My Body

This essay collection by model and actor Emily Ratajkowski examines the contradictions of building a life and career on physical beauty within a culture that simultaneously rewards and punishes women for their sexuality. Structured as 12 personal essays plus an introduction, the book moves between memoir, cultural criticism, and confession, tracing Ratajkowski's experiences from childhood through motherhood.

In the introduction, Ratajkowski frames the book's central tension by connecting the 2020 debate over Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion's sexually explicit single "WAP" to her own experience in 2013's "Blurred Lines" music video, in which she appeared nearly naked alongside two other models. The censored version received approximately 721 million views, and critics condemned it as misogynistic, yet Ratajkowski surprised the public by defending it as not anti-feminist, arguing that her comfort in her own body was empowering. Looking back, she recognizes that while capitalizing on her sexuality brought financial rewards far exceeding anything her parents had earned, her power was granted only through the male gaze. She states that the book is not meant to arrive at answers but to explore the various mirrors in which she has seen herself: men's eyes, other women, and the countless images taken of her.

"Beauty Lessons," structured as 23 numbered vignettes, traces how beauty became the central currency of Ratajkowski's identity, shaped largely by her mother, Kathy. Kathy, a classically beautiful woman likened to Elizabeth Taylor, encouraged her daughter to embrace her appearance without shame but also ranked women constantly, distinguishing "true beauties" from those whom "men liked." When 13-year-old Ratajkowski was sent home from a dance because chaperones deemed her dress too sexy, Kathy comforted her and wrote a letter of complaint, yet she also tracked male attention directed at her daughter and seemed to hold her daughter's beauty like a mirror reflecting her own worth. Beauty became the way Ratajkowski felt most loved by her parents, who found her an agent and drove her to castings the way other parents drove children to soccer. In adulthood, she obsessively checks Instagram likes and Reddit threads to measure her allure. Even after marrying her husband, referred to throughout only as S, she freezes when he casually remarks that there are many beautiful women in the world. In therapy, she insists that everyone ranks and that one is always preferred, a belief that brings her to tears.

"Blurred Lines" chronicles her early modeling career in Los Angeles, where she dropped out of college to model full-time and viewed the work as temporary financial protection. After editorials attracted attention, she traveled to New York for castings at Victoria's Secret and Sports Illustrated. Back in LA, she agreed to shoot the "Blurred Lines" music video after its director, Diane Martel, emphasized that the crew would be mostly women and framed the project as a comedic spoof. On set, Ratajkowski genuinely enjoyed herself. But later that day, the song's lead performer, Robin Thicke, returned somewhat drunk to shoot alone with her and without warning cupped her bare breasts from behind. She instinctively pulled away; Diane's voice cracked as she asked if Ratajkowski was okay, then quietly told Thicke "no touching," and they continued shooting. Ratajkowski never told anyone for years, reflecting that with one gesture, Thicke reminded everyone the women were not in charge.

"My Son, Sun" recounts her relationship with Owen, an older boy who sexually coerced and assaulted her beginning when she was 14. Owen positioned himself as her guide at a new school, though his social access depended on her status. At 15, after a night of heavy drinking, Owen appeared and took her away; she woke with him on top of her, too intoxicated to resist. The next morning, she took a scalding bath and told no one. A friend eventually told her that what Owen had done sounded like rape. At 19, she learned mid-flight that Owen had died of a heroin overdose at 21. She attended his funeral on a cliff above the ocean, where his father cried out to his son to feel the sun. On the plane home, she wept not from grief but from shame at having been unable to name what happened to her.

"Toxic" parallels her high school friendship with Sadie against the backdrop of pop star Britney Spears's public unraveling. The two girls never learned to protect each other, seeing one another as competitors. When Sadie's boyfriend groped Ratajkowski while Sadie slept between them, Ratajkowski told no one. At their modeling agency, Ford Models, agents examined close-up photos of her face and announced they could tell she was sexually active, while Ratajkowski felt a strange pride at being labeled the sexy one. She closes by revisiting the image of Britney's shaved head, describing a lesser-known photo that looks almost peaceful yet reads as a warning.

"Bc Hello Halle Berry" examines the contradictions of a paid luxury vacation in the Maldives, where a hotel conglomerate compensates Ratajkowski for posting Instagram photos. She thinks of Halle Berry, who won an Oscar only by making herself look unglamorous in Monster's Ball, and wonders whether everything women do is reactive, as if they are all playing someone else's game with someone else's rules.

"K-Spa" uses visits to a Korean spa in Los Angeles as a lens for her dissociation from her body. At the spa, no one scrutinizes anyone; bodies undergo maintenance without performance. She contrasts this peace with modeling sets, where she strips on command and dissociates so her body does not feel like her own.

"The Woozies" explores her childhood in the small house her father built, where her parents' volatile relationship drew her into their conflicts. When her mother developed amyloidosis, a condition in which abnormal protein accumulates in the organs, Ratajkowski traveled to the Mayo Clinic to help manage her care. During chemotherapy, Ratajkowski stayed in her own LA house, paralyzed by depression and guilt, unable to bridge the distance between her new life with S and the pull of her parents' home.

"Transactions" recounts being paid $25,000 to attend the Super Bowl with Jho Low, a billionaire financier behind the production of The Wolf of Wall Street. She connects this to earlier encounters with party promoters who lured young models with free dinners on behalf of wealthy older men. Years later, Jho Low was revealed to have stolen billions from the Malaysian government and became an international fugitive.

"Buying Myself Back," the collection's longest essay, catalogues multiple losses of control over her image: a paparazzi lawsuit for posting a photo of herself on Instagram, appropriation artist Richard Prince's $80,000 canvases reproducing her nude, the iCloud hack that leaked her private photos, and photographer Jonathan Leder's unauthorized publication of intimate Polaroids from a 2012 shoot. During that shoot, Leder sexually assaulted her. He later published books of the images without her consent, using what her team concluded was a forged model release. Her lawyer told her even winning in court would yield only possession of the books, since the images were already on the internet.

"Pamela" describes a film-industry party where S's agent, Berg, compared Ratajkowski to "Pamela Anderson before the hep C," reducing her to a sexual commodity with an implied expiration date. She restrained herself from confronting Berg because he was essential to S's career, then broke down in the car, overcome by the urge to disappear.

"Men Like You," structured as an open letter to Steve, the publisher of Treats! magazine, confronts the pattern of powerful men who claimed ownership of her image. She recounts meeting Steve, who asked her to strip, walked her in her underwear past other models, and later kissed her at the launch party for her cover. She tells the story of Audrey Munson, a model whose body became the basis for over a hundred statues across New York City yet who was committed to a psychiatric hospital at 40 and died at 106 in an unmarked grave. Ratajkowski declares she is no longer grateful and has grown past shame into anger.

In "Releases," the final essay, Ratajkowski describes a recurring nightmare in which she tries to strike a looming figure but her fists connect with no impact. A month after giving birth, her therapist took her to a rooftop and handed her a small jar. After several limp throws, Ratajkowski closed her eyes, let go, and the jar smashed against the wall. The essay then recounts her son's birth: Laboring on all fours, she surrendered to a new sensation of trust in her body, which has sheltered her son for nine months. She pushed, felt him placed on her chest, and the collection ends with two words: "My body."