Chrissy Teigen barely made ends meet as struggling Miami model

Chrissy Teigen has recalled roughing it on an apartment sofa at the harsh start of her career.

The star is now a household name as host of TV show Lip Sync Battle and after nabbing countless top notch gigs as a model, but John Legend's wife hasn't forgotten her early days as a struggling 18-year-old model in Miami.
“I was living in a two-bedroom model apartment with five other people,” she told PorterEdit. “I would sleep on the sofa. We were all just working to break even, just to pay the rent.

"My roommates were drinking diet tea and eating cotton balls soaked in chicken broth to stay skinny. I remember my friend got a job working at a burrito restaurant and that’s all I ate for months. Free burritos.”

Before she landed major gigs like her Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue cover in 2010, Chrissy never took herself too seriously as a model.

“I never thought of myself as a real model,” she shared. “I made consistent money working for catalogs and websites, where they didn’t care if your eyes were open or closed, because you didn’t even see my face. I was modeling the back of a shirt with words on it. Honestly, it was the least glamorous way to model.”