Key Points
Tyra Banks said that Victoria’s Secret revoked her access to free lingerie.
The supermodel revealed that she attempted to use her “Angels card” in a store, but an employee halted the sale.
“I hate saying this on national TV,” Banks said on Today With Jenna & Friends.
Former Victoria’s Secret Angel Tyra Banks’ access to free lingerie has departed for the heavens.
The supermodel and America’s Next Top Model icon said Tuesday during her week-long guest-cohosting gig on NBC’s Today With Jenna & Friends that, despite being one of the most famous Victoria’s Secret Angels of all time, the brand once revoked a card that gave her unlimited free lingerie in its retail locations.
After joking with main anchor Jenna Bush Hager that she’s no longer a lingerie model, despite recently coming out of modeling retirement, Hager asked if Banks is still a lingerie shopper.
“Jenna, I had a free Angels card that the head of Victoria’s Secret gave me. They were like, ‘Forever, we love you so much, you have this card and you can go to any shop forever and shop forever with no cap on it,'” Banks recalled. “So, I would get lingerie for myself, matching tops and bottoms, a collection that came out? I got it!”
Jenna & Friends
Jenna Bush Hager and Tyra Banks on ‘Today With Jenna & Friends’
Then, a few years later, “they put a contract on the table and said, ‘Let’s sign three more years,'” Banks continued. “I was like, ‘I don’t want to, I want to be a talk show host, I’m not gonna do it.’ They let me have that Angel card for a year later, and then they said, give it back, baby!”
A stunned Hager asked, “Did you actually go to Victoria’s Secret and they were like, ‘I’m sorry, this card is no longer accepted here.'”
Banks nervously laughed as she admitted, “Yes,” before adding, “I hate saying this on national TV” while laughing.
“Did you have a whole pile of stuff?” Hager inquired. Banks replied, “Yes, Jenna. Yes! It was like in the suburbs, a store in Los Angeles off the freeway, I can’t remember the name of the mall. Oh my gosh!”
Entertainment Weekly has reached out to Victoria’s Secret for comment.
After walking in several Victoria’s Secret shows throughout the height of her modeling career in the ’90s and early aughts, Banks retired from modeling to focus on her business endeavors, including her TV empire (which included winning two Daytime Emmys for The Tyra Banks Show talk show), penning her Modelland novel, launching her SMiZE & DREAM ice cream franchise, and establishing a former cosmetics brand.
She eventually rejoined the Victoria’s Secret family and partnered with them in August 2024 to announce the revival of the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show after the brand discontinued the iconic fashion show in 2019, following criticism that also resulted in the cancellation of the Victoria’s Secret Angel division.
KMazur/WireImage
Tyra Banks on the Victoria’s Secret runway
The landmark brand eventually unveiled in 2021 a new, diverse group of seven stars (including Megan Rapinoe and Priyanka Chopra Jonas) it deemed to be the new “VS Collective,” which aimed to represent the brand and consumers through a wider range of people with larger body types, trans women, and more.
At the time, Banks praised the decision on social media, stating that she was “proud” to be “witnessing a beauty revolution” unfold before her.
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“First is crucial so that a door can be opened for others to fit through. Within a 10-year span starting in 1995, I was the first Black Victoria’s Secret contract model ever. The first Black Victoria’s Secret cover model. The first Black VS model to do so many other groundbreaking things with the brand,” she wrote on Instagram, shortly after the New York Times released a story on the Victoria’s Secret reinvention. “But after a first, must come a flow of more. A flow of different. A flow of unique. A flow so strong, a flow of so many that we LOSE COUNT.”
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