TESS HOLLIDAY

I feel sexy when I can be in charge of how I present my body and how I am in this world.

Casting plus size girls needs to be genuine.

I take antidepressants, which I was embarrassed about for a long time, but it keeps me going.

I love taking baths with Lush bath bombs, or just sitting in a dark room and watching Netflix to turn my brain off.

Being able to love who I was, while also understanding that I deserved to be treated with kindness, helped me create a more positive and happy environment for myself.

I would love to be in the pages of Vogue.

Obviously there aren't many opportunities for someone who looks like me to walk in fashion shows. It's incredibly frustrating.

One thing I think constantly is if brands like Gucci can make plus-size menswear, then why can't we see it for women?

People laugh in my face sometimes if they don't know who I am. When they find out that I model they're like, 'well what do you model?'

Obviously I probably have internalized fatphobia about myself and what the world has ingrained in us.

In the beginning I used to say, 'I'm healthy, my cholesterol's fine, I don't have high blood pressure, I don't have diabetes.' By telling people that you see a doctor, and telling people that you're healthy, it's perpetuating the abuse against bigger bodies and the mindset that we owe it to people to be healthy.

For so long advertising hasn't been inclusive when it comes to plus sizes which is crazy to me.

I was raised to believe that sex was shameful, that you should only have sex when you're married. I'm so glad that I didn't listen to that advice.

Why would I want to walk the runway for a brand to be their token plus-size girl when they're not even making my size?

Miss Piggy's a big girl, and glamorous, and people think it's silly when I say she's a role model to me, but she was.

Why is it controversial that I chose to talk about my abortion? And the fact that I got an abortion when I was in a marriage and could have financially supported a child, why did I feel so much shame for that?

I've been asked a lot lately if I had a hard time getting pregnant. I've been asked how I conceived. In the same way everyone else does!

I don't share a lot of my kids on social media for a reason.

I'm a normal person, but people see me as this person who's not really real, almost like I don't have feelings. They think they can treat me any way they want to.

None of us have it all together; it just seems that way on Instagram.

The plus-size fashion world is definitely built by women of color - 100 percent.

I mean, if people still want to hire my 34-year-old fat butt for campaigns and let me be myself then I'm all for it.

No one tells you that when you get older sometimes you never escape the bullying. I had no idea people could be as mean as they are when you're an adult.

I've been thinking a lot about my relationship to my own queerness, and I think the word pansexual speaks to me more than bi does.

I think in the past, I was motivated by seeing what I could do with my own career as far as success. I was definitely motivated by my followers and family, which hasn't changed.