What to Know
The Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show is an annual tradition, taking place just before the holiday season kicks off each year. But fans will notice that some of the brand’s usual Angels are missing from the runway at the 2026 event, and people are not okay with it — particularly because they seem to be choosing to go with influencers instead, in addition to mainstays including Gigi Hadid and Candice Swanepoel.
After building up the models to be their own league of celebrities, is this really Victoria’s Secret’s best idea?
One model says she’s been ‘released’ from the show after five years.
@romeestrijd 💋💋💋
♬ original sound – romee strijd
Model Romee Strijd shared a video on TikTok on Monday, revealing that she’d been told she wouldn’t be part of the fashion show this year after walking in it every year since 2019.
Not only did her agency, IMG Models, tell her that the casting directors “thought she wouldn’t fit the show this year,” but she hasn’t been able to get a straight answer about why.
“I don’t feel like I have the straight story. Just be honest, just tell me, and I can go on with my life and let it go, because it’s fine,” she said. “If it’s a closed chapter, I just want to know, and now they kept me in the dark, like not knowing for so long, that I got a lot of mental stress from it.”
Her fellow Angels, Frida Aesen and Lais Ribeiro, were also cut from this year’s fashion show, and instead, influencers will be part of the show, including Quenlin Blackwell and Gabriela Moura.
People aren’t happy about the direction the show is heading.
In the comments of Romee’s video, many people spoke out against the fashion show. Victoria’s Secret hasn’t come out and said it, but everyone seems convinced that the reason Romee was dropped was because the brand wants creators to be a part of it instead.
“The fact that they’re gonna put influencers in the show instead of actual Angels is insane,” one fan commented on TikTok.
Another wrote, “Why does VS think we want influencers and new people? We want the OG’s, the ones we grew up with!!! Dont they understand that’s why we want to watch?!!! Unbelievable, sorry Romee, you’re our angel forever.”
A second controversy has emerged around the models chosen to walk in this year’s show.
As The Daily Beast reported, other fans are upset that Victoria’s Secret has cast “nepo babies” to walk in the show. This year’s lineup includes Amelia Gray, the daughter of Lisa Rinna and Harry Hamlin, and people aren’t happy.
“So a nostalgia-reaching brand which is now full of influencers and nepo babies… rejected real supermodels? VS needs the help truly but they’re sinking lower,” one person wrote on Reddit.
It’ll be interesting to see if these decisions change the viewership for this year’s show, which takes place on October 18.
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