phentermine on a daily basis after learning it could help users lose a pound a day.
Heatherton explains she started taking the drug after realizing her body had changed around the age of 25 and she was "just a little bit bigger." In a new episode of podcast "Fallen Angel", she says, "That pushed me over the edge a little bit."
"It definitely led me down this path where I went to see this nutritionist, who started me on this diet pill called phentermine, which my therapist later called bathwater meth. I was just like, 'Let me (disgraced doping cyclist) Lance Armstrong this because I'm renovating my condo. I can't lose my job right now.' I started injecting myself with HCG (human chorionic gonadotropin)."
Podcast co-host Justine Harman, the former features director at Glamour magazine, says, according to the New York Post, "We're talking about an already lean model losing weight. They may lose the muscle, which may make a viewer at home think, 'Oh, she doesn't look that healthy.' But when these women have these chiseled abdomens and these sculpted arms, even if they're so skinny, we tell ourselves she's an athlete, that's just what her body looks like."
"And for me, that's where the most nefarious part of the whole operation comes into play. Because it teaches young women and girls this is what women look like when even the Angels themselves have to go to these ridiculous measures to make sure that they don't look frail when they're starving themselves."
In the eight-episode podcast, Harman and Vanessa Grigoriadis also explore Victoria's Secret founder Lex Wesner's alleged links to businessman Jeffrey Epstein, who was convicted of sex crimes in 2008, and take a look at the extremes some models have to go to to make sure they are always looking their best and making shoots on time - no matter what.
In one episode, Dorothea Barth-Jorgensen recalls having to cycle to a casting call during Hurricane Sandy, while Bridget Malcolm reveals her efforts to stay skinny led to a diagnosed post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, panic attacks and "mental health struggles that weren't in my life prior to Victoria's Secret and modelling."
