Australian Top Model still causing ‘Thin Controversy’

Posted by modelsblog on Dec 14, 2007 in News, Scandals | 0 comments

It’s been almost six months since Alice Burdeu slaughtered her Australia’s Next Top Model competitors in Cycle 3 of the series, but the public uproar about the waif-like model’s weight has continued to ripple through Australian media publications. For her entire Top Model experience, Burdeu fought off suggestions from her competitors, the judges and the Australian public that she was battling an eating disorder, remaking:

“It’s unfair to assume all skinny women are starving themselves, it causes just as much self-doubt to a girls self-image as it would if you were to call her fat. I’m built this way and I can’t help it.”

Titles such as ‘Bony Burdeu no role model’ headlining Australian newspapers and websites are said to be a suggestion of Australia’s low tolerance for anorexic-esque celebrities, despite Burdeu winning a higher percentage of votes in the Cycles final episode as to who Australia thought should win.

“Compared to her rival [a then sixteen year old Stephanie ‘Steph’ Hart] Alice was the sure winner. She looks like a model, she looks like she belongs in New York or Paris and Steph did not. But that doesn’t mean we don’t think she’s too thin — don’t ever think it means we support her body type. Australians love curves. We love healthy, fit women and that is what Australian women are typically renound for; You imagine them jogging out of the water, flicking their hair and looking like beach born goddesses. That in itself is evident in Australia’s most successful exports, seen in Elle McPherson and Jennifer Hawkins.”

Recently, Burdeu signed with Elite Model Management, New York.