Tracee Ellis Ross recalls wild modeling adventures with Naomi Campbell and Madonna

Black-ish star Tracee Ellis Ross always has a funny story to tell, but couple that with hot sauces ranging in the 500,000 Scoville level, and you’ve got yourself a hilarious interview. Tracee joined the First We Feast long-running series Hot Ones with host Sean Evans to talk all things Tracee, like her life, her career, and her famous family. . . all while eating blazing wings hot enough to burn your intestines out.

At one point, she was literally yelling for her superstar singer mum Diana Ross. 

Why do celebs keep agreeing to this? Because it makes for a wildly unique and illuminating interview. Case in point: Sean asked Tracee about an Instagram picture Tracee posted of herself back in the day with supermodel Naomi Campbell, and out of nowhere, Tracee shared a whopper of a story.

“There's a really good story with Naomi!” she gushed with her usual gusto. “So I had supermodels plastered all over my wall [as a teen] -- Naomi, Cindy [Crawford], Christie [Brinkley], Linda [Evangelista] --  they were all over my wall growing up and my mom got a phone call to walk in the Thierry Mugler fashion show and Thierry Mugler at the time was just the height of fashion!”

“My mom knew I wanted to be a model. My mom said, ‘It's my daughter's 18th birthday, I will only come if you let her come and walk too.’ I did the show and then I went back the second year," she said.

"When I went back the second year, they asked me to wear this rhinestone top that had rhinestone dollar signs that sort of covered my breasts and I was 19 years old! And these like red latex pants and I was supposed to open it up at the end of the runway and shake my boobs. The truth is, it wasn't covering my boobs and I was like, ‘I can't do this, my mother's gonna kill me! There’s no way!’”

Putting on a version of Naomi Campbell's refined British accent, Tracee continued, “Naomi said to me, ‘Dahhhhhling, do you want to be a model or not?’ And I was like, ‘I want to be a model!’ She said, ‘Then you wear what they give you.’”

“I was like, ‘Okay I'll wear it,’ so I put my little boobs out and shook myself down the runway!”

That's a fun "WTF?" story in itself but Tracee wasn't done. She always has another wild and wacky anecdote to tack on at the end. Saying that her and Naomi ended up staying friendly, Tracee revealed that for one New Year's Eve in the early '90s, Naomi dressed her in her own dress and coat, and took her to see a comedy show by Roseanne star Sandra Bernhard, who was famously besties with Madonna during that period. 

“We saw Sandra Bernhard in concert and then we were on our way to Madonna's house!” she exclaimed. “And that was right when she had the SEX book out. And she opened the door to her apartment, and she was wearing a bra – there's a theme going on  – she was wearing a bra that had nothing covering her boobies, and she had on a mask and a patent leather skirt and a whip!”

Laughing at the memory, she added, “We walked in the door and I was just like, ‘Oh my god, this is gonna be quite a New Year's Eve.’ Wow, lots of boobs in that story.”

Throughout the interview, as Tracee struggled to keep her composure with the wings growing increasingly hotter and hotter, she talked about the success of Black-ish and looked back at some of her earlier career moves, like when she joined MTV’s musical sketch show Lyricist Lounge which aired from 2000-2001. Noting that everyone from Wordsworth, Mary J Blige, and Q-tip made appearances, she gave a shout-out to her favourite guest rapper of all time.

“Mos Def, because he popped my rap cherry,” she laughed before scrunching up her face. “That didn't sound right! That's wrong, I'm sorry I don't mean it! I didn't have sex with him! It was rap!”

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