Emily Ratajkowski
Emily O'Hara Ratajkowski is an American model and actress. Born in London to American parents and raised in Encinitas, California, she signed to Ford Models at a young age. Her modeling debut was on the cover of the March 2012 issue of the erotic magazine treats!, which led to her appearance in several music videos, including Robin Thicke's "Blurred Lines", which catapulted her to global fame.
Ratajkowski's feature film debut was a supporting role as the mistress of Ben Affleck's character in the film Gone Girl. She appeared in the 2014 and 2015 Sports Illustrated swimsuit issues, and made her professional catwalk modeling debut for Marc Jacobs at New York Fashion Week in 2015. She has also walked on the runways of Paris Fashion Week and Milan Fashion Week. For her international Vogue covers and high fashion campaigns, Models.com ranks her as one of the new generation of supermodels.
Ratajkowski is an advocate for women's health issues as a spokesperson for Planned Parenthood. As a self-identified feminist, Ratajkowski has received both support and criticism for her views on sexual expression. Her essay collection, My Body, was published by Metropolitan Books in November 2021 and was on the New York Times Bestseller list.
Early life
Emily O'Hara Ratajkowski was born June 7, 1991 in Westminster, London, the only child of American school teachers Kathleen Anne Balgley and John David "J.D." Ratajkowski. She was raised in the San Diego suburb of Encinitas, California. She attended UCLA for a year before dropping out to model full-time. Her father was raised Roman Catholic, whereas her mother is Jewish. Ratajkowski has stated that she ethnically identifies herself as "Polish-Israeli", as her ancestors made aliyah from Eastern Europe. She also has Irish ancestry. She spent her summers during her youth in Bantry, County Cork, Ireland and Sant Joan, Mallorca, Spain where the family vacationed.Ratajkowski tried soccer, acting, and ballet before modeling. She participated in a few local theater productions as a child and young teen. Exposure to the nude female figure in photography and art during her formative years, including the work of her father and the photography of Helmut Newton and Herb Ritts, prepared Ratajkowski for nude work. She has said, "We have this culture of men, especially, watching pornography, but then offended by a classic nude portrait or photograph, and I've never felt that way." She was also influenced by third-wave feminism and works such as The Beauty Myth and Promiscuities by Naomi Wolf.
Career
Early acting and music video performances
With encouragement from an acting coach, Ratajkowski met and signed with a talent agent who contacted Ford Models. That same day, she signed with Ford at age 14 and went on to do teen print catalog modeling for Kohl's and Nordstrom. At 15, Ratajkowski began auditioning for Disney and iCarly roles, but she was often typecast as a bully or cheerleader and bigger roles did not materialize. She attended San Dieguito Academy, a high school in Encinitas, while modeling and acting in Los Angeles. After two nondescript movie roles, she appeared as Gibby's girlfriend, Tasha, in two episodes of the third season of Nickelodeon's iCarly. Her manager discouraged her from pursuing many acting engagements until she could be more selective.Ratajkowski attended UCLA for one year in 2009, and dropped out, deciding to model full-time. She later said that she found the fine art education at the UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture arbitrary and in conflict with her artistic concepts, and that she did not enjoy going to fraternities. After campaigns and editorials with photographer Tony Duran, Ratajkowski began shooting more fashion editorials and posed for several early issues of the artistic erotica magazine treats!, including the cover of its third issue, in March 2012. She credits that cover for bringing her the two unsolicited, high-profile, music video roles. Ratajkowski later filmed commercials for Nikon and Carl's Jr., including multiple versions of a 2012 Carl's Jr. commercial with Sara Jean Underwood. She also did nude and clothed art modeling for magazines, including a May 2012 shoot with Jonathan Leder, as well as work for Frederick's of Hollywood; a 2012 holiday video and a 2011 Valentine's video in which Ratajkowski appeared for the company are among the most popular videos on the company's YouTube channel. Ratajkowski worked with photographer Tony Kelly for the March 2013 GQ Turkey cover.
