How Tyra Banks’ Conversation with Her Mom at a Pizzeria Changed Her Career Forever

Tyra Banks is a successful supermodel, entrepreneur, producer and TV host, but what is the secret to her success?

In Tyra's new memoir, “Perfect is Boring,” co-written with her mother Carolyn London, she reveals how their conversation in an Italian pizzeria changed the course of her career.

“Extra's” AJ Calloway sat down with the mother-daughter duo in NYC, where they opened up on the life-changing outing. Tyra shared, “Back then, when I heard that... I wasn't going to be able to do fashion shows anymore, I cried and ran to my mama... and she took me by the shoulders and she shook me and said, 'My daughter will not starve for this industry.'"

Caroylyn recalled saying at the time, "'We're going to talk about this over pizza — you're going to eat!'"

The dinner was a success. Tyra said, "And over that pizza, we restructured my career. She had me write it out on that butcher paper in that pizzeria in Italy!"

Carolyn elaborated on Tyra's early frustrations as a runway model, “She was measuring herself against this impossible yardstick, which is supposed to be perfection... It's so unrealistic that I tried to take that yardstick and break it and say that you are your own yardstick.”

Tyra admitted she had to change course from high-fashion model to magazine cover girl, revealing, “When my modeling agent in Italy told me that I was too big and too curvy and wouldn't be able to do fashion shows anymore, my mom... broke the yardstick and said, 'You will figure out how to be a model if that's what you want to do.' So, we changed my career from high fashion to Sports Illustrated and Victoria's Secret and things that appreciated my booty.”