Atlantic Beach Beauty Talks About Being 'America's Next Top Model'

ATLANTIC BEACH, FL -- A young lady from the First Coast is getting ready to take on the world as "America's Next Top Model."

Whitney Thompson walked away with top honors from the hit reality show.

First Coast News sat down with Whitney Wednesday, to see what's next for this homegrown star in a photo shoot at Tiger Studio.

The life of a glamorous beauty is about to grace the covers of magazines like 'People' and 'In Touch.' That's not to mention she'll be the new Cover Girl model.

But getting here wasn't all it's cracked up to be.

"I wasn't expecting to have to wear beef panties, having paint splashed on me," said Whitney.

And she had to look good doing it.

"If anything, it's humbling," she said.

Whitney is the first plus-size model to win the title.

She says for a long time, before climbing to the top of the celebrity stratosphere, she was pressured to be thin. And she says living with a ton of size 2s wasn't the easiest. "It's hard when you wake up and you're eating pancakes for breakfast and they're eating celery and you're eating something for lunch and they're not," said Whitney.

The competition was taken to a level most of us would crumble under.

"You go home to your competitors who are stealing your food, hiding things from you, taking your shoes, it's a lot of pressure, but that's what makes it interesting," said Whitney.

But now, Whitney is finally able to say the world, 'I won, I won, I won.'

"There's 14 egos living in the house, we all think we're America's Next Top Model," said Whitney.

But now, she says she's got a job to do. "I'm not really plus-size in real life, I'm regular. I'm the weight I'm supposed to be and that's considered plus-size, and what kind of message is that sending to girls and boys all over the world?" wondered Whitney.

And that's what America's next top model should be.

Whitney attended Fletcher High School and is the daughter of the Atlantic Beach Chief of Police. Now she is headed to New York City next Monday to continue her modeling career.

First Coast News visited the studio where Whitney was with her photographer, Tiger, for the photo shoot. Tiger [see web site] discovered Whitney about four years ago.