Supermodel Niki Bassett divides her hectic life between New York runways and faraway Ethiopia.
Ms. Bassett, who earns $100,000 a day posing for clients such as Victoria’s Secret, returned via private jet from Ethiopia where she had addressed indigenous groups in an effort to raise the consciousness of women, not only in Africa, but worldwide.
Ms. Bassett, known for her sculptured Barbie Doll body, said that she was appalled by the way social pressures force young Ethiopian women to disfigure themselves.
“I’m talking about the dreadful lip plate,” she said. “The tribes in the Omo River basin are in the Middle Ages. Absolutely barbaric. Teenage girls whack out their front teeth so they can stretch their lower lips. Grotesque.”
It’s all about economics…
“Brides with the largest lip plates get the most cows for their families.”
Ms. Bassett explained that a hole is bored through the lower lips of the unfortunate women, and then the lips are stretched repeatedly until they can accommodate a plate the size of a laptop computer.
“Even if the lip plate could hold a PowerBook, it would make no sense as there is little electricity among the tribes,” she said.
Ms. Bassett originally visited the land of Haile Selassie to discover how that country’s citizens were able to maintain their extreme low weight and pencil-thin physiques. (Answer: mass starvation.)
“When I heard that, it was a like duh moment for me,” she confided.
Ms. Bassett, who plans to tattoo bloodshot eyeballs on her eyelids for her 18th birthday, declined to discuss her upcoming liposuction, additional tummy stapling, bumblebee lips and larger silicone breast implants.
While in hospital, dental surgeons will extract Ms. Bassett’s remaining molars to maintain and enhance her Niki-Dimples™.
