TOP MODEL on the Body Image, Pressure of Industry and How She is Dealing with Hate | Coco Rocha — Silicon Valley Girl Podcast

Marina Mogilko: At an age of 14, 15, I'd get on a plane, do a shoot, come home. If it was back then, go to school, do your homework. What's the craziest story that happened to you?

Coco Rocha: There's too many. Being in a room that's just full of fire, being in water, working on an elephant. They have to pee every 15 minutes. If you see me on the airplane, I'm crying. I wanted to be mom more than anything. So I didn't even think about what that means for a model. There is not that important. What about AI? H&M just replaced their models. Why keep everyone around that's mediocre? It's easier to use AI, but if there are still these core people with great values and who are so good at their job, yes, people will still want to be around them.

Marina Mogilko: How do you become that model? Thank you so much. I'm enjoying this camp a lot. It's giving me so much energy and this is your 147th time doing it. Where does the energy come from?

Coco Rocha: I honestly sometimes at the end of it I'm like, "Wow, we did that one more time." But it really has to do with the energy of the room. Sometimes at the beginning people could be shy or bashful and you're like, oh, I've got to get it out of them. Then there's a moment when something changes in the room and everyone's excited. So it's really not my energy you're feeling—it's their energy. And it helps me too.

Marina Mogilko: How do you manage this? So you have a camp that runs 10 times a year. You are a top model. You have three kids. And you also have a modeling agency and you invest in businesses. Tell me how this all works.

Coco Rocha: I think it's funny how people see the name Coco Rocha and assume she must do it all. But it's beautiful teams. We have a fantastic team led by my husband here at Model Camp. I have fantastic managers at Nomad, plus my personal managers, and my husband is my manager. Family oriented is really important to us. We keep our business and family close at hand because, as you see with my daughters here, it's not like one or the other—it's all one thing. We make sure our teams can support us personally as part of the business. We have great grandparents who help with the kids. I think the behind the scenes is what people don't register, especially with content creators, models, athletes, actresses and actors. They usually just think it's us doing all the work like we're some sort of superhero.

Marina Mogilko: There's still a lot of you doing it though, right? You're leading this thing. You're here on the weekend and then you probably have to travel in the next two weeks to another part of the world.

Coco Rocha: Yeah, and I guess in my mind, that's normal. This is how I've grown up in business—at 14, 15, it's get on a plane, do a shoot, come home. If it was back then, go to school, do your homework. Then I started having more businesses and more opportunities. So I don't really know any different. When people say you're busy, I'm like, "Yeah, I guess I am." This is just how it's always been.

Marina Mogilko: They do say give a busy person something to do and they'll get it done, right? It's usually people with multifaceted things that fascinate people, but they're the ones that say, "No, I can get it done for you." And your husband is always with you. I used to work with my husband. We stopped because I didn't feel safe—everything, all the eggs are in the same basket. During the pandemic we're in the travel business, and I'm like, you know, have you ever had these thoughts?

Coco Rocha: I'm sure I've had a moment or two of turbulence on a plane and I'm like, we're both on this plane. But on the other hand, I try not to think in that way. My mom was a flight attendant and traveled always. She was a single mom, although my dad did live a few provinces over. In my head, that was all I had, and she was able to travel and support me. So I still think we live a safe life. We don't do anything too crazy. I have thought of that. However, I like to think that because we work together, we get to share things that most couples don't get to share ever. Our date nights—people laugh and say, "Don't talk about business." I'm like, that is our life. We sit and talk about what happened that day, what the next project is, what the next ideas are. Most couples don't get to do that. They don't even know what their significant other did. Plus, we get to bring our kids. So there are pros and cons, but I see too many pros of us working together.

Marina Mogilko: Most people think they'll fight because they'll be together all day and have too much friction.

Coco Rocha: We don't fight about work. We'll fight about like, "Why didn't you make the bed? Why isn't the dish done?" But it's not about work. We're very level-headed when it comes to business. We have the same ideas. Usually when he's saying something, I finish the sentence. We're compatible to work well together. I do love it, and I hope my kids, if they ever want to continue the family business, have a chance to do it with family.

