Heidi Klum

What if I'm like Anna Wintour now?

And you always wear shades inside? Yeah. That'll, I think, diminish our connection. when we talk a little bit. I can see you great.

I'm just wondering if I should maybe adopt an Anna Wintour, now that I have Jacques-Marie Mage sunglasses.

Second intro in a row.

Maybe I wear them all the time, and you said that you didn't think you'd connect with me.

No, we should keep it in the beginning. I don't think you need to catch everyone up. Yeah, it'll be our first ever BTS intro. Wow. Do we agree on that, creatively?

They get in on it.

Yeah, they drop right in the middle of it. Today's guest was so fun. I didn't see this coming for no reason. I had no negative opinions. I just didn't, I couldn't have anticipated what an absolute riot this would be.

Oh, she's a gem.

She's an absolute gem. Heidi Klum, a supermodel, television host, producer, and a hardcore businesswoman. Her credits include Project Runway, which ran for 65 years. Loved it. Germany's Next Top Model, year 85.

That's not what we warn about.

I know.

They need to know that.

But I guess, in response to that, I think warning you might piddle your pants.

listening to this one. Oh, you think there might be some piddles?

Yeah, so if you have a weak bladder incontinent, just be mindful to evac before this episode. Wow.

You should work on your pelvic floor if that is the case for you.

We just don't have time to get back into that one. Please enjoy, Heidi Klum. We are supported by Wayfair. You know what I miss doing during the summer, Monica?

What? The lake. Oh, I know.

Swimming in the lake all day, going on boat rides on the lake, jumping in the lake at night when it's warm and it got cool out.

Such a nice pastime.

I love the lake. The good news is lake life is reentering my life.

Oh, true. It's on its way.

It is. And I'm gonna bring it back. And luckily, I know who can help me make it happen. Wayfair, they have everything I'll need to make our home the ultimate summer destination, Lake House Bonanza.

Chairs, tables.

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I also, I wanna take a trip at some point this summer, small trip, I don't know where, and I'm gonna be scanning Viator, see what's available.

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♪ He's an armchair expert ♪.

♪ He's an armchair expert ♪.

Who is it?

Delta.

Congratulations! Wait, where'd you go? What happened?

What are we congratulating?

Can we offer you something to drink? Would you like a coffee? We have water.

No, I don't drink any more coffee.

Oh, good for you.

This was my New Year's resolution.

No! I gotta hear all about it.

I need to drink more water, I don't love it.

I don't like water either.

Mine was the New Year's resolution was no water.

For the past six years.

No, because I never drink water.

Yeah.

You don't drink water?

No, I hate it, but I've been trying to drink it more.

I don't think that's the flavor. Oh, so we get to get squished in the corner. You guys have the recliner.

Well, it's cozy. I just sat there for an hour and a half.

This recliner, my grandmother had, literally. My grandmother, who I would always drink schnapps with.

Peppermint schnapps or something cinnamony?

No, no, no.

Schnapps is big in Germany, yeah? Yes. Yes, and people mix it with shit, right? Like Coke?

No, it would either be like a plum or a pear.

Oh, I like that.

And when you drink it, you know, you have the fruit in your schnapps, and then usually there's like a little toothpick with a little flag on it, and then you would rub the fruit, put a little fruit in your mouth, chew around on it, put it down the hatch, and then you put the fruit down.

Oh my gosh, it's a whole ritual.

Yeah, it's a lot of pageantry.

So when you buy the pear with the schnapps, it's already in the bottle. So everyone is like, how does the big pear get into this bottle? But literally what they do is they hang those bottles on the tree and then they grow in the bottle, yeah.

What a genius idea. I want that. Did you feel laser beamed by her eyes just now when she was making direct eye contact with you? Yeah.

But it's, no, no, no. It's just because I don't see. well. I don't have my glasses on.

I'm like a mole. You and Monica have two things in common. I detected already in my research. Both of your eyes are useless.

Oh yeah, my eyes are also bad.

And I'm a judge. Let's cut that out. No, I can't.

You can see perfectly.

I can sort of feel the act.

All the judges were normal and they panned. you and you had fucking binoculars. Well, that's why I always sit there with binoculars. You do? Yeah.

I love beer with lemonade. Or beer with Coca-Cola. That's very good. Wait, it's like-.

Do you see, you thought I've been lying.

Well, you mix, or you take a sip and then you take a sip?

No, no, no, you mix it.

You mix beer and Coca-Cola? Yeah. The Germans got Coca-Cola?

