21 Famous Models Who Were Discovered In The Weirdest Of Ways (Or Most Random Places)

Sometimes, opportunity comes knocking when you least expect it.

Before your favorite models were gracing magazine covers, and strutting down the runways of top fashion designers, they were each discovered by someone who noticed their star quality.

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Based on her epic photos and runway presence, my guess is Naomi's modeling potential had to be pretty obvious to the person who scouted her!

Here are 21 times top models were discovered in some pretty unique and random ways.

1. Kate Moss was discovered while dealing with flight delays at an airport with her father.

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Storm Management founder Sarah Doukas and her brother, Simon Chambers, were at Kennedy Airport in 1988 when they noticed Kate, who was 14 at the time. Kate and her dad had been waiting three days for a flight back to London, and they ended up on the same flight as Sarah and Simon. The two quickly approached Kate to offer her a spot on their modeling roster.

"As soon as the seat belt sign switched off, we rushed over," Sarah told Business Insider in 2015. After Kate spoke with both of her parents about the opportunity, they agreed to let her model for Storm.

"Every day I said [to Kate], 'I'm going to make you a star.' I didn't know I was going to make her a superstar," Sarah added.

2. Cindy Crawford was discovered by a local photographer who picked her out of a crowd at a high school football game.

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A local photographer in Cindy's hometown spotted her amongst the crowd at the game, then asked if she would do a photoshoot with him for Northern Illinois University's Coed of the Week.

"My parents were very suspicious of his intentions, of course, so they accompanied me," Cindy said in an interview with David Belasco at USC. "But through him, that started a chain of events that eventually got me to a modeling agency in Chicago."

3. Tyson Beckford was discovered while he was hanging out at a city park.

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Tyson was focused on becoming an actor when he was approached at Washington Square Park by Erik Lauren, who was working at The Source magazine, to model for them, he told  DJ Vlad in 2021. After doing a photoshoot for the magazine, his modeling career quickly took off.

"Things just started happening ... people started seeing [the magazine spread], especially in New York, because it was a big publication in New York, so ... I got a lot of calls for different jobs all over," Tyson said.

4. Gisele Bündchen was discovered while eating McDonald's at the mall and had never seen fashion magazines before.

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While she was on a trip with 50 other girls from her hometown, Gisele was discovered at age 14 by modeling scouts at a mall in São Paulo, Brazil.

"We arrived in São Paulo after, like, you know, 28 hours in the bus, and we were all so excited, so we went to the mall and then they found me there," Gisele told Regis and Kelly. "They said, 'Do you want to be a model' and I was like, 'What?' But then in the end I thought, maybe I should try that. I mean, there's no other way I can make money at 14 ... So, here I am today."

She also told Vanity Fair she was eating McDonald's at the time and had "never seen fashion magazines" before this opportunity.

5. Naomi Campbell was discovered while casually shopping in London.

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Modeling agent Beth Boldt approached Naomi while she was shopping with friends in Covent Garden.

"[I was] in my school uniform just hanging out, not wanting to go home, taking a long time,"  Naomi said in a video posted on her YouTube channel. "A lady came up to me called Beth, and she gave me her card and she said, 'You know, you could model,' and I was quite surprised that she came to me 'cause I was with all my girlfriends who were really beautiful, blonde hair and blue eyes and tall, but she came to me."

6. Photographer Peter Beard approached Iman on the street and agreed to pay $8,000 to take her picture.

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Iman was balancing her studies at the University of Nairobi, and two part-time jobs, when Peter stopped her on the street to ask if she'd been photographed for a magazine before. Since the only magazine she'd ever seen was Playboy, Iman initially wasn't interested in his offer. He assured her that he was offering a fashion magazine shoot, and said he could pay her for her work.

"He said 'I'll pay you.' And then I stopped and I said, 'How much?'" Iman said in a 2013 Models by Look interview. "He said, 'Well, how much do you want?' And all I could think of was the tuition for the university, and I said, '$8,000.' And he said, 'You got it.'"

After this photoshoot, Iman was recruited by Wilhelmina Cooper and moved to New York to model full-time.

7. Christy Turlington was discovered while horseback riding.

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In a 2020 interview with the supermodel, Harper's Bazaar wrote that Christy was horseback riding with her sister at the age of 14 when a local photographer discovered her.

8. Paloma Elsesser was discovered through Instagram.

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In a GQ interview from 2020, it was revealed that Paloma got her start as a model in 2015, when was noticed by make-up artist, Pat McGrath, through her Instagram account. She's since modeled for Vogue and i-D, and has walked in runway shows for designers such as Alexander McQueen and Fendi.

9. Liu Wen's modeling career began when she entered a contest on a whim because her parents thought it might improve her posture.

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In a Forbes interview from 2017, Liu explained that she joined a modeling contest at her parents' urging, which they initiated to fix her posture.

"As a kid, I was very tall and always hunched my back," she said. "So my parents sent me to modeling camp in hopes it would improve my posture."

She won the competition and went on to become the first East Asian model to be hired by Victoria's Secret, as well as the first Asian model to earn a spot in Forbes' highest-paid supermodel lineup.