Marina Mogilko: This girl's story is so inspiring. She started her career at 15, she's still going, and it's been over 25 years. She runs several businesses, she's a mom to three kids, and she manages everything like a pro. How? By mastering time management and focusing on what she does best. As a business owner, mom of two and a full-time content creator, I can say that it's not just about managing your time and having a solid team. It's about using the right tools that make your life easier. That's why I'm so excited about the latest update from Gamma app. It's one of my favorite time-saving AI tools. They are no longer just for presentations. They can now help you create websites, documents, social media content, and more. Whether you're a consultant, solopreneur, educator, marketer, or salesperson, Gamma is the ultimate all-in-one content creation tool. And the best part? With Gamma, you can create in minutes, not hours. Just watch how Gamma turns my ideas into a stunning LinkedIn carousel in just a few clicks without touching any design tool. Let Gamma make your work easier, faster, and more impactful. It's the tool that allows you to focus on what really matters while it takes care of the rest. Unlock the power of AI at gamma.app. So you've been in the career for 20 plus years. Yeah, sometimes I have to do a little math. You mentioned something—it's not about looks, of course looks are important, but it's how you network, how you behave on set. Can you walk me through that? Like some of your networking tips and being nice to people?

Coco Rocha: I think one of my favorite quotes—we'll talk about it later in some of the classes—is: it's nice to be important, but it's important to be nice. I think too many models might start their careers with the belief that one day they'll be such a success and they can just be intense, aggressive, nasty. They think people love a villain. But models aren't villains. The models I know who have successfully made it over and over are truly the nice ones in the room. It's like 0.something percent that make it to the top, but they're usually very thoughtful and kind. In the end, if I were hanging out with someone for eight hours and they were just so lovely, maybe their ears are a little quirky or their nose is a little funny, I'm going to think it's beautiful. But if I see someone I truly thought gorgeous but internally they started to be nasty and rude, somehow they don't look so gorgeous to me anymore. And I think that's how it works in fashion. Some people might wonder, "Why is Coco around? She doesn't have unique features. She's just a brunette girl." But I'm not at first carpet. I'm not lowering myself or saying I'm not pretty. I'm just saying some people could think that. But maybe once they meet me, they get it. That's what I think most top models are. So for all my models starting out and so focused on how they look—looks do matter, to a point—but then most people are just going to be gravitated to you because of how you work, how you treat people, and the energy you show. Yeah, and people realize you love your job. I want to be around someone that loves their job, not someone that sucks the energy out of a room, even if they're gorgeous.

Marina Mogilko: What about AI? Yeah, H&M just replaced their models. They kind of replicated some of their models. What do you think is going to happen?

Coco Rocha: I think right now we're going to play around with it and it's going to be a little shocking, right? It's in the press. If we keep using it, it might not be so shocking. We might not even care. But there's something to the live audience, the real thing. For example, think of theater. Who needs Broadway? No one actually needs it. We can all go watch a movie on Netflix. It's very easy to sit in bed and watch TV and see something fantastic. But there's something about being in a room, the experience of watching someone do it right there. It's just something different. I don't think we're going to lose that for the next little while.

Marina Mogilko: What about the commercial though? Like if it's just websites where you're selling and it's just required to sell—maybe they do start using AI for the simpler things. But look, we're in a room full of models that don't want to do the simpler things. Isn't it?

Coco Rocha: Yeah, models can complain all they want and say AI is taking over, but on the other flip side they're complaining they have these jobs where they just stand there. What do you want? Do you want the job that's boring but you get money, or are you complaining that AI is taking those jobs? I don't know yet where I stand on that. But when it comes to theatrical photo shoots where performance has value, some people will use AI because it's cheaper or easier. But there are other people that want the art, and they still exist. So they'll do it that way. Just like there are a ton of photographers that still use film. That's not easy. They should probably just use digital cameras, but they love the experience of film and they'll continue to use it. So it's going to be like most creative fields. It will start to crumble and we'll figure out what's going on. But then there will be a light at the end of the tunnel for some individuals. That's why I say to models it's important that you're actually good at your job. Why keep everyone around that's mediocre? Why keep people that complain or are mean or nasty? It's easier to use AI. But if there are still these core people with great values and who are so good at their job, yes, people will still want to be around them and watch them because it's live art.