I mean, for me, beer is like mother's milk. Liquid gold. It's like a meal.

Yeah. Yeah.

Well, it has hops and all that stuff in it. Nutrients.

For you, it's sustenance.

That's a good word that I don't know. Okay.

Wie viel kostet ein Pullover?

Wie teuer? Sehr viel. Oh! Weil das ist Kaschmir. Ganz dickes Kaschmir, das ist ganz teuer.

See, because now she answered about her sweater.

I know. Because I always ask people how much their pullover is, but it never makes sense.

No, this one is expensive because it's Kaschmir. So Jennifer Love in my office, who's been working with me, I want to say 19 years now. Maybe it could be 20..

Heidi, different than the Jennifer Love actress, we know?

Yeah. Jennifer Love Hewitt is who you're thinking.

Not Hewitt, just Love. I shouldn't say just, but it's Love. I've been working with her and she listens to you guys religiously. That's nice. So she told me that we're going to sit in your attic.

Everyone's so used to, my wife's going down into the gym to probably blast her buns. Oh. Would you like to go watch for a second and return? Yes.

Take a little pause.

I can maybe pick up a few ideas. No, but she told me that we're going to be sitting in your attic and that it's cold. Do you find it to be cold right now? No, not at all.

So what you're telling me, and I'm flattered, is that this outfit is intentional because you were fearing the environment would be frigid. Okay.

I know why she says that because she does listen and I'm always cold in here.

But Monica's cold in the sauna. We were in the sauna on Saturday for 28 minutes and she didn't have one bead of sweat. I did. It's her Indian blood.

I don't sweat either. Really? Well, we're the same. It's because we don't drink water. I know.

We did just start with that.

You need to have liquid in order for it to come out.

I know. It's really bad.

There was another thing, because I think it's funny, and I immediately was like, oh, that's Monica.

Yeah, you said there were two things.

There's two things. I'm confident it'll come to me throughout this conversation, but there's another really good one.

Is it about sweaters? I'm also wearing a big sweater.

No, but now they're coming hot and fast, because we know about the sweaters, we know about the being cold, we know about the not sweating.

I can tell my face not to sweat. Can you do that?

I've never tried, but I'm going to try now.

No, because I have to sometimes, because when I'm working, you don't want powder on top of powder or the same way when it's cold, like yesterday, went to the Golden Globes and everyone was shivering, it was freezing. But then, when we go onto the red carpet where they take your photos, I can totally make them go back in also.

Oh, really?

Yes.

Yeah, everyone looked pretty uncomfortable when they were being interviewed.

No, but I can literally do that with my brain. I tell my sweat glands in my face not to come out and they won't. So then I will sweat profusely under my armpits, but no one can see it there. So I do it only in places where no one can see it. That's magical.

Is this something you practice or just discovered? you could do?

I discovered, I guess also because people are like, wow, you never sweat. And I'm like, well, I tell myself, I guess, not to sweat.

I have a question about your sweat. When you do sweat, does it smell?

Well, when I'm nervous, it's terrible. Okay, that's common for people. When I'm nervous, it is so bad that I'm constantly checking around. I'm like, do you smell this? Because I smell myself, it's so bad.

It's a type of like pheromone getting released. I've heard about this.

So when I'm nervous, it's terrible. But also I eat, I don't know, one whole entire bulb of garlic every week raw. It could also have something to do with that.

And the no water, back to the no water. So the stuff that's coming out of you is like the last bit of moisture.

It's not good. Guys, whoever is listening to this, don't try this at home. Drink your water, two liters a day.

Take your garlic sparingly. I love that. you figured that out, though. What a breakthrough. The moment you're like, oh wait, I have total control over my face.

Very dynamic, yeah.

Yes, this is the quintessential ingredient.

Apart from the eyes, is there anything else you can see? Who cares? Yeah, maybe like the perfectly symmetrical face.

And this is how big of a compliment to your eyes I'm gonna give. They're so dynamic that if you were nude, I'm not even sure I would check anything out.

I'm so locked in to the eyes. Shall we try it?

Let's get a shot.

Oh, no, you have no idea what the can of worms you just opened. See, I have no problem with nudity at all.

She's a nudist.

Yeah. Oh, you are. I am. Well, I grew up nude around my house, with my parents being nude and us going on vacations where it's FKK, which is Freie Körper, Kultur, which means the freedom of your body. Körper is, I guess, corpse.

You can't go back. You can't, all of a sudden, be modest about it. I am.

Living here or going to places, obviously, where you can't be nude, always follow the rules.

