Paulina Porizkova Recalls Intense Pressure to 'Take Her Top Off' During Early Days of Modeling Career

Paulina Porizkova was encouraged to do whatever it takes to make it in the modeling industry as a teen — including stripping naked.

On the Tuesday, April 7, episode of her “Twenty Good Summers” podcast with fiancé Jeff Greenstein, the model, 60, revealed some of the wildest things she was forced to do to make it in the industry.

"When I began modeling at 15, it was just the same story all over again," she said. "The quickest way to get out of a situation was do as you're told. And if that meant taking my top off and if that meant doing x,y, and z, well, then I just did that because that was the easiest way to get through it and also to please people."

It took Porizkova until age 58 to realize the importance of “being loved for who you are.”

Porizkova admitted she felt like she had to put on a “show” to satisfy and gain attention from her single mother. As a child, her parents “didn’t actually like [her] unless [she] performed.”

The Victoria’s Secret Angel recalled her father forcing her to go on stage at a community theater performance when she was just three years old.

"I remember the lights being so incredibly bright that I couldn't see my parents, and I couldn't see anything beyond the stage itself. And I was f------ terrified," she remembered. "I was so scared. And I thought, well, the quickest way to get this over and done with is to sing a song. If I sing the song, then they will just sweep me back off."

Porizkova added, "My parents seemed to like me better when I could do things like that. Otherwise, they didn't seem to pay a whole lot of attention to me."

The 60-year-old found that when she was growing up, “nobody really cared about what [she] wanted or how [she] felt. That it was all about putting on a show. This is the only way people are going to like you. She always had to be on her “best behavior” and work hard to “please people,” but now, she practices independence.

“So this is the beauty of getting older is that you kind of figure out who you are, what you're good at, what you're bad at,” she explained. “And then past 50 for us women who start being invisible anyway, we go, well, you know what? F--- other people's assumptions and expectations. I'm just going to be who I am. Like, I'm just going to try out to actually be the person that I've always known that I was."

To Porizkova, parting with societal expectations involves showing her true self on social media: makeup-free and all. On Wednesday, April 8, she ditched glam as she flaunted her ageless physique in a red and white bikini. The star acknowledged “how far” she’s “traveled in self-acceptance” as she proudly fluffed her hair and flexed her muscles for the camera.