Marina Mogilko: How do you become that model? Do you think social media for a model is important? Social media presence?

Coco Rocha: Yeah, I think that we are, and we're going to have this class a little later, but there's going to come a time where content creators or bloggers or whatever you want to call them and models or traditional models will be warped into one. You will not be able to model without having a substantial presence on social media. Those that have started off on social media are going to have to find a way to make sure their artistic eye isn't just in one direction because people get tired of that. You have to learn to be appealing to other people and sell products that aren't yours. I think it's so strange how both worlds look badly at each other, like "You can't be part of my club." Well, you can and you do. Models need to take a note from content creators because they took something that was nothing and created an empire. And yeah, content creators look at models and go, "How did they get from nothing to all of a sudden on the covers of magazines?" We have stuff we should learn from one another.

Marina Mogilko: Do you think there exists a fast track to becoming a top model these days? Like you go viral on TikTok and suddenly you're there? But Emma Chamberlain is such a great example—how she entered the fashion world just being a YouTube creator. What do you think about that?

Coco Rocha: But how long was she trying to be a YouTube creator? She's been creating on YouTube for over 10 years, right? There you go. So I think people say something is fast, forgetting that there were years before that. Maybe not fast, but non-traditional, right? She wasn't walking the catwalk traditionally. She was just making those vlogs and suddenly she's the face of Naomi and Louis. Yeah, and I love that. That's how I wish models would think now because so many want a traditional experience to validate them—"oh, I'm a model because I traditionally did the model path." Nowadays I'm like, why does that matter? No one's looking at you going, "traditional, you're the better one." It's like, "Wow, look at you creating something and people are actually resonating with it and they're obsessed with it, and here you are in this new category you never saw yourself in before. How great is that?" No one is going to care. I don't think they should care about whether you were scouted in a mall, went to an agency, and then became a big time deal. I prefer actually the models that had a background in creating something on their own because they know what it's like to achieve and fail. When they bring it to modeling, they know how to successfully do this and not do that.

Marina Mogilko: Do you get any backlash from the fashion world like, "This is not artistic, this is not fashion"?

Coco Rocha: When I started, for sure I got a lot of—not so much phone calls but more like in-person meetings saying, "Continue using these platforms and we won't work with you anymore. You're watering down the aesthetic of a fashion model." Now look, all of us have to be on it.

Marina Mogilko: Did you lose any contracts because of that?

Coco Rocha: I'm sure not lost contracts, but I'm sure I lost opportunities I wasn't even aware of. I still think to this day some people might think I'm gimmicky. Some people might think, "You know, Coco used to do such traditional work and now look at her, she's doing silly TikTok videos." But then I have to say for my business—do I actually want to work with or support people that don't see how the future is going? So it actually is a relief for me to not have my name associated because those individuals or companies are going to figure it out soon. If they don't figure it out, they're just going to die out as a company. So I'm fine that I wasn't associated, right? For all my people building businesses or modeling careers, it's okay to hear the word no because they don't see your value. And maybe one day they will because they realize in growth that you were on the right path. Or maybe you were on the wrong path and in growth you do find yourself with them. But I never say, "Don't burn the bridge." I don't need to say to someone, "You're wrong and I'm right." I bow out gracefully. Thank you for your time and we'll see where we're at in a year or two. But at this point, social media has not done me bad except maybe lost a few opportunities, and those people are now catching up, figuring out how to use this platform that they should have started a long time ago.

Marina Mogilko: That's great. But have you ever thought of slowing down? At least with three kids, you're doing so many things. Were there any thoughts like, "Maybe with this I need to stop, but double down here so I can be more with my family"?

Coco Rocha: I think people must think I'm always on the move and traveling. I am very much a stay-at-home mom a lot of the time. Again, those businesses are run by some very beautiful, amazing partners and also teams so that it can all flow. No joke, my husband is the man behind the scenes. Honestly, I trust his judgment and decision-making. He'll pretty much be like, "Hey, you have this option. What do you think?" I'll be like, "Yep." And then I kind of forget about it. He'll be like, "And that option is now a job and you're going tomorrow." I just get to show up and be around the kids, go to school functions, take them to playdates. I'm with them all the time. It's my favorite thing. So that's our deal—he does all the computer work behind the scenes and I'll show up for the jobs. But please let me hang out and be mom. He's so great at letting me have those opportunities.