But mentally, you can't make yourself all of a sudden self-conscious. You already grew up that way. No, yeah. Okay, we are gonna do a lot on Germany, because I'm obsessed with Germany. You are?

The food?

Well, I love the bread and the butter. It's the best butter in the world and the soups are so good. The cleanliness, everything runs on time. You're in a 600-year-old village and it somehow is cleaner than the city we built two years ago. There's so many things to be fascinated.

But not here. You wear bathing suits.

Hotel swimming pool. So I, because I'm a pervert, I left, took off my shorts and came back. Yeah. And then I sat there at 16, bare naked, and I was like, oh my God, this is the most thrilling thing. I had to talk myself out of getting an erection, as you would imagine.

And could you do that?

I was able to keep it, you know.

See, you have the power too.

Not quite as, or maybe more impressive, actually. Like I have with my Swiss ones.

But also then, as a 19-year-old, went there with my girlfriend for a couple months. And yeah, you go to a public park in the middle of Frankfurt and you're on the grass and you look around and many of the families are bare naked. Yeah.

Or you see a lot of topless.

Yeah. That's standard. And then a lot of just straight up, full nude.

I just came back from St. Barts. We were there for two weeks, my husband and I, because the kids went with their dad to England and it was a French island. I can't wait to take my top off. And it's literally not a sexy thing or like a sexual thing.

When the breeze is now tickling every part of your body as the wind blows by, that's also much nicer without any clothes on.

Yeah, everything is much nicer without clothes.

Except for like working in a coal mine.

Or a fire.

Yeah. But you know, on this beach too, there were so many couples, like an older couple. I want to say, they were maybe in their late sixties. Husband and wife, they were laying on the beach with nothing on. And then there was a gay couple on the other side that were just reading there and having their lunch on their blankie.

And is there any fear?

I was just going to ask you. A fear of what?

Predators.

Oh, not that.

Oh, for me. Creepy crawlies going crazy.

No, she meant sexual predators.

Yeah, I did, but also that.

Before we get to sexual predators, you are famous. And so if you're nude on the beach.

I have a bottom on.

I know, but topless, there's people with cell phone cameras. People take photos. They do. And you just go, fuck it, whatever.

I feel like you have to be who you are. I agree. I'm not doing anything wrong. I'm going to a place where you're allowed to. Also, I'm not where there's like thousands of people, and I'm just like, woohoo.

You make an effort and then you go, my fear of whatever happening, I'm not going to let it ruin my life.

And also I feel like in most places it's not allowed. So then they put a sticker over your breasts in any case, so they don't show it.

Oh, that's a good point, yeah. Certainly not. on Instagram. You won't be able to show it. No.

In Germany, they would show it without censored, but here they would probably put a sticker on the nipples. They're very afraid of areolas and nipples.

They are, truly. Women's. Men's are fine. Yeah, they're fine.

You're encouraged. But do you think, again, to be a little generous, do you think part of it is this fear that it'll get like used for.

Masturbatory?

Yeah, like sexual predators.

You mean that, okay, the question is, do you fear men will look at them? Is that what you're asking?

Yeah, but mixed in, was there ever fear of that? Because you were young when you were out. Oh. It'd be like if you took the girls.

Okay, so this is great. I'm so glad you just took it here, because what is so fascinating is I think it is our puritanical nature that actually makes us perverse. I don't think you have the same problem in Germany with creeps fucking walking around with cameras and trying to get pictures.

In general, I think that there's bad people everywhere, as there are good people everywhere. So who knows what people do when they see a photo? Sometimes people, they see a toe. Now people are really into feet.

I know, there's a whole wiki.

I do a lot of questionnaires on Instagram because I have all my functions turned off. So sometimes I will do like, ask me a question. And then a lot of people are always like, show us the feet, show us the soles of your feet. Show the toes, go closer. And so, who knows what people are doing with that.

Yeah, yeah.

What is what they're doing when they're looking at those photos.

I don't either. Monica and I have had this conversation independently in the past. And I'm like, if a guy's masturbating to me in a movie, I don't care. I guess I'm kind of flattered by it. It doesn't bother me.

I also don't think about it.

Yeah, I think maybe that's smart. But I'm surprised you don't think about it, because I feel like models, it's so forward facing, the aesthetics.

She could have been hung up about it and then been an angel for 13 years.

She would have had to have gotten past all that. I would have gone topless down the runway. I would have not bothered me.

