Hunter McGrady's hit a stride in her modeling career: The 23-year-old turned heads when she became the "curviest" model to grace Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue. She's signed with Wilhelmina Models, a major talent agency. She's even become a body-positive role model by openly sharing her own body-related struggles.
In a February 22 interview with People, McGrady credited her recent success to an unsuspected source: her size.
McGrady told People that she used to exercise excessively and starve herself to maintain a size two, 114-pound body.
Even though she had the "ideal" model's body, McGrady said she wasn't booking modeling jobs.
"My hips were always the bigger part of my body, and I was already so thin that I couldn't keep shaving them down. I physically could not. And everyone was telling me that I could," she said. "At that time I thought my dreams of becoming a model were crushed."
No matter how much weight she lost, McGrady still wasn't thin enough for casting directors.
"At age 15, I was told by four agencies that I needed to lose three inches off of my hips to be a model, which would have put me at a size 00," she wrote in an Instagram caption in 2014. "I would desperately work out for hours and eat few calories per day, hoping I could fit the bill."
It took McGrady three years to realize that she couldn't healthily maintain her 5'11", size 2 frame.
"I was not happy or healthy when I weighed 114 pounds. and starved myself to make other people happy," she wrote in a 2015 Instagram caption. "I was living for what I thought I was supposed to look like. If you are naturally born with a stature like that, then that is wonderful. I am not, and I will never apologize for that."
In 2013, McGrady blindly applied to Wilhelmina Models as a curve model. The agency immediately signed her. Since then, she's posed for Bare Necessities, Lane Bryant, and Lucky Brand.
Her biggest dream came true when she appeared in Sports Illustrated Swimsuit. McGrady told People that being featured in that issue made all of her obstacles worth it.
"I love my body now. I love everything about it," she said. "I've been an 18, I’ve been a 10/12, and I've been everything in between. Right now I sit at a 14/16, and I love it, because this is my God-given body."