Marina Mogilko: So I'm trying to understand your schedule. In a month, how many days are you a normal mom?

Coco Rocha: Every day. Every day. For example, this morning I woke up my middle boy. He has a project on tornadoes, so we woke up together and worked on the project at 6 a.m. because the camp started. Yeah, so at 6 a.m. he got up, so we got on the tornado project. We had breakfast together. My littlest was with grandpa having a sleepover, and my oldest, as you see, is here. Everyone gets a little time. Then after I leave at a very specific time to go to model camp, I tell the models, "I'm going home to be mom now." Usually everyone respects that. I'll have movie night with them, do bath time, put everyone to bed. Wake up. They have school tomorrow. Well, James will run them to school before we have model camp. So we're there. We're involved. Yeah, we're involved. And they're right now hanging out with grandparents. You have your grandparents here?

Marina Mogilko: So when you travel, grandparents sometimes...

Coco Rocha: Yeah, so grandma right now is from England. She's here for a little bit. My mom's from Canada—she'll come for a little bit. And James's dad lives nearby. So we always just have someone nearby. Plus, we have some great staff who are literally like their brothers and sisters. As you see, I just went out with one of our staff members. She thinks of them as her big sisters. That's awesome because they need support in different ways, and it doesn't always have to be mom and dad. But they can share with other people. It's fantastic. I wish I had this when I grew up—not so much the modeling, just the support. It was me and my mom, and when she was gone, I had babysitters.

Marina Mogilko: And you had 58 babysitters?

Coco Rocha: Oh, good for you. 58 babysitters, and not all of them were great. Yeah, and I didn't have the support. So I think being very present is very important to me. It's the hardest thing when we travel—city to city or to Paris. If you see me on the airplane, I'm crying. I'm wishing to be with them. I know that it's only five days, but it bothers me. I think it's young Coco when her mom left—that comes back. She's missing them. But I know my kids are like, "See you, I'm with my grandparents, I'm with my brother and sister, I have playdates planned. You've filled my days so I'm going to have fun." It's me. It's my little thing—remembering how it felt. It's funny how that's never gone away. So yeah, I really make sure it's always special with them.

Marina Mogilko: Yeah, mine cry. So yeah, this is probably the last trip, but I might have to wear this on this one. And you know what, they're... I look back and...

Coco Rocha: I cried when my mom left, but also I'm not like, "How horrible, lifelong trauma." It's things that I'm like, "Oh, I wish I was on those trips." I bring my kids, and one, I'm sure you're going to do more and more with them as they get older. School gets in the way, but it does start to be so fun where we get to share all this together.

Marina Mogilko: Can you walk me through the decision when you're like, "Oh, I'm going to have this kid, then the second kid, third kid," and you're a top model and your body is basically your product, right?

Coco Rocha: Oh, this is the first time... Honestly, I probably didn't know enough to know. That's really good. I think I was pregnant at 24, 25, and it was just excitement. I wanted to be mom more than anything. So I didn't even think about what that means for a model. I probably announced it too early because everyone's like, "Oh, she's pregnant so she has a bump so we can't work with her." And I was like, "Oh, well, why aren't I working now?" After having the baby, my body went through its natural course and a few months later I was able to go back to work. I was excited to go back to work, whereas some people say models are pressured to do it immediately. I thought of it as, "I can't wait to share my new life with my baby in my world that I love." As a model, it's fascinating—we get to kind of decide things when we go to work. I can decide if I'm bringing my kid or not. I can decide, "I need to breastfeed. Mom's got to work, but also mom has to take care of you." So if that meant bringing a grandparent while they watched them and I'd shoot and then I would feed... At certain points I'm like, "Okay, they can stay home and I'll work." But other times I'm like, "Let's just bring them. Why not?" With the third kid, like when you know what it takes when they're two, three years old—it's completely different involvement where you're like, "Oh, maybe I should just call them." No, the third one was the day they announced Co was the day I found out I was pregnant. Oh, perfect timing. I was like, "I'll just be staying home being pregnant." It was a little nerve-wracking because you're like, "There's something growing in me that I want to protect and the world is crazy right now." But no, the third one—I just wanted another baby.