Do you ever, when you're at Disneyland and go on the log ride and the flume, will you remove your top because it's water oriented? I'm scared to go down that log.

I don't like going on those types of things. I go with my kids, but that's as far as I would go down. That other hooptie, hooptie thing that I will not do. Like, I'm scared of those things.

Yeah, that's fair.

How many times have you been there and people are stuck up there and then you see them walking down on the sides and you're like, yeah, no, I'm not doing that.

Oh my God, I've never seen that before.

She sees it every time she goes.

Well, I have four kids, so we go all the time.

Listen, if you're at a Disney or any amusement park and you see Heidi, do not ride the roller coaster because it's gonna break and she's gonna witness it. Back to Germany. You were there till 18, 92?.

Yeah, and then I went to New York.

Virtually the same age. Before we get to New York.

I was born in June, 73.. And you?

January, two, eins, zwei.

Oh boy, this is gonna be long.

I can't say 1975..

Okay, so I'm older than you.

Yeah, but by a minute.

Scheiße, by two years. That's shit in German.

I knew. that's the only one I know.

Ich bin sehr glücklich.

Ja, wieso sprichst du denn Deutsch, wieso?

I took it in ninth grade, for one semester in high school, and these are the five things I remember. How to count to 11, how much is the pullover, when's your birthday, wann hast du dein Geburtstag?

Wann ist dein Geburtstag?

Probably didn't do it right. No, it sounded good. What do you miss about Germany? You obviously love it here, I've heard you talk about it, but what things do you miss?

I mean, not enough in order for me to go back there. I love living in America and being here, and I would love to have my family here. My parents are there, my brother is there with his wife, his two kids, they just had a baby too. So you miss all of that, obviously, but other than that, I love it here more. That's why I never went back.

But when you go home, what's the thing you're most excited about? Oh, I gotta get, right, the pretzel bread.

No, I love Knödel, which is a potato dumpling. So it's made out of potatoes. In my family, they would shred the potatoes, put an egg in it, salt. First, it goes into like a pillowcase. They put all that mush into the pillowcase, close it, and then it goes into the dryer.

This is weirder than the Coca-Cola and beer.

And then you mush them together, you can also put a little sausage in the middle, or you could just do them like that, and then you boil them in water.

I feel like a lot of our listeners are gonna go home and try this in their dryer.

I'm gonna try it tonight. I'm gonna ruin our dryer by packing it full of potatoes.

Well, I mean, people put like sneakers into the washing machine or whatever they put in that poor washing machine. You can also make your potato dumplings in the dryer.

That does sound really good.

In 1992, well, no, no, first, mom's a hairdresser and dad is an executive at a cosmetics company.

Exactly. I started with makeup and all of that stuff at a very early age. I did also my, how do you call that? It's practicum? in German.

Like an internship?

Yeah, like an internship type of a thing. It's mandatory in school.

An apprenticeship?

I don't know.

We don't have that, unfortunately.

They should have that here, because it's great. It's mandatory. So for three weeks, you have to find a job. You wanna take something that you actually like doing, so you can really look into it. And I went where my dad was working and he had me do everything from being on the conveyor belt.

But I feel like it's an enormous blessing, as far as what you wanted to pursue to have a father who actually knows the value of a model and appreciates that line of work, as opposed to, I don't know, your mom and dad are the co-presidents of Yale and you go, I'm gonna be a model. And they're like, no, you're gonna be an academic. I feel like this is almost the perfect set of parents for you to pursue this.

Yeah, even though I entered this modeling competition, only my mom would go with me to this modeling competition. My dad was always like, she's not gonna win this thing. in any case. Just tell me how it went afterwards. It was a six months contest.

I was gonna ask, it's Model 92, right? And there's 25,000 entrants. So I was like, how did they get through it all? What was the process?

It took six months. My parents always traveled. I think they were in Thailand and I was alone. And I was always actually with my grandmother, who I named my daughter after, Lainey. And so my friend was there and we go through this magazine and there was this coupon to enter this modeling competition.

Can I ask, what is your confidence level?

My confidence level was very low.

And did your confidence throughout the competition build? Like. it seems so implausible that you had never modeled, never done anything like this, entered this thing with so many people.

But I danced. I was a dancer. So I was on stage all the time. from that. My poor parents had to drive me to dance school like three times a week.

Not officially. We dance as a family, nonstop. We're a very big dancing family. But not any lessons.

One's doing gymnastics.

Was.

Yeah, no, I loved it. I had to go three times a week. So they had to drive me constantly. And then we had competition. Ballet?