10. Chrissy Teigen was discovered while working in a surf shop.

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Chrissy was working at a Huntington Beach surf shop when she was discovered at 18 years old. She told The Daily Beast in 2017 that, before this happened, modeling was never something she thought she would pursue.

“I always wanted to be a teacher or wanted to do something with food,” Chrissy said. “But modeling, I just never thought I could do it myself really ever.”

11. Christie Brinkley was discovered while she was caring for her puppy.

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Christie was working as an artist in Paris when her puppy became sick one day. She had to make a phone call to the veterinarian from a local office, where she was randomly offered a modeling gig that kickstarted her career.

“I walked into the telephoning office and this guy goes, ‘I was waiting for you to come back. I’m a photographer and I’ve got my first big job. I was thinking you have the look that they described. Will you do it?’” Christie told WWD in 2017. “It was thanks to my puppy that I thought, ‘Let me just see what it’s like and do one little thing.’”

12. Claudia Schiffer was discovered at a disco in Germany.

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As a 17 year old, Claudia was noticed by a modeling agent at a disco in Düsseldorf, Germany, according to Deutsche Welle. She had aspirations to become a lawyer at the time, but changed her mind when her modeling career took off.

13. A classmate encouraged Tyra Banks to try modeling, which led to her pursuing it and getting signed by an agency.

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"A girl came up to me on the first day of school and was like, 'You look like a model,' and I was like, 'What?' She was the first person to ever tell me that," Tyra told Howard Stern in 2011. Tyra was 13 at the time and didn't pursue modeling until two years after this encounter, when she was signed by L.A. Models.

14. Coco Rocha was discovered at an Irish dance competition.

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Coco was immersed in the world of Irish dance when a man approached her at a competition and asked if she'd ever wanted to model before. She was a young teenager at the time, and initially didn't take his offer seriously, but he persisted, and with her mom's permission, she eventually agreed to try it.

"All of us thought it was some kind of joke — or that this man needed glasses," Coco said.  "If you think of a model, you probably think of a gorgeous, beautiful bombshell of a woman — not so much a lanky 14-year-old girl at an Irish dance competition."

"Despite all of that, I then went along to a modeling convention that agents from around the world were attending. Usually you'll get called back by one or two, but I got callbacks from all of them, which was kind of crazy," she added.

15. Ashley Graham was stopped while walking through the mall.

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Ashley was walking with her dad in the mall when a scout noticed her modeling potential.

"[This man] says, 'Hey, you're really pretty, would you want to be a model?' And I was taken aback," Ashley said in a 2017 interview with CBS This Morning.

She pursued the offer, received steady work throughout high school and, at the age of 18, moved to New York to become a full-time model.

16. Taylor Hill was discovered at a horse ranch near her hometown in Colorado.

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While at a horse ranch in Granby, Colorado, Taylor and her mom were approached by a photographer, who asked if she had ever thought of modeling.

"I was really young and kind of confused as to what that even meant because I didn't really think I could ever be a model. I was not very confident when I was younger," Taylor said in a 2014 White Cross Management YouTube video. 

After consulting with her parents, Taylor decided to give modeling a try. She then did her first photoshoot just before her 15th birthday, and visited different agencies over the course of a week in Los Angeles. The agencies all offered her contracts, and she decided to sign with her first agency, Ford Models.

17. Alek Wek was discovered by a modeling agent at a street fair.

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Alek told CNN that the agent approached her while she was with a friend at the street fair, then took a polaroid picture of her and encouraged her to model.

On her IMG Models page, Alek further said, “I was just a little girl, and one day after school — this was after my family fled South Sudan and moved to London — a scout asked me if I wanted to model ... I gave her my number on a whim, and she actually called." One of Alek's first jobs after this was a cameo part in Tina Turner's "Golden Eye" music video.

18. Sofía Vergara's career in modeling and television started when she was discovered on a beach in Colombia.

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Hola! reported that, when Sofía was 17 and at a Colombian beach, a photographer presented the idea of modeling to her. She had plans to become a dentist at the time, but eventually left school to pursue her modeling and acting career.

19. Jeremy Meeks broke into modeling after his mugshot went viral.

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After being arrested in 2014, Jeremy's mugshot blew up on the internet. Following a period of over two years in prison, he was offered a contract to begin a modeling career, and in 2017, he made his runway debut at New York Fashion Week.

20. Selena Forrest was discovered while being stopped by security at a beach.

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In a 2016 interview with i-D, Selena recalled being asked by a scout if she'd ever considered modeling while dealing with security for carrying alcohol at a beach.

"I was discovered in the beginning of 2015 at Huntington Beach in California with some family while getting stopped by a security guard to check our cooler," she said. 

21. And, lastly, Twiggy was discovered from a headshot that was taken to be displayed at a salon where she got her hair cut.

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In 1966, Twiggy, who was an aspiring model at the time, was photographed by Barry Lategan after she received a haircut. These pictures were meant to grace the walls of the salon Twiggy had gone to, per her Biography episode.

"I went back to Barry ... [after the haircut], he took those headshots, and then I went back to school, because that really should have been the end of it. It was a picture of a haircut," Twiggy said in an interview from the episode.

Instead, a journalist spotted the photos in the salon, then asked if she could interview Twiggy and write a story about her. This led to the model becoming a household name and one of the most prominent models of the '60s.