Tyra Banks

Biography of Tyra Banks

Tyra Lynne Banks was born on December 4, 1973 in Inglewood, California. She is an American model, actress, singer and talk show host.

As a child, she attended Immaculate Heart High School in Los Angeles, California. In 1991, at the age of seventeen, she was discovered by the Elite model agency. She dropped out of school and moved to Paris.

Tyra Banks has worked for the likes of Dior, Dolce & Gabbana and Tommy Hilfiger, but she is best known as the Victoria's Secret angel. She was even called the best model by the founders of Victoria's Secrets. Banks also had the honor of becoming the first African American woman to grace the covers of Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue and GQ. In 2005 she retired from the modeling business.

Her own talk show, The Tyra Banks Show, has aired daily on The CW since 2005. After the second season, the show's crew relocated to New York City so that America's Next Top Model and the talk show could film concurrently. Banks won Emmy Awards for Informative Daytime Shows in 2008 and 2009 for hosting her talk show. After the 5th season, however, the talk show was ended.

Tyra Banks has appeared in a number of music videos, including Michael Jackson's "Black or White," where she is the second face in the morphing sequence. Also in George Michael's Too Funky, alongside supermodel Linda Evangelista, in Tina Turner's Love Thing, and in Mobb Deep's Trife Life.

On January 27, 2016, Banks and boyfriend Erik Asla gave birth to a son who was born to a surrogate mother.