This feels like AGT was made for you as a job. Because that was your childhood. You're virtually doing what they do.

What the dancers do on our show, for sure.

Yeah, you like know their life.

I did that a little bit. Then, when I later on moved to New York, I continued that. I went to Steps Uptown. And wow, was I bad. People.

In the doorway at the end.

Yeah, I was not that good.

So, as it evolved, this six month long process, it started on a whim, right? Well, let's just send in this coupon, as you called it. And then you get there. And now, apparently, you did well enough in the interview that you go to another stage.

And then I got to be on the show. And that is like a live show. Oh wow.

So was it like, it was a reality show kind of?

No, it's kind of a late night show. Okay. Like a Jimmy Fallon show.

You said, Jimmy, because you were just on. It's like freshest in your memory.

No, because I was thinking about David Letterman first and I was thinking about Jay Leno, but, you know, like a late night show like that.

Right.

And it went on for six months and every week he would introduce three or four new people again, and then people could vote at home. So we would have to do like a catwalk. They would show our number. You can YouTube it and you can see it. It's hilarious.

You'll have to wade through a lot of pictures of you on the beach, but you'll get to it eventually.

And then there's a number and they're like, hey, if you want to vote for Heidi, call in this number. If you want to vote for Michelle, call this number. And then, at the end of that night, people would vote for you and then you would know if you're either in or out. So you had to win the week, the month. And then in the end, it was again, six girls from those six months, right?

Okay, we need to pause there, because I need to know where you're at mentally through the process.

I thought I was going home any time.

But beyond that.

I never looked at myself and I was like, oh, I got this, or like, ooh, I'm way prettier than them. I had none of this. I don't know why I'm here. I just tried this. I never even thought that modeling was a job.

Did your friend make it kind of far, or no?

No, she didn't enter. She kind of pushed me more to enter.

But what I'm trying to get at or comprehend is that we go from zero awareness of any of this to, at the end of six months, you have a $300,000 modeling contract that's gonna bring you to New York. I'm curious your fantasy of your life prior to that. What was it? And when did you start adjusting? Oh, maybe this is where I'll go in life.

Well, I was really into fashion design. I was doing my Abitur.

All right, you were gonna go to fashion school.

Fashion school, yeah. So we have 13 years of school. Here. it's 12 years. In Germany, you have to do 13 years in order to study.

A few potatoes in a pillow case.

Yeah, at the time I was considered heavy. Then I would go try Paris, Milan.

Well, Karl Langenfelder famously was like, you're too heavy, man. He doesn't even deserve me to say it. right after what I heard, he said. He's like, our boobs are too big and she's too heavy.

Yeah. Oh, my God.

But you were being told that often. I'm wondering how you-.

Persistent. I'm going to get into this house somehow. If it's not the front door, it'll be the back door. Oh, I'm going to climb up and go through the chimney.

What about your parents? You told them, hey, while you were in Thailand.

Yes, because not the whole entire thing happened. This was like a six months contest. They came back, but then this happened. I had done the casting and they said yes. When I was on the show, my mom would then go with me.

Were they excited or fearful when you won?

Both, because also that meant I'm packing my bag and I'm going. Yeah.

You just saw someone leave the house.

My daughter?

Yes. There's a bedroom with no light on. Yeah. And you're one of how many?

I have a brother 10 years older than me.

So yeah, you're one of only two. You've got at least three other ones.

No one really left in my town. Now, when I go back to my town, I probably know everyone, not really, but kind of. And I never looked back, because I was just so excited about all these amazing things that I got to see. And New York was, and is, super exciting. It took a while, though, for me to get started.

But once it starts, it's pretty meteoric.

Yeah, but it took me a few years. I did catalogs a lot, which was very frowned upon at the time. You either are a cool high fashion model or you are a commercial model. And also, when you are a commercial model, you're not good at anything but that.

It's kind of like being a commercial actor.

Yeah, the whole thing is perception and caches.

Just in general, we have to fit in one particular box, and you can't get out of that, because obviously, we're never allowed to be multitasking or multi-talented at anything. So even now, when you do a song or you do something, people are like, why are you singing? And it's like, well, why the heck not? Why are you singing? Just because this is your proper job description.

No, people should do what makes them happy and everyone should look elsewhere if they're triggered by it. But suffice to say by 2000,, I guess, probably two-ish, you've been on the cover of the French, German, Portuguese and Spanish Vogue. You were on the cover of Elle and Style, Marie Callender, Glamour, Harper's Bazaar. And here's my question, because I think you seemingly do something that appears brave from my perspective, which is you've actually captured the coveted cachet. And then I'm wondering the decision then to go into Sports Illustrated and Victoria's Secret, I imagine, was not advised by some people.

