It’s not easy being hated. Everyone thinks it is, but it’s not, and I’m not saying that to whine or anything, I’m just being honest.

Every single day I’m told I’m beautiful. I go to the store and people stare. I put gas in my car and perfect strangers offer to help me. It happens so much that I don’t even notice it any more. What I do notice, however, are the not so friendly comments. True, they don’t happen that often, but in a world of constant praise, it’s the haters that stand out. Truth is, their words really hurt.

I know models aren’t supposed to feel ugly, but have you ever thought about how ridiculous that request is? I mean, who goes around feeling invincible… in terms of their feelings, at least. For every 10 compliments I receive, it only takes 1 criticism to have me spending hours in front of the mirror, naked, trying to figure out if it’s true or not.

I remember one day a random girl on Twitter said I had a large forehead. Her tweet was one of 40 tweets I received that day, but it stood out. There I was staring at my screen wondering if I did, indeed, have a large forehead.

Four hours later, after I had thoroughly stared at all of my tear sheets, and spent 1 hour rearranging my hair in the bathroom mirror, I was on the phone with my agent.

She said my look was ‘unique’ and that clients loved the shape of my face.

For me, that only validated my fear. I did have a large forehead. After crying for the next two hours, I pulled myself together and called my stylist. He expertly reworked my hair to better frame my face.

Sure, all of this might have been a bit unnecessary – my agent didn’t suggest I change my look- but after that one comment I couldn’t bear looking at myself in the mirror anymore. It hurt too much, and I could just see some random girl from my high school talking to her friends about me and my big forehead. It didn’t matter that there were 30 people surrounding me, worshipping every other part of my body… it was that one girl, and her judgmental, hateful comment that did the trick. Not only did it hurt at that one moment, it hurt the entire day.

So the next time you think about publically criticizing a model’s looks, think about how that might feel if it was you. Imagine how it feels to have the one thing you are known and loved for rudely criticized. I can tell you, it hurts. Yes, we receive a lot of praise, but we’re still human and we have feelings.