The second eliminated model from this season of America's Next Top Model was small-town girl Kimberly. She made an impression only for some mean marks to Heather and Tyra's opinion that she looked a little 'hoochie', and it wasn't enough to keep her in the competition, saving this season's resident bitch Bianca for another week.
Kimberly took some time out from pursuing her career in modeling to talk about her portrayal on the show. She auditioned in season 8 and didn't even make the judges radar, so after a change in her hair and a little working out, she tried again this season and was surprised to make it onto the show. "I had sent in a video submission in January and then I got a phone call from the casting director saying that they wanted to meet me at the open call, but we'd be in a separate group. So, I did that, and you just go in with like 500 other girls and first they look at you and say 'stay, stay, stay, no thank you, no thank you' and then they whittle that down. And then they do it again. Then they bring the girls that are left back and you do interviews, you pretty much say who you are, where you are from, why you should be America's Next Top Model and then you do a runway walk and they whittle you down again. Then they are like 'ok, don't call us, we'll call you and in two months, this is the deadline day, if we don't call you by then, then it's a no.' So I was crossing off the days, and I'm like 'oh my god, I only have 3 days left' and I finally got a phone call from Tyra saying that I was in the semi-finals and I freaked out, you saw that in the first episode."
Being from a small town in Florida, she hadn't done a lot of modeling before. "My dad has been taking pictures of me since I was a little girl, if that counts. He actually entered me without my understanding into this Ocala next top model contest. The top 5 got to be in a photo shoot and then the town would vote, but it wasn't really modeling, it was the whole 'smile and cheese' kind of photo shoot, so that definitely wasn't any kind of modeling. No, I don't think I had any experience other than the regular 'say cheese' kind of modeling."
The rock climbing photo shoot posed a special challenge to a lot of the girls, and Kimberly was no exception. "It was definitely not a piece of cake. I love rock climbing. I've been doing it since I was a kid and stuff, but definitely not in 9 inch heels and a flowy dress with no bra. That's definitely a challenge in its own." Mixed signals may have played a role in Kimberly's poor photograph. "It was really fun but the photographer was telling us, ok give us sexy and glamorous and then Mr. Jay wasn't really saying anything, but every once in a while he'd be like 'be fierce' or something completely different, so you're like, who do I listen to, the photographer or Mr. Jay. I took as much as I could from both, listening probably more to the photographer, because it was his photo shoot."
Despite the trouble with this shoot, she thought she did very well. "I thought that I was doing really good with what I had been told to do and I feel robbed really. I didn't feel like I was judged fairly. I know they didn't pick my best pictures to show at panel so that definitely bums me out."