I never listened to anyone in any case.

Right. I love that.

I wanna know, you're on the backside of having been on all the Dream magazines. Are you like, well, who gives a shit? Where's the money? What is the thing that goes, I don't really care about that. now.

When you are on the cover of Vogue, no one knows about it. Being on the cover of Sports Illustrated, I could really feel that. Because at that time also, there was no social media or any of these types of things. But the number, I think, for Sports Illustrated at the time was 55 million readers. So you feel that number.

It was at your dental office.

So this magazine that was laying there went through maybe a hundred people, right? You're at the airport. So this is how they counted the numbers, I guess, at that time.

I have this distinct memory. I wonder if, Monica, you have it, you're probably too young. You'd get on an airplane and your first order of business is like, I hope I find some magazines somewhere left behind. Or there'd even be in the very first compartment, ones that people discarded. And your whole mission was like, God, I hope there's a People or a Car magazine or something.

When I was on the cover of Sports Illustrated, I would go into a restaurant and they would not necessarily know my name, but I could hear people go like, gosh, I bet I saw this.

Yeah, they recognized you.

All of a sudden, I could feel heads were turning. People would all of a sudden recognize you. And it's like, how the heck do they even recognize me? I have no makeup on. Plus.

You're tall enough that people are gonna go, that looks like her, that's her. Look how tall she is. It's the height. If you were 5'7", I bet you'd get recognized.

It's funny you say that with the height, because a lot of people, when they meet me, they say, he's so much shorter than I thought. Oh, interesting. I do get that. Interesting.

But let's just say, we were just standing next to each other. What are you, 6'1"?

5'9".

Oh, your heels are enormous. Yeah. Okay, well, I rescind everything. I just said. Are you in heels all the time when you're out?

When I'm not working, I'm always in Birkenstocks, basically.

I mean, you're a very famous person. That's really what it is. At this point, sorry to be the first to tell you this.

No, but you know, it does genuinely surprise me that when you're not glammed and your hair is not all done and you're not in some fancy outfit, I'm always like, wow, how did I not blend in? It's weird.

Okay, but you just exposed, I think, what your story is about yourself. And I think now your story is that you, on those magazines, is this version that is created with hair and makeup and outfits. And that you yourself, in your natural state, aren't that glamorous. Is that your story?

Yeah, I'm not that glamorous. You are.

We got another flash breaking news.

He's saying glamorous as in, like, specialness. You, in your head, might think that's-.

The production.

Persona and production and me doing a face. But really, you give that off. naturally. You might not be able to accept that, but you do.

Sorry. We're terribly sorry. We're insulting you big time.

No, but it happens sometimes in moments where I'm not even talking to people. Or they're not even, you know, I'm not even being like bubbly, or they hear my accent.

And you're speaking with a full American accent. What if you walk around with an American accent?

Yeah, hey, I'm not even German. I'm like from Kentucky.

Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert. If you dare.

Yeah, I like that. Have you heard? the one, comparison is the thief of joy?

Yes.

That's a good one too.

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I also like it because you can send money with PayPal to friends.

Oh yeah.

Which means going halfsies when your BFF visits this summer. Or Callie and I live in the same city, so she's not visiting, but we are going on a trip. And so we're gonna have to do a lot of splitsies.

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But it factors real. I don't like believing in that either.

You should love believing in that, because that's exactly what I'm explaining to you. You try to compare what you look like to some weird ratio thing that you've seen on covers of magazines, and you're completely ignoring that. It's like, what's in a human being's eyes? That's what makes someone so special.

Well, I don't like believing, because I don't think I have it. So then I want everyone to be able to have it, or like not, you know, it's like a non-issue, but it is real. And when you win out of 25,000 girls?

Some have a little more X-factor than others. I mean, certainly I can concede to that.

Yeah, you have it.

You're so uncomfortable, aren't you, Heidi? Turned emotional and real.

No.

Okay, but back to Sports Illustrated. Were people in your world, you had an agent, obviously, at that point, a lot of other people. Were they saying, don't do this or do this?

To be honest, I don't remember anymore. A lot of the times, they didn't even want me to go to those types of magazines because they said that I'm not good enough in any case to go. Again, I was like a catalog model. And at the time, anyone who was doing Sports Illustrated was a famous model. They didn't have a person in there that you've never heard the name before.

