Tyra Banks has quit modelling and has definitely bloated in terms of her weight. But that was alright until Tyra discovered her picture in a one-piece bathing suit mocked on the Internet.

“It was such a strange meanness and rejoicing that people had when thinking that was what my body looked like. It was really hurtful to me,” she says.

“I don’t want to sit in front of you and be soap-boxy and fake and say, `I love myself, I’m beautiful, it’s great,’” says Banks, who is 5 feet 10 inches tall. “I still feel hot, but every day is different. It’s when I put on the jeans that used to fit a year ago and don’t fit now and give me the muffin top, that’s when I say, `Damn!,’” she adds.

“I’m not the healthiest eater” and isn’t required to “live up to that model standard anymore,” she says.

“I’ve made millions of dollars with the body I have, so where’s the pain in that?” she says. “If I was in pain, I would have dieted. The pain is not there the pain is someone printing a picture of me and saying those (horrible) things,” complains Tyra Banks.

America’s original top model Tyra Banks has been one of the biggest models in the industry but has never been the kind of fashion world pet that most top models needed to be.

She says, “Designers are very fickle and I never wanted to be a victim of that. It’s “you’re in one minute, out the next” and you know what… that’s the way it should be. It should be about a constant turnover of new faces for them but I did not want to have that happen to me. I remember I was backstage in Paris and I saw Cindy Crawford doing “House Of Style” and I thought, Oh Wow. I would love to to be like that… I would love to be in charge of myself, in control of my career. I wanted to be more of a business woman. I wanted to take this name I had made for myself and take to the next level.'’

The CW has formally announced that America’s Next Top Model, Cycle 8, the eighth edition of its popular Tyra Banks reality series, will debut Wednesday, February 28 at 8PM ET/PT with a special two-hour premiere episode.

If you found yourself glued to the idiot box for the last seven seasons… watch out for the 8th too.

Tyra Banks apparently finds it difficult to be the ‘good Tyra’ at the Tyra Banks Show and the stern and ‘bad Tyra’ on America’s Next Top Model.

She confessed, “I have meetings with my team, Team Tyra, all the time saying there’s a Nighttime Tyra and there’s a Daytime Tyra…The Daytime Tyra is who I am. It’s me, kind of. I mean, I have three hours of hair and makeup, but it’s me. I’m warm, I’m uplifting women. That’s my cause, that’s my, ‘Why I think I’m here’, to do that…And then there’s Nighttime Tyra. The Nighttime Tyra is a character. A character that has been created over time by me. I have meetings saying, ‘One is not me and one is - what the hell am I going to do?’ “I have a hit show, but that’s not me. That’s a character! And that is the biggest struggle for me.”

As long as you sell as both, we won’t mind watching two Tyras

The success of Kevin Bacon’s trivia game is soaring rocket-high and the good man has found a way to use it raise money for charity. Kevin will officially launch a website called www.sixdegrees.org, as an online network that gives its visitors a chance to learn about and donate to celebrities’ favorite charities.

He said, “People pick up celebrity magazines to see how people dress, which handbags are hot, which cars to buy. Why not look at what (celebrities) care about?”

Tyra Banks has already agreed to be featured on site, along with the likes of Nicole Kidman, Will Ferrell, Jessica Simpson and Kanye West.

Whatever happened to Tyra Banks’ ‘bargain hunting’ skills and her self-acclaimed title ‘the queen of cheap’ as she bought an expensive face cream worth $200. Unfortunately, the cream was not only tough on her pocket but also her face as her skin erupted after reacting to it.

“I bought this $200 face cream and I had to stop using it because it broke me out. I had pimples on top of pimples. The kind of pimples that feel like there is poison underneath your skin. The kind of pimples that feel alive!”…Ewww!!!! “I guess I’ve learned my lesson - stick to the cheap face cream I’ve been using for more than 10 years. There is no magic in a bottle,” she added.

Experience is a hard task master Tyra… it gives outbreaks first and lessons later

Tyra Banks is one of the most successful models in America despite being an African American and is regarded as one of the world’s most beautiful women. Considering that heights that she has scaled in the modeling industry… we would have expected her to be some kinda fashion world pet that most top models are expected to be.

But Tyra Banks says,

“Designers are very fickle and I never wanted to be a victim of that. It’s “you’re in one minute, out the next” and you know what… that’s the way it should be. It should be about a constant turnover of new faces for them but I did not want to have that happen to me. I remember I was backstage in Paris and I saw Cindy Crawford doing “House Of Style” and I thought, Oh Wow. I would love to to be like that… I would love to be in charge of myself, in control of my career. I wanted to be more of a business woman. I wanted to take this name I had made for myself and take to the next level.”

Here you are Tyra… completely in control of your career both as a model and as a TV show host!

It was the first time we saw the honey colored Tyra Banks go all red in face blushing as hard as she could. Reason?

The Smooth Soul star Ne-Yo confessed to Tyra that he had a crush on her and proved it by kissing her foot.

It was on January 11th when Tyra had invited Ne-Yo and Chris Brown on her show when the two pals bickered about who liked Tyra more. Obviously Ne-Yo liked her more and he proved it well.

Tyra was speechless and completely blank when Ne-Yo grabbed her foot and romantically kissed it… all she said was, “I can’t believe you just did that… I got my feet kissed by Ne-Yo.”

Tyra Bank’s brainchild show ‘America’s Next Top Model’ is to be running its 8th successful season as CW’s highest rated series and Tyra is obviously on cloud nine.

It was a show, first of its kind to showcase the talent of the upcoming models… and gives them a platform to begin their modeling career from there onward. Surprisingly, Tyra just got the idea of the show in a flash, as she confesses,

“I walked past my dining room window and looked out and said, ‘A show about models! Like American Idol, but modeling. Not in-front of an audience, but we follow them at home too, like the Real World. It just came to me.’”

The show, now in its eighth season makes Tyra swell with pride…but Tyra is also elated to see her talk show also going successful

“I’m so proud of my talk show!” Banks said. “With Top Model, there is a character I have to play and be stern, but with the talk show, I can be more just myself, so it’s a little bit more relaxing for me.”

If we go by the viewer ship and success of the show… Tyra deserves a big hand for handling two of televisions most successful shows.

Way to Go Tyra!!!

The Christmas week was a good week for Tyra Bank’s show… apparently the TRPs doubled eventhough all the daytime shows were in repeats for the week till Dec 31st.

“The Dr. Keith Ablow Show” hit a season-high 1.2, up 9%, while “Behrendt” trailed with a 0.9, up 13%. Six of the veteran talkers were up week to week. The biggest gainers were “Williams,” up 33% to a season-high 2.0, followed by “Springer,” up 17% to a season high of a 2.1. “Banks” surged 14% to a 1.6, tying its season high.

Good Going Tyra!!!