Anok Yai: Model Recounts When She Was Called A “Cockroach” During A Photo Shoot

This week, supermodel Anok Yai took to social media to discuss her experience during a photo shoot with a prominent apparel brand.

Yai alleged in a series of since-deleted tweets that she was once called “a cockroach” by a photographer during the 2019 campaign shoot for a Spanish multinational retailing brand. 

The model started the message with “Who wants to hear a story?” before detailing the alleged remarks.

“I remember being called a cockroach by a photographer in 2019. It came from this brand that I used to use exclusively. Even though neither of us could communicate in the other’s language.”

Yai continued, describing how “the photographer puts down his camera and yells as the makeup artist starts powdering my face on the second to last day.” 

“‘Lotion la cucaracha’,” meaning “lotion the cockroach” in Spanish. 

According to Yai, after the unnamed photographer’s comment, “everyone on set started smiling and laughing.”

“I can’t react the way I want to react because at the end of the day, I’m young, I’m alone, and I’m black. Anything that I do will affect me, my family, and other black models,” Yai recalled thinking on that particular day.

Yai allegedly refused to come back to the shoot the next day if she had to continue working with the same photographer after the incident.

Prior to disclosing the brand as Zara at the conclusion, a single tweet read: 

“Hi bitch, @ZARA. Remember me?”

The photographer was kept on scene the following day, allegedly despite Zara’s team telling her that they would terminate him because they “don’t accept that type of behavior.”

Yai claimed that the brand’s team member grabbed her aside as soon as she arrived and said,

“‘I asked the team what happened, and they said you made it up. She continued to say, “To be honest, you never seem to be happy to be here or smile when you come here.”

“Even after I assured her that I wasn’t lying, she didn’t seem to believe me. I forced them to call my car to the airport and pay my full rate anyway because I could tell she wanted me to sit down and shut up.”

“I recall wishing to submit the article to periodicals, but I was instructed to consider the potential impact on my job. That was not the only time I had been placed on a blacklist.”

Yai has been open about her experiences in the modeling industry after being discovered at the 2017 Homecoming event at Howard University.

She has made appearances on magazine covers, runways, and in luxury advertisements all around the world.