If you had to isolate the biggest catalyst to your career, what would you say was it?

Definitely Sports Illustrated.

Okay, good. That was my assumption.

Victory Secret also. Because at that time, those catalogs, I don't know how many times a week they were sent to your house, just being in people's faces all the time.

Those really did have probably a circulation of like 100 million.

Oh my God. Yes, yes, yes, huge. So being on that cover of French Vogue is so hard to get, because it's like really highbrow and you have to be a real high-end fashion model to be on there. Or you have to be brand new or have something special. I have no idea how I even got on that.

Well, my other guess is that the second gift Victoria's Secret gave you, which you were with them for a very long time, like maybe 13 years or something, is that you started hosting their annual show. Is that the first time you ever hosted?

Yes. It's because I was super hammy. And it started when Access Hollywood or ET or any of those TV shows would come and they wanted to interview us backstage. The girls were always like, no, I don't wanna talk to you. So they didn't wanna talk to the anchors.

Yeah, yeah. My hunch is that you were nervous to do it. And then, when you actually started talking to somebody, it's so very natural and organic for you that that would take over.

But also talking is different. But when someone writes a script for you, because I also think who wants to hear all of that at home? But also, you know, at the same time when I started also, obviously I wasn't as verbal about those things. Now I am.

You've earned the right.

Now I work with the writers, obviously, on AGT, we don't have writers. But when I do, for example, in Germany, my big finale, which is like three and a half hours long. So there is a lot of prompter reading that I have to do. And I work with someone to work on the text. And there too, I'm like, this is too long.

Also everyone's attention is this big now. Yeah.

So then, Project Runway is the next thing. that's like a huge career deviation. And it's just preposterously successful.

And I did Project Runway and Germany's Next Top Model at the same time. And it was because Tyra was doing America's Next Top Model. And so we were always kind of changing notes. So she and I, we were very similar in the way that we wanted more than what we had.

Ambitious.

Yeah, kind of like making products. I designed for Birkenstocks, is it 30 years ago? If I didn't, time goes so fast. Yeah, I think it was 30 years ago. And she was also doing things.

But also, Heidi, you're clearly smart enough to go like, okay, this thing I'm doing will expire. I'm not seeing a lot of 60-year-olds on the covers of Sports Illustrated.

There should be. There should be.

There should, and that's great. I think Mae Musco's just on it. I'm not condoning it. I'm saying you were rightly going, I also need some other pokers in the fire.

To be honest, it wasn't because of, I need to have pokers in the fire. It was literally because I just love being creative.

You were hungry and interested in creating.

I mean, I still do things like I paint. I do a lot of things that are not necessarily there to earn money, but I am a creative person. When you would come to my house, you would see, I collect a thousand things. Like I have every boarding stub of any plane ride I've been ever on.

You said you're a hoarder.

I'm a hoarder. I have the whole entire Barbie collection. Like once I was, you know, because then Barbie.

How many are in that collection? Because I have one. You were the ambassador of Barbie in 2009-ish?

Yeah, maybe.

There's a Heidi Barbie.

There's a Heidi Barbie. You know, it's Barbie, always as someone else, right? So then Barbie was me. I don't know how that happened either. I was like, oh my God.

Okay, so Project Runway goes forever.

I did 17 seasons.

Oh, wow.

17 seasons.

And now Top Model is my 19th season.

Oh, my God.

Oh, my Lord.

So, okay, this dovetails into my overarching question. slash concern. Most people with two really successful shows, when their agent calls and says like, hey, they want to talk about you coming to America's Got Talent. They might go like, well, I've already got like 15 shows and I represent 26 brands.

No, no, no, I called them. You called them? Because what happened was Howard Stern was talking about, Sharon Osbourne was leaving.

Season eight.

And that they were looking for someone to fill in her spot. Then I was like, I want to go and introduce myself to these people. Wonderful. So I literally went and I introduced myself to everyone over at America's Got Talent and Fremantle. And then they said, oh yeah, we took someone else, because at that time they only had three.

Right. Aren't you tired? When you started.

I'm tired for you just hearing this, and I'm 36..

All those people, you feed off everyone's energy and their excitement. I feel like if I wasn't doing all these things, I feel like then I would be tired. When I go there and all the lights are on and they come and they tell their story and they do their act. It's just a real fun day.

We know this intimately. Many times. we've been somewhere doing live shows and we're both totally exhausted. Monica was dying of food. Food poisoning.

Is it because you're going live and you're nervous about this? No, no. She's sick.

