Winnie Harlow
I've never been a die-hard Beyonce fan. I always thought she was inspirational and beautiful.Collection: Inspirational
I learned to love who I am despite what anyone would say about or to me. This gave me the courage to really stand up to anyone or any obstacle in my life.Collection: Courage
It's amazing what a little encouragement can do.Collection: Amazing
Regardless of what race, what color, what sex, what nationality, what sexual orientation - regardless of who you are, equality should always rule! Whatever is right for you is right. Period.Collection: Equality
The worst thing I've done while sad is sit in defeat. That's very unhealthy. The best thing to do is dust yourself off and try again.Collection: Sad
I am the underdog, and I want to prove that one can follow one's dreams despite all the flaws and setbacks.Collection: Dreams
I have my flaws, but I embrace them and I love them because they're mine.Collection: Love
My parents separated before I was born, but they remained friends, so I was close to both sides of my family, with siblings and cousins and godparents. I've had the same best friend since grade six.
My confidence was more of a fake-it-until-you-make-it kind of thing. I tried to build my own confidence and not rely on the opinions of others.
Vitiligo is just another difference, like freckles, big hair, tiny ears Everyone has differences.
I am happy with my skin, and I'm proud of my skin, which is why I wear it so boldly. But if a job wanted me to, say, try a smoky eye and cover the vitiligo around my eye, I wouldn't have a problem with that.
I loved myself. And with that, opportunities start to fall into my lap. And I thank God for all of them.
There is beauty in everything.
I'm just living life. And if that inspires you, I'm proud, but I'm not going to put pressure on myself to be the best person in the world and tell everyone I have vitiligo. If you want to know about it, you can do your research. Either way, I'm not in the dictionary under 'vitiligo.'
I didn't have a problem with myself or my skin. I had a problem with the way people treated me because of my skin. They tried to define me.
Focus on your opinion of yourself and not the opinion others have of you.
For me, honestly, the term 'role model' means for someone to be imitated, and I don't feel like anyone is to be imitated.
Social media is a great way to get discovered in the industry because it's free, it's worldwide, and everyone's on it - a very powerful combination.
I wasn't born with vitiligo. It developed when I was 4 years old. My skin changed dramatically over the next few years.
I discovered that I was 'different' in the third grade. As the new kid at school, I was trying hard to find my footing. I thought I had made friends with a couple of girls - until they stopped talking to me. When I confronted them, they said their mothers had warned them to stay away because they might catch my skin condition.
Things were fine in elementary school, but when I moved schools in grade three, not only was I the new kid, I was the new kid with the skin condition.
You should be careful what you choose to see as a role model, whereas inspiration can come from anywhere.
Winnie Harlow is my alter ego like how Beyonce refers to her stage name as Sasha Fierce.
The more people see, the more they want to see.
People have black skin, people have brown skin. I have both.
When I got older, it got harder because when kids get older, they get meaner, so I went through a lot of bullying and people calling me, like, 'zebra' or 'cow,' so it was really hard growing up.
I was never raised as the daughter with vitiligo or the granddaughter with vitiligo or the cousin with vitiligo. I was just Chantelle.
I always loved the spotlight, just not the negativity.
I don't really talk about 'ANTM,' although I'm very grateful for it, as it was the platform that allowed me to catapult to where I should have been.
I remember sitting by my window, wishing upon the stars that my skin condition would go away. I wondered, 'Why me?'
People sometimes ask when I learned to love myself. But that was not the issue.
I had to relearn how to love myself by forgetting the opinions of everyone else and focusing on my opinion of myself.
Growing up, I didn't have a lot of real friends, and the people I was friends with, I've grown apart from - they were frenemies more than anything.
I think you have to feel your best by yourself. I do think it's important to have a solid friend that you can turn to, though - one that you can vent to.
I was a lucky kid, and I grew up connected to a lot of people.
I faced challenges as a kid, but who hasn't? A lot of people have experienced far worse. I was bullied, sure, and it was painful at the time. I even quit high school to get away from it. But I've never been the kind of person to let my past predict my future.
I don't remember my skin changing, but I do recall feeling deeply loved by my family.
Growing up in the greater Toronto area, I was a happy kid. I was my mother's first child, surrounded by admiring godparents and cousins.
I liked to hang around my mom's beauty salon, watching her do hair.
With vitiligo, my skin is sensitive in extreme temperatures.
A journalist in Toronto named Shannon Boodram saw my Facebook page and told me I was 'strikingly beautiful.' She shot a YouTube video of me, and it made a hit, grabbing thousands of views. She said the camera loved me and that I should be a model. I had never thought about modeling - it just hadn't seemed possible.
I loved reading magazines about the entertainment world.
It's weird to me for people to stare at me, because I feel like I'm normal. I don't see what there is to stare about.
Even as a little girl, my mom never wanted me to watch BET, but when I was at my grandparents' house, and my older cousins were there and I could watch it, I was infatuated with the idea that I could one day be a DJ or the host of a show.
I get comments saying that I'm a leper, I control how my skin changes, I bleach my skin, my skin's burned. None of those are true.
My skin's not a normal sight.
If one day I'm all black, I'm still a model. If one day I'm all white, I'm still a model.
Some rules are there for a reason - but it's one thing to have a rule that protects and another to have rules that stifle.
You think of floating on a rock in space as so alien, but that's exactly what we're doing.
I feel like I have so many amazing opportunities because of my immigrant mother, my immigrant grandparents.