Marina Mogilko: So there was a time where my life... I allowed the industry to dictate what I would do and how I do it, like "be thankful and don't mess it up." I was so over that. Anything when it comes to my decisions now, I won't ever allow that to happen again. So I never really have thought, "Oh, why did I get pregnant? I'm going to mess this all up." Because I knew that being a mom probably was going to be far more fabulous than doing this five more years. If they told me I was done, and here we are today, we're not done. We're still doing it. I'm glad I took those opportunities. But yes, I know some models who wouldn't get pregnant because they were so worried about their career. I'm like, "The career is not—to me—that important to change my entire course of life just so I could be relevant for one more year."

Coco Rocha: Yeah, and you've done so many other things differently in the industry because you advocated for changing things. In New York, right, the girls—minor girls are now treated as minor actors?

Marina Mogilko: When you're doing these changes and you get hate, what is your mindset? How do I continue pushing? What is your support system?

Coco Rocha: In 2013, there was a flaw. Before 2013, there was no protection for underage models. They were able to fix that. I thought in my mind, "Wow, this is going to be that moment in my career where people will look back and be like, 'Remember that time that you did that thing?'" And I thought it was always going to be a positive reaction. My first photo shoot after that, I got a big round of applause from the shoot and I was like, "Oh, this is it. This is how it will always be." But then one individual just jumped at me and was like, "What did you do? Who do you think you are? Because your career is, you know, falling. You thought you should destroy the rest." And I was like, "Wow, someone believed that." The room didn't know how to react, so they didn't do anything. I thought, "Oh my goodness, never mind the positive. I might actually be entering rooms where people just can't stand me." Yeah, it hurts when you have stuff like that. You realize you're not trying to be the whistleblower. You're not trying to be mean or nasty. You're just thinking people would like to take care of their models and take care of their children, and they didn't see it that way. So yeah, I sometimes still have a hard time in rooms where people look at me like, "Goody Two-Shoes, the girl that always wants to do better." But is she really that better? I second-guess a lot of what people are thinking about me. It's something I'll probably deal with forever.

Marina Mogilko: How do you deal with it? Does it fade away?

Coco Rocha: It doesn't fade away. I'll have great days where I walk in a room and I can tell someone's not into me. I'm like, "That's fine." And then other days you're like, "Why do I feel so vulnerable and nervous?" I'd say to anyone, "You're never going to have an appropriate reaction. It's just how you're feeling at that time. Hormones, sleep deprivation, being sick, feeling empowered or not—that's going to dictate how you're going to react to things in that moment." So I never can look back at a moment and be like, "You should have done better." That's how I was going to react at that moment for what I was going through at that very time. That's how I deal with it. I'm okay if I do cry sometimes from a reaction or response. I'm proud of myself when I react otherwise. But you're right—you do want to have a team. You want people you can talk to who are reasonable with you. James is that person with me. Sometimes it annoys me how reasonable he is. I'm like, "No, I just want you to hear me cry." But he will. Like the other day I had a moment and he reasonably told me some stuff and I was like, "I needed to hear that. That's exactly what I needed to know. I knew it, but I needed to hear it." For people in business, again, stop finding the yes man—the person that always says yes to you and agrees with you and tells you whatever you want to hear. You do need the "no" man sometimes. As much as you hate it in the moment, you don't really want to hear that you did wrong or you should have done this. Those are the people that will really benefit your career or your business.

Marina Mogilko: I like how you explained this. You don't avoid these feelings. You just go through them and you're like, "Yeah, this is..." Because I thought when I was starting out in the creator career, I was like, "Probably once I'm 10 years into it, I'll just develop this immune system against hate."