Ratajkowski appeared in Robin Thicke, T.I., and Pharrell Williams's 2013 video, "Blurred Lines". Previously, Ratajkowski had been cast in two other music videos: "Fast Car" by Taio Cruz, which was released on November 5, 2012, and Maroon 5's "Love Somebody", which was released two months after "Blurred Lines". "Love Somebody", shot on January 16, and "Blurred Lines" were both produced in 2013. The video for "Love Somebody" was released on May 21, 2013. Directed by Rich Lee, it shows bare-chested Adam Levine using inverse green screen technology to rub paint onto Ratajkowski with his hands. As they touch, they reveal each other.
Thicke had seen Ratajkowski's treats! cover that The New York Times Bee Shapiro described as "an artfully composed black-and-white photograph of Ms. Ratajkowski sitting completely nude with her knees tucked to her chest" and convinced director Diane Martel to cast her in the "Blurred Lines" music video. Martel felt that "she looked smart and stunningly beautiful" in the photo. Ratajkowski initially declined the role, fearing being classified as a music video model, but Martel persuaded her. The video was released on March 20, 2013. On March 28, Thicke posted an explicit version, with a topless Ratajkowski.
"Blurred Lines" was controversial: its video was called sexist for its perceived degradation of women, and some felt its lyrics promoted rape. Others disagreed, asserting that the lyrics supported female power and sexual freedom. Martel defended Ratajkowski's performance, saying: "it's very, very funny and subtly ridiculing." Ratajkowski did not think of the video as sexist and claimed that the producers, through the use of humor and sarcasm, "took something that on paper sounded really sexist and misogynistic and made it more interesting". She said that the song "gave me an opportunity to say the things that I felt about feminism today and about women in general in pop culture." Ratajkowski did not feel objectified and enjoyed performing in a sexual manner: The attention given to the nudity in the video, she said, shows that America has not advanced as far as it should have, and, she believes, society represses sexuality, which is bad for both sexes.
Ratajkowski's assessment of her involvement in "Blurred Lines" as an unequivocal and properly feminist moment were reconsidered in her 2021 memoir, My Body. A hitherto repressed exchange between Thicke and Ratajkowski was described, in which Thicke, borne of frustration and indignation at the attention Ratajkowski commanded on set at his expense, grasped Ratajkowski's breast without her consent, causing Emily to cower and the shoot to momentarily halt. Because Ratajkowski didn't retaliate and because Thicke wasn't held accountable in any way, Ratajkowski relives the event in her memoir in order to illustrate the complex idea that the shoot was a real claim to female power though perhaps only as a result of the male's behest: "he women who gained their power from beauty were indebted to the men whose desire granted them their power in the first place... With that one gesture, Robin Thicke reminded everyone on the set that we women weren't really in charge... I was nothing more than the hired mannequin."
"Blurred Lines", and Ratajkowski's associated video performance, was prominent beyond the sociopolitical controversies. The song became the number-one song of 2013 on music charts in many countries, including Canada, Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. Although second on the year-end US Billboard Hot 100 chart, the song's twelve consecutive weeks at number one made it the longest-running number-one song of the decade until "Uptown Funk" spent fourteen consecutive weeks at number one in 2015. The song also remained in the news due to a copyright infringement lawsuit and appeal.
Breakthrough and rise to prominence
The "Blurred Lines" video garnered Ratajkowski notoriety, especially as a sex symbol. In October 2013, Esquire magazine named Ratajkowski "Woman of the Year", over online fan vote finalist Jennifer Lawrence. That December, Rolling Stone magazine listed her among its twenty hottest sex symbols. In February 2014, Sports Illustrated magazine named Ratajkowski as one of twelve 50th anniversary swimsuit issue rookies. In April, FHM ranked her the fourth sexiest woman in the world. Maxim magazine included Ratajkowski at number62 on its 2014 Hot 100 list. AskMen ranked her the third most desirable woman of 2014.Ratajkowski was on the July 2013 cover of CR Fashion Book, which included erotic scenes with Karlie Kloss and male models, photographed by Bruce Weber. On June 24, she appeared topless in the July 2014 American GQ cover story, photographed by Michael Thompson. A controversy ensued at retailer Lands' End, some of whose customers received the issue for free. Some customers objected to the racy images, forcing Lands' End CEO Edgar Huber to apologize.
