Emily Ratajkowski

Emily O'Hara Ratajkowski (born June 7, 1991)^[3] is an American^[4] model and actress. She rose to prominence after her controversial appearance in Robin Thicke's "Blurred Lines" music video.

Early life and education

Emily Ratajkowski was born in Westminster, London, England to a Polish father^[5] and an Israeli mother.^[6][7] Her mother is a professor of English and a writer, whom Ratajkowski describes as a "feminist and intellectual".^[8] Her father is a painter and art teacher.^[9] She was raised in Encinitas, California. She lived in and travelled to many parts of Europe at a young age and spent much of her childhood in Bantry, Ireland, and Mallorca, Spain.

Ratajkowski was signed by Ford Models at age 14; she continued to attend high school in San Diego, California at San Dieguito Academy, while she modelled and acted in Los Angeles.^[10] She attended University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) for one year, then decided to pursue her career in modelling full-time.^[9]

Career

Ratajkowski was signed by Ford Models at age 14 but finished high school and went to college for one year. She worked for Forever 21 and Nordstrom, but became recognized as a fashion model after shooting several campaigns and editorials with photographer Tony Duran.^[11]

As an actress, her most notable role was "Tasha" in Nickelodeon's iCarly from 2009 to 2010. She is scheduled to star in David Fincher's upcoming film Gone Girl.^[9]

She began shooting more fashion editorials and appeared nude on the cover of Treats! Magazine, which she credits for bringing her the two high-profile music video gigs, which she did not audition for.^[8][12] She has worked with photographers such as Tony Kelly, with whom she shot the cover of GQ Turkey.^[13] She featured in a Carl's Jr. commercial, with Sara Jean Underwood, in August 2012. She also appeared on the cover of Carine Roitfeld's magazine CR Fashion Book shot by Bruce Weber in September 2013. In February 2014 she was one of the 12 new Sports Illustrated rookie swimsuit models.

"Blurred Lines" performance

In 2013, she appeared in two music videos: Robin Thicke, T.I., and Pharrell's "Blurred Lines" and Maroon 5's "Love Somebody".^[14] She rose to prominence for her controversial performance in "Blurred Lines", which featured her dancing topless. YouTube banned the explicit version of the video for violating its Community Guidelines due to its sexually explicit nature but reinstated it in July 2013.^[8]

When asked by Esquire about her thoughts on whether she thought the video was sexist, she replied that she did not think it was.^[8] In a separate interview, she said, "I think there's different kinds of nudity, and there's different kinds of sexiness, and obviously it's hard to distinguish those things. I think that the video was tasteful, beautiful, and there's nothing offensive about it". Additionally she said that she interpreted the video about "these ladies being silly and a little sarcastic". ^[15]

References

External links

• Official website
• Emily Ratajkowski at the Internet Movie Database
• Emily Ratajkowski at the Fashion Model Directory