Coco Rocha: Never happens. Also, it's because you're a good person. Good people, you're not going to turn into some sort of robot that has no feelings anymore. I hope you react. I hope you're like, "Oh, that ignited something that's frustrating me." But if you all of a sudden just like nothing bothers you, that's strange. I don't want that for people. But like you heard me in class, I do want people to hear feedback on a photo shoot and not assume it's always negative. Not everything someone says to us should be translated as, "They don't like me, they hate me." Yeah, and I think that's one thing we all need to add to our filter system—filter that a little before you judge it completely. Yeah, like thinking of yourself as a business that just figures it out. Business, me, producer—you know the difference? And yeah, sometimes I remember saying to people early in my career, "This person bullied me, and this person did this and this and this." Looking back, I was like, "No, they weren't trying to bully me. My immediate response was just that's what they were trying to do." So I always say, "Filter it. Make sure what you are seeing is what exactly they're actually giving." Yeah, and to your surprise, you might realize not everyone is a meanie. Not everyone's trying to be a bully. Depending on their background, their upbringing, where they live—they might just speak matter-of-fact.

Marina Mogilko: Exactly. And you're from a place where you're a little more soft in your approach. Yeah, I need some beauty tips from Coco. Coco who has three kids and travels around the world. Um, so when you're going on a 16-hour trip for 3 days in China, I don't know. Yeah. What is your strategy of staying alive?

Coco Rocha: You know what? I can sleep on the dot. Like, on a plane I really can just fall asleep, wake up, start. As moms, I think we're very sleep-deprived. So I think it's actually great for our kind of work because you can take a few hours and start the day. I don't think I have the greatest answers when models ask me or people ask me how I do it. It's again like I—there's a light at the end of the tunnel. When I get back from that trip, I'll go back to normal life, normal experiences. I'll be able to go to bed in my bed and sleep, but right now it's chaos. So get through it and just survive it. I don't know. Like, no, just you just... Also, try to find something positive out of a negative. The negative might be, "Oh my goodness, I'm gone for hours and I only have to be there for a few hours and then back in a plane." I get to watch movies and eat on a plane, sleep, and no one's pulling my clothes. Even though I'm upset that I'm not with them, there's also like, "Wow, there's this peace and a little bit—this movie I've always wanted to watch." Yeah, there's something exciting about that. So try to find the excitement in things that you might dread. Yes, it's 16 hours, but also how cool that you get to hang with your bestie, have champagne, watch that movie, do your job, and then come back. Life is not that hard, especially for content creators and models. We're not curing cancer. We're not fighting wars. So yeah, I think a little sleep-deprived, we're going to be okay.

Marina Mogilko: Yeah, this is and this reflects in all your work ethic like what you're talking about like during the show. Love that. What's the craziest story that happened to you throughout your career?

Coco Rocha: Oh, there's too many. You're going to hear later. I'm going to save those for tomorrow night. We have our like, I share all my silly crazy photo shoots and stories, but you name it, it's probably happened. Weird stuff like working with animals—they're not fun. Being in a room that's just full of fire, being in water, working with an elephant. Did you know they have to pee every 15 minutes? So you have to get the photo and then they've got to go. Working with other people's children is kind of hard because it's not even your child. We call it "guerrilla style" when you don't have the right to be maybe in a building or on the grounds, but you're shooting really fast and hoping no one gets you in trouble. Things where you can't control the sun, you can't control the environment, but you have to produce this moment. Those are usually the most challenging. And then of course the team. You never know if you're getting a good team or a bad team early in your career because you don't know everyone. So that, I think, was the challenging part—like, "Oh, I have a bully on set or this person is just not fun to work with." But now I get to pick my teams a little more. So it's great. It's fun. I love having a shoot where it's just full of laughs and giggles and we create some fantastic things.

Marina Mogilko: We're almost done. I just actually wanted to show you some photos. Just a sec. What would you say to this, Coco? Any advice for her?

Coco Rocha: That photo looks so much like Ioni right now. It's kind of crazy. I remember shooting that in lower Manhattan. I remember being so lost in movement, didn't know what I was doing, but playing with my hair, my long, long hair. The photographer was like, "Yeah, keep going." And all the photos, it's just me tangling my hands in my hair. Around that time, I do remember hearing from a photographer. He showed me a photo of a famous model at the time, her name is Gemma Ward from Australia, and he wanted me to copy this pose. He said, "Be like this model."