As we learned a few weeks ago, when Katia Elizarova speaks, we all win. Katia Elizarova is a Russian model, muse and now reality star (in England) who perhaps possibly/probably banged Benedict Cumberbatch. It was through Cumberbatch that Katia came to my attention – he was quoted as saying that she’s a nice girl or something and that he would love to learn Russian (wink, nudge) and then he brought her to Ibiza and she put his hand on his thigh and they kissed. So, she was already on the Cumberbitch Sh-t List, is what I’m saying. But the fact that Katia’s interviews are sort of crazy… well, that’s just the icing on the cake. Anyway, Katia has a new interview. She’s talking about the modeling industry and how messed up it is:

The fashion world is widely known to be ridden with controversy, from, and most recently, a lack of diversity, to underage or unpaid workers and the timeless discussion about models being too thin — recently a former Vogue editor claimed that models eat tissues to stay thin. But the latest in sartorial scandals unfolded last week when a top model disclosed harrowing details about the industry, revealing, in a British newspaper exposé, that models sometimes pull out their teeth to look thinner.

Model Katia Elizarova, who was linked to “Star Trek” actor Benedict Cumberbatch, told The Sunday Times that she along with other models overseas were weighed each day after eating lunch. And though many of the models were pin-thin already, some resorted to doing drugs and pulling out their teeth to make their faces appear more slender.

“When I was in Japan they weighed me every day after lunch, so I felt horrible,” she told The Sunday Times. “But I did know girls who were bulimic, who used cocaine to make their cheeks hollow. Some girls pulled out their teeth to look thinner.”

Elizarova, 27, also said that modeling agencies often do not pay their models and encouraged the models to go out with older men.

“There are people who try to bring you into clubs to attract the attention of older men,” she said. “This is not a nice part of our job. If you’re a model and your agency hasn’t paid you in months, you don’t have anything to eat — and then someone comes over and says, ‘We’re doing free dinners in the club, come and bring your girlfriends,’ of course you go.”

She said that the girls often engage in this occupational risk because they are left with few options. “Then you have 20 men perving at you, but you’re so hungry you don’t care,” she said.

Elizarova, who has worked for the likes of Chanel and MaxStudio, was discovered in her hometown of Saratov in Russia at just 14 years old. Since working in the modeling industry for 12 years, she has moved on to acting, currently starring in a Fox reality show called “Meet the Russians.” The Daily Mail reported that Elizarova is now working to help models who are exploited in the industry, most recently participating in a debate at Oxford Union in the U.K. about being a size 0.

[From IB Times]

“There are people who try to bring you into clubs to attract the attention of older men… If you’re a model and your agency hasn’t paid you in months, you don’t have anything to …Then you have 20 men perving at you, but you’re so hungry you don’t care.” That’s not modeling, that’s being an escort. I’m not shading Katia, I’m just pointing out that it’s incredibly unfortunate and wrong that there are so many faux “modeling agencies” that are really just barely-glorified escort agencies. A real modeling agency will PAY you to work as a model. An escort agency will hire you to look pretty at a party and expect the men to pay you. But, considering Eliza’s thoughts on being a “fragile little thing,” perhaps this lifestyle as a model/escort skewed her ideas about gender relations.

As for the pulling teeth thing… gross.

Photos courtesy of WENN.