Access Hollywood Spotlight: Heidi Klum On Her Early Struggles

Heidi Klum has gone from catwalking beauty to wife and media mogul. Now, she’s in the Access Hollywood Spotlight, opening up about everything you wanted to know about the gorgeous gal.

“Didn’t it happen quickly for you? When you came to the states, didn’t they strike right way?” Access Hollywood’s Billy Bush asked Heidi.

“No, no, no, I did a lot of catalogs in the beginning and I went to so many castings, after castings, after castings and tried, and tried, and tried, for many, many years,” Heidi said of her less-than-easy start in the modeling world.

The gorgeous gal told Billy it was a long road from winning a 1992 modeling contest in Germany at 18-years-old to create the empire she runs today

In Access Hollywood’s first interview with Heidi, at a fitting for a 1997 Victoria’s Secret runway show, she told an Access producer about landing the dream job that would prove to be her big break.

“I really wanted it, I went in, I showed them what I got, and I got it,” Heidi said of getting the campaign.

“First Victoria Secret show they call you, ‘The Body.’ Did you love the nickname?” Billy asked.

“I loved all of it, I mean I loved doing Victoria’s secret, I loved doing the show with all those models that were you know doing it. It was Claudia Schiffer, it was Naomi Campbell, Tyra, Laetitia Casta, Karen Mulder, I mean you name it, they all did it, and I was the new kid on the block so it was amazing to be surrounded by all these women that I wanted to be,” Heidi said. “And then you get a title and you get to be put in the NY Post and then all of a sudden it kind of takes this wave.”

Not everyone, however, saw Heidi’s potential right off the bat.

“People would try to squeeze me into boxes and they said like, ‘Oh, you’re too commercial, you’re too happy, maybe we’ll cut your hair really short, maybe you lose some weight to be thinner,’” Heidi said of the pressures she faced. “I was like, ‘No, my hair is the way it is and I think my body is fine,’ and I would just kind of go with what I believed in.”

Born in Germany in 1973, Heidi was surrounded by the beauty business. Her mom was a hairstylist, while her father worked for a cosmetics company.”

“I grew up always with beauty products, perfume and make-up, eye shadow, lipsticks,” Heidi told Billy. “He would always bring things home, so I would always play with that from when I was 6.”

For more with Heidi, tune into Access Hollywood on Monday and log back on to AccessHollywood.com.