Sailor Brinkley-Cook Responds To “Tone Deaf” ‘Good Morning America’ Interview
Published on June 1, 2020.
Ovidiu Hrubaru / Shutterstock.com
Sailor Brinkley-Cook is upset about her most recent interview.
On Friday, May 29, the 21-year-old model appeared on Good Morning America, where she opened up to Deborah Roberts about battling body dysmorphia and being compared to her famous mom, Christie Brinkley. However, hours after the interview aired, Brinkley-Cook expressed her disappointment at the editing of the video on her Instagram Story, called it “tone deaf” and accused Good Morning America of using misleading taglines for “click bait.”
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“I’m a little upset about the GMA piece that aired this morning. I have nothing but respect for GMA and Deborah, and have nothing negative to say about either one. But I wanted to set some things straight,” Cook said.
During the interview, Brinkley-Cook said she puts her self-worth in her physical appearance and sometimes felt “disgusted” when she looked in the mirror due to body dysmorphia. The model also said her mother wasn’t fulling aware of the severity of her disorder, and also being constantly compared to Brinkley only made it worse.
However, Brinkley-Cook claimed she did not intend for those revelations to be the focus of her Good Morning America interview.
“I understand that ‘comparisons to model mom’ and ‘eating disorder struggles’ are great taglines for click bait on news outlets. But when I agreed to do this interview I was under the impression that it would be in a positive light and would be inspirational,” she wrote on her Instagram Story. “I ONLY agreed to do it during this awful time in America because I thought it would be a small beacon of positivity for people who have dealt with the same things as me.”
Brinkley-Cook continued, “I did NOT want to throw a pity party for myself. I did NOT want the interview to be highlighting the dark times. 95% of what I said during the interview got cut. Including thank you to health care workers & essential workers, as well as acknowledging how awful and heartbreaking this time is for so many.”
She also apologized for the “tone deafness” of the interview and said she would’ve chosen to highlight the inspirational soundbites, “rather than the explanation of what I went through as a 15 year old,” if she had been in charge of the editing.
“I wanted to be a voice for people who are facing their mental illnesses and body image issues head-on right now in isolation,” Brinkley-Cook added.
At the end of Brinkley-Cook’s statement, she shared one of her quotes from the interview that was cut out of the segment with fans and followers: “We have to collectively learn to praise and CELEBRATE ourselves more often, because life passes by so quickly and it’s a shame to spend so much of it worrying that you aren’t good enough.”
“Because as long as you’re here on Earth and you have a body to love and voice to be heard YOU ARE GOOD ENOUGH and you deserve happiness,” she concluded.