I had this weird bug. Dax didn't have it yet, but I had it before. we had to go on.

She was dehydrated, laying on a couch backstage. She's dead. I'm wondering how this is gonna work. And to your point, you're sitting in the wings of the stage, you're watching the band play, and then all of a sudden, this thing starts just enveloping you, and this source of energy you're talking about just fills you, and then you walk out there and then you're magically healed. The energy can be.

But still, I'm just impressed.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

I love doing what I'm doing. I knock on wood literally every day. Oh, that was it! Yay, we found it!

Monica knocks on wood a hundred times a day. Oh yeah, I do! She leans over to knock on wood.

I do all the time, too. That was the thing! I'm like, what is it? This is not what I do.

So funny. It's okay, Dax's knock counts for you. I always make him knock because he's closest to the wood.

So I'm knocking on your behalf.

No, I knock on wood all the time.

Yeah, I believe in it.

That's exactly what it was. I saw you knock on wood in several different interviews and I go, oh my God, it's Monica.

That's hilarious.

Oh, my God.

But yeah, you love it.

I do. What was it like, and let me say I'm friends with him, what was it like working with Howard? Be honest.

He's not very joyous.

Right, well, that's kind of his shtick.

And it's hard, I think, to sit next to someone who is very joyous.

Oh, okay.

Because I was always singing and I'm like, la la, la, la, la, because sometimes it takes a minute when we're not live and they're interviewing people backstage. They're not sending the next, the next, the next, the next. So they put a little bit of music in the room so that the audience doesn't fall asleep. And I'm like tralala-ing along, or Mel is next to me and then we're just singing from the top of our lungs, or someone was there doing some opera. So we're copying this opera that someone just sang.

You wanted to keep the energy up for you.

negative like that. I just put a little line here and I'm like, foof, foof, there's a wall and nothing is coming either, which way. You can't be shit. Well, it was going his way, I guess, because I was loud. I do like him.

But the shtick on the show is he goes on vacation with all these fun people in Mexico and he's miserable. and everyone's having fun and he's miserable.

He doesn't really go on vacation is the thing. He doesn't really fly anywhere, no?

He does, yeah. And he'll go on these vacations down to Mexico and all these people are there. And then his whole bit that whole week will be about how everyone was having fun and he was miserable and he went to bed early. But I've been at his house and he's very fun and joyous and kind and patient. I have too.

And then it changes. Because it's a show.

It's a persona, a little bit.

So don't you think that's what's happening when he recounts the AGT?

What is the purpose of that? I don't get it.

Well, I would be guessing. I don't really know off the top of my head. But maybe I think he feels self-conscious with the amount of success he's had and the amount of money he has. And so the only way he feels like people will still find him approachable is if he's at least miserable from it. I think that's a little bit what's going on.

Maybe, yeah. Also, they have all of us there because they want different kind of humans there, with different walks of life, with different emotions towards what we see there.

Well, I have a hunch. this one will be much more eye to eye on because I'm longtime friends with Terry. He was just on.

Terry Crews? I love Terry. Oh, love. He's the man with the best energy.

Positive and dancing and singing and playing.

He has the hardest gig on that show because we're very far from the people who come onto the stage. And when we tell them no, or sometimes also why that is a no, they walk off the stage and they're not very happy. And he has to deal with whatever comes towards him. And he does it so beautifully. Always uplifts them again.

Oh yeah, he did it. for us. It was exciting.

I'm very good at it too. You are? Yeah. Really? When you're nude?

Me and Terry did it. We did it and Monica was impressed that I could. Yeah, I'm impressed. She didn't even think I could do it. See, I'm making her bounce right now.

I can't do it.

I can do it.

Nothing's happening. Are you doing it right now? I'm doing it right now.

I have too many layers of things on.

Yeah, who would know?

I can't believe you do it on the show,

that's amazing. No, I can't. I can, and I will. If he gets me on the beach in St. Barts, you might see him.

Yeah, well, because people love Fantasy League. anything, I feel like, especially in America, you can participate a little bit. We are participating in the way that we got to draw our favorite acts.

From the last, however long you've been doing it.

America got to pick 50 or 60 acts that they love from the past.

And they want them to come back.

But not just in America, but from all gut talents from around the world. So then, and this was Simon's idea, I think because he wants us to do more things and he wants to be on TV more than we already am, because he's like, why are we even here? They cut everything out. And he's the boss and he can change the rules, and I love it. And how we got to pick who we wanted, they had these different sized straws.