Iskra Lawrence made headlines when she modeled swimwear while six months pregnant and received thousands of body-shaming comments from online trolls. Now the expectant mama is slamming the backlash, coming to the conclusion that her body wasn’t “the problem” and she wasn’t going to “fit in anyone’s box.”
“I was in an environment in the modeling industry at the time, it was super toxic, where it was just one way to be. There was one set measurements, there was kind of just these models all were a certain size,” Iskra, 33, exclusively tells Life & Style of her past experiences. “And I had to like, remove myself from that, so I can stop comparing myself.”
The Saltair and Self Funding founder mentioned researching opportunities in plus-size modeling, a trend gaining traction in the United States but not yet prevalent in her native England.
“So I went and tried to be a plus-size model basically and they said, ‘You’re too small to be a plus-size model,” she recounts. “And all of a sudden I was like, ‘This is crazy like I’m never gonna fit in anyone’s box.’ And I just realized that my body was not the problem, the industry was the problem.”
Iskra later found her break working with brands looking to advertise to “real women.” “Which again isn’t correct because all women are real women regardless of their size — any way that’s the way they somehow viewed it,” she says. “I think they just meant real as relatable for their customer or at least who they thought their customer was.”
The U.K. native announced in April she was pregnant and expecting her second child with partner Philip Payne. The news didn’t slow down her work life, as less than two months later, she walked in the Cupshe show during Miami Swim Week, where she was slammed with “hundreds” of negative comments about her body. Following the backlash, Iskra took to social media to shut down the hate and say she’s “proud of her body.”
“I’m still in disbelief that in 2024 (and with everything going on in the world) that fat shaming a pregnant woman seemed like the best use of your time?” she captioned a series of photos peppered with hate comments shared via Instagram on June 5. “Imagine body shaming a stranger on the internet… I do want to thank these trolls for being so obsessed with me they made commenting on my big fat pregnant body their biggest priority. So impressive you have nothing better to do.”
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