Six Important Takeaways From Kate Moss’ Desert Island Discs Interview

The iconic model opened up to Lauren Laverne about drugs, Johnny Depp and eating disorder rumours.

Kate Moss

by grazia |
Updated on

She was the undisputed It Girl of the 90s and remains a Great British style icon but Kate Moss has kept a fairly low profile over the last few years. Which is why it was MAJOR news when Moss was announced to be chatting with Lauren Laverne on is set to give her first mainstream interview in nearly three years when she appears as a guest on BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs.

Their conversation was everything we could have hoped for and more, a sneak peak behind the catwalk curtain, myth-busting about Moss' relationships and career and some serious lessons regarding model exploitation and drug usage.

So, here are the seven most important takeaways from Kate Moss' Desert Island Discs interview.

Kate should have been protected during her early photo shoots

At only 15-years-old, Kate revealed she felt vulnerable when shooting pictures for a bra catalogue with a male photographer. ‘I was only 15 probably and he said: “Take your top off,” she said. ‘I took my top off and I was really shy then about my body, and he said “take your bra off” and I could feel there was something wrong so I got my stuff and ran away’.

Kate said this incident ‘sharpened her instinct’ and she could subsequently ‘tell a wrong ‘un from a mile away’. Now Kate runs her own modelling agency, with her daughter Lila on the books and said she makes sure her talent is never alone on a job in order to better protect them.

She feels she was harshly vilified for taking drugs

In 2005, pictures of Kate seemingly doing cocaine were published in the media and she later became synonymous with 'heroin chic' - a substance she has said she never touched. ‘I felt sick and was quite angry,’ she said of the experience. ‘Everybody I knew took drugs. So, for them to focus on me, and to try to take my daughter away, I thought was really hypocritical.

Kate wasn’t charged for the drug use, but formally said ‘sorry’ for the incident. ‘I had to apologise really,’ she revealed. ‘If people were looking up to me.’

She never wanted to be a poster girl for glamorising eating disorders

'Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels,' is a quote often attributed to Kate Moss after an interview she did with Women's Wear Daily in 2009. But the supermodel revealed in her DID interview that the phrase actually came off of a fridge magnet. Kate explained her friend was 'a snacker' and had put the phrase there as an joke between them, which has since been taken out of context.

'I was never anorexic – I never had been. I was thin because I didn't get fed on shoots and I'd always been thin,' she said.

She struggled with low self esteem

Despite being one of the most iconic models of all time, Kate didn't see herself as beautiful at the start of her career and said she never really felt like 'model material'. Chatting on Desert Island Discs, she told Lauren: 'When I said to my mum that I'd met a model agent that wanted me to go to London, she said, "I don’t think you're very photogenic,' and I said, "No, neither do I."'

She felt a moral obligation to defend Johnny Depp

Earlier this year, Kate took to the stand in the Johnny Depp v Amber Heard trial to speak of an infamous 'stair incident' where Depp was rumoured to have pushed Kate down a flight of stairs while they were on holiday. Speaking of her court appearance, Kate said: 'I believe in the truth and I believe in fairness and justice. I know the truth about Johnny – I know he never kicked me down the stairs, I had to say that truth.'

She also mentioned defending fashion designer John Galliano in 2011, after he was found guilty in Paris of saying racist and anti-Semitic remarks: 'I know John Galliano is not a bad person, he had an alcohol problem and people turn,' she claimed.

Even party girls can retire to the country

Although Kate is famous for her party days (her mum once told her ‘you can’t have fun all the time’) she has now settled down in a house in the Cotswolds where she says she’s ‘obsessed’ with gardening, meditation and going to bed early.

‘I've got a membership to the garden centre and I go with my mum and we have the best time,’ she admitted, adding that although her London whirlwind years are behind her ‘I love a dance, but I'm not into being out of control.’

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