File:Emily Ratajkowski.jpg|left|thumb|Ratajkowski photographed for Day 16 of LOVE Advent 2014|alt=Portrait of a brunette Caucasian with red lipstick from above
Days after Gone Girl September 26, 2014, New York Film Festival premiere, Ratajkowski became the cover model for the November 2014 issue of Cosmopolitan. On October 30, 2014, she appeared with Taylor Kitsch in the Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare live-action trailer. Ratajkowski appeared on the February 2015 FHM cover, but she tweeted that her picture was used without her consent. FHM responded that "we liked the pictures so much we stuck one on our front cover".
Ratajkowski co-starred in the 2015 film Entourage as a fictionalized version of herself, playing the love interest of Adrian Grenier's character, Vincent Chase. Her performance received critical commentary ranging from "less than compelling", by The Hollywood Reporter Sheri Linden, to "uncanny realism", by The Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea. Grantland Morris described her role and performance with scathing sarcasm. She was also cast in the 2015 miniseries The Spoils Before Dying as Agent Day, appearing late in the series. Her performance was favorably reviewed by Emily L. Stephens of The A.V. Club, while other critics commented that she was part of a solid supporting cast.
Ratajkowski earned her first leading role, opposite Zac Efron, in We Are Your Friends, a musical drama released in August 2015, and was part of the film's promotional tour to Europe and North America. Starting with the August 11 London premiere, this tour marked her ascension as a style icon as she earned multiple best dressed citations from various sources. She played Stanford University dropout Sophie, the love interest of Efron's character and girlfriend/personal assistant of Wes Bentley's character. Her performance received mixed reviews. Alonso Duralde of TheWrap described the role as thin, as did Ty Burr of The Boston Globe. Burr said that Ratajkowski's performance was "surpassingly dull", while Nell Minow of Beliefnet stated that she "does more posing than acting". Jordan Hoffman of the Daily News described Ratajkowski's performance as "stunning and sweet". Robbie Collin of The Daily Telegraph and Grantland Morris noted Ratajkowski's rhythmic dancing skills and sex appeal, as previously seen in "Blurred Lines".
Around the time of the release of We Are Your Friends, Ratajkowski appeared on the covers of Grazia France, British GQ, harper by Harper's Bazaar, InStyle UK, and InStyle Australia, as well as a role as a 2015 MTV Video Music Awards presenter. The British GQ cover story was photographed by Mario Testino, who produced a short film featuring Ratajkowski for the magazine's website. Soon after, on September 17, 2015, she made her runway debut for Marc Jacobs at the spring/summer 2016 New York Fashion Week finale. This appearance contributed to her number-one listing among Vogue 12 Breakout Beauty Stars of 2015. For fall/winter 2016 fashions, Ratajkowski walked the Paris Fashion Week runway for Miu Miu on March 9, 2016. She has expressed the desire to break barriers for shorter and more curvaceous models, commenting: "You don't have to be 5'9" and an A-cup to be a successful model."
A Buick Super Bowl ad for its Cascada convertible during Super Bowl 50 on February 7, 2016, featured Ratajkowski and Odell Beckham Jr. The ad, in which she made a wedding bouquet catch reminiscent of Beckham's catch from 2014, received average ratings, according to USA Today admeter. The ad was filmed with a stunt double making the catch. Los Angeles-based jewelry designer Jacquie Aiche featured Ratajkowski in a spring 2016 campaign wearing almost nothing but body chains, rings, bracelets, pendants, and chokers. In May, Ratajkowski appeared in the Russian-language music video "Inseparable" with Russian entertainer Dima Bilan as a photographer and Ratajkowski as his muse.