I would think, “Oh my god, you’re ruining it.”’ I’d get it straightened and then they’d go and purposefully make it curly again.
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‘As a mixed-race woman I’d have a lot of stress with things like no one knowing how to do my hair, which is naturally an Afro.
She was also upset by the lack of diversity in the fashion industry. It gives you a very warped sense of what you should look like.’Īs if that wasn’t enough, although she herself never experienced sleazy advances from predatory men, Leah acknowledges such incidents were prevalent (‘I know a lot of people who did’).
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‘You start seeing flaws you didn’t think you had before I was told a few times, “You need to keep your weight down”, and you wonder, “Why did they Photoshop my nose to make it smaller? Or my skin to be lighter? Or my legs to be skinnier?” Then you start thinking, “Maybe I need to be skinnier.” I definitely went through a phase where I tried to stop eating. Like many, Leah became plagued with insecurities. Instead (I can) accept that it’s there and learn to manage it better.’Īs a young woman suffering from such potentially debilitating conditions, modelling was not the most supportive or nurturing of industries. She tried numerous therapies, realising, ‘I might not be able to “fix it”. I became a victim, a shadow of my former self,’ she wrote on her Instagram when she finally told the world what she’d been suffering. ‘Some days I didn’t see the point in living any more, I was so embarrassed and frustrated. ‘I missed out on a lot of opportunities because of it and I couldn’t open up about it at the time,’ she says now. Image: Carey SheffieldĪlthough she modelled for brands such as Vivienne Westwood, Tag Heuer and Boucheron, Leah was struggling behind the scenes with panic disorder and depression. (‘I shouldn’t have been there – it was illegal’.) She’d never considered a career in the industry but thought, ‘Let’s see what happens’, which led to a ‘really crazy experience’. Both my parents have always been really supportive but they’ve never pushed us in any direction.’ Although Leah liked playing and singing privately she was ‘too shy to sing in front of people I didn’t know’, so turned to modelling, after she was spotted by an agent in a nightclub when she was 15.
‘I begged him for it as I wanted to learn. ‘So we had the structure of a two-parent home with them.’įor her 12th birthday, Paul gave Leah a heart-shaped guitar. Any time he could be there, he was.’ She and her elder brother Natt also spent a lot of time with Paul’s parents – in his home town of Woking, Berkshire. We’d spend pretty much every other weekend with him and when he wasn’t touring he’d pick us up from school. ‘Mum and Dad always kept it civil in front of us and Dad was in our lives a lot. Leah is the daughter of Paul and ex Wham! and Style Council singer Dee C Lee. But he’s getting old so I just don’t know how much more running around he can do,’ she continues, jokingly. When he can be, he’s a very hands-on dad, although a lot of people might assume he wouldn’t be. ‘I don’t think you can ever be that relaxed in those circumstances. ‘We tried to go to a restaurant once and I thought, “Please! I’m nothing to do with these kids running around and things being smashed.”’ĭid Paul, 63, the Modfather icon of cool, keep calm during his offspring’s outbursts? ‘Erm,’ says Leah, 29, making a face that indicates not. ‘It’s hard to get us all together, but when we do it’s just chaotic,’ she says. Leah Weller laughs as she describes family gatherings with her seven siblings – aged between 33 and three – and all children of The Jam and Style Council legend Paul Weller.
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