We haven’t heard much from Yaya DaCosta since she delivered her stellar performance as Whitney Houston in the Lifetime biopic on the singer last year. Well the former Americas Next Top Model contestant and runner up is now stunting between the pages of New York Magazine and rocking some hot tribal prints and other looks styled by Rebecca Ramsey.
The actress/model looks stunning in the spread that was photographed by Bobby Doherty. Get into the gorgeous snaps and excerpts below.
It has been over a decade since Yaya DaCosta finished as the runner-up on America’s Next Top Model, but recovery has taken a while. “For a long time,” she admits, “I couldn’t own up to the title of being an actress and a model because I felt like people didn’t take me as seriously, and I’m a serious actress.” Fans still remember her as the beautiful contestant from Brown University who was a little too smart for the judges’ taste and probably should have won, but, fortunately for her, didn’t. “It was a blessing, because it gave me the ability to detach,” DaCosta says. “I pretended that the show didn’t happen — that was the only way that I was able to get taken seriously in the beginning.
“The purpose doesn’t seem to have been to create top models; it was to have a successful show,” she adds. “There were a lot of girls who couldn’t take the stress [of] the aftermath. I’ve heard horror stories of drug abuse. Not everybody has the strength to be able to deal with it emotionally. But in retrospect, I’m so grateful for it. I could’ve been on Chicago Med and with no one knowing who I was and maybe not paying as close attention.”
Instead, DaCosta has put together the résumé of a working actor. Before landing as a regular on Chicago Med this fall (her character, April Sexton, was first on Chicago Fire), she appeared on shows like Ugly Betty andHouse and got a number of supporting roles in films like Lee Daniels’ The Butler, The Kids Are All Right, and the upcoming comedy The Nice Guysstarring Ryan Gosling. Over time, she has acquired a number of mentors — “aunties and uncles” like Angela Bassett, who directed her as Whitney Houston in the Lifetime biopic Whitney. It was Bassett who told her, “You are everything.”
That was something she needed to hear, especially after the constant nitpicking she endured during her time on ANTM. When asked where her confidence comes from, she says, “I had to heal myself from the brainwashing of being told you are not worthy, you don’t belong — because people are made to feel threatened by you, or because they think you think you’re better,” says DaCosta. “No. Those are all projections. Those are their feelings not mine. That doesn’t belong to me. Return to sender.”
