Two decades after winning America’s Next Top Model, Eva Marcille has a thriving career in Hollywood. She credits that success to key decisions she made early in her career.
The model and actress sat down with “The Breakfast Club” on Thursday, Feb. 26, to discuss her career and her new Lifetime movie. The conversation quickly shifted to Netflix documentary, Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model.
Marcille, 41, was known as Eva Pigford when she won cycle 3 of ANTM in 2004.
She told “The Breakfast Club” one of the first things she did after after winning the competition was change her name. To hit the point home, she mentioned something cycle 6 winner Dani Evans said on the Netflix doc.
“Dani… she was one of the winners and she said something that I know is very true. It’s something that I try not to talk about a lot because I’m very grateful for where I am, but doing Top Model, definitely puts a scarlet letter on your back,” Eva said.
She said she changed her name so casting directors wouldn’t associate her with the show.
‘Y’all knew me as Eva Pigford. I changed my name to Eva Marcille, which is my legal middle name, so that when I went into auditions I wasn’t pre-judged. They just saw a girl named Eva,” she explained. “When I would get the role, later they would realize, ‘that’s that girl from that show.'”
She said “doors would be closed” as soon fashion designers realized she’d been on reality TV.
“Me being a part of [Top Model] took away from the brand, because y’all came to see me, and if you’re breaking out as a designer, you don’t want to worry about the girl that’s walking down the runway — we’re hangers.”
In addition to changing her name, Eva said she worked tirelessly — something she learned from ANTM creator and host, Tyra Banks.
“I come from South Central Los Angeles. I come from, ‘you’ve got to hustle,'” she said. “That was one thing that I was never confused about, one thing that Tyra instilled in me.”
Eva said some of the show’s winners failed to take that advice to heart.
“I think they believed that as soon as you won, the stars would open and you would get a billion dollars in your bank account,” she said. “The work never stops. The work is 10,000 times more than anyone expected and that’s not what anyone talks about.”
Eva was on “The Breakfast Club” to promote her new Lifetime movie, Pushed off a Plane and Survived.
She leads the cast as a woman who miraculously cheats death after being betrayed by her husband and falling 4,000 feet during a skydiving nightmare. The film premieres Saturday, Feb. 28 at 8/7c on Lifetime.
The Real Housewives of Atlanta alum also stars on the hit BET+ drama series All the Queen’s Men. Season 5 is expected to premiere later this year.
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