Banks Tyra - Perfect is boring: 10 things my crazy, fierce mama taught me about beauty, booty, and being a boss

This photo pretty much sums up our whole dynamic: Im crazy, but my mama is crazier.

Tyra: Hi, my name is Tyra Banks, and you might remember me from that time I yelled at a girl on TV.

Yeah, you remember that time.

If I was a singer, Be Quiet, Tiffany would be my top-of-the-charts number-one-hit-single bat mitzvah dance floor filler that you and your gay best friend cue up every time you go sing karaoke, and you got the GIF saved on your phone, just so its ready to go the next time someone starts telling you something you dont want to hear.

And you know what? Im not mad at that, because that moment thats all over the Internet is really just me embodying someone I love so damn much: my mother.

Cause I aint crazy, but my mama sure is.

Carolyn: Ty, now when you say crazy, you mean it in that good way, right? Shoot, girl. I aint even gonna ask, cause I know you do!

Tyra: Well, let me seedo I? When I say that my mama is crazy, what I mean is...

Crazy in a letting-your-grandbabies-pull-your-wig-off-and-let-them-wear-it-to-brunch way.

Crazy in an eating-spilled-chili-off-the-dusty-kitchen-floor-cuz-thats-her-famous-recipe-and-it-aint-gonna-go-to-waste way.

Crazy in an always-got-your-back-even-when-everyone-else-says-youre-down-and-out kinda way.

Crazy in a using-her-juicy-belly-bloops-as-a-musical-instrument way.

Crazy in that tough-love-that-gets-the-point-across-for-real way.

Crazy in a talking-bout-secretions-on-Amtrak kinda way.

Crazy in a beautiful, talented, loving, and supportive kinda way.

So... yes.

Youre right, Mama. When I say crazy, I mean amazing, awesome, incredible, mind-blowing, stupendous.

For me, crazy is good. Crazy is the opposite of boring.

Carolyn: I like that. I aint been boring a day in my life, so if you wanna call me crazy, Ill take it!

Tyra: I think we can all agreeme and yeah... you reading this book right now and Mamathat Be quiet, Tiffany! was my craziest moment (its always number one on any Internet list of 29 Reasons Why TyTy Is One Color Short of a Rainbow or something like that). It was also the time that all the Mama in me came spewing out, like one of those baking-soda-and-vinegar volcanoes you made for your elementary school science fair (and with my red hair, I kinda looked like a volcano).

So let us just break down all the wig-shaking, finger-pointing, mouth-flapping insanity that spawned a million memes.

Tiffany was a girl on cycle 3 of Americas Next Top Model. She was so beautiful and talented, with a rags-to-riches story. She didnt make it to the final cast of that cycle, but she had something special about her so we invited her back for a cycle 4 audition and, bam, she made it. On cycle 4, her photos were getting better and better. She was someone who had already been through so much, and I could see where she was going. We invested in her, and she invested in herself. I thought she was going to be the winner. Scratch thatI knew she was gonna be the winner.

Carolyn: Tyra had been raving about Tiffany every time I talked to her. She said that when she saw Tiffany model, she felt like she was looking at the winner of the show. She had never said thatever.

I was never someone who put tons of emphasis on physical beauty. For me, inner beauty is much more important, and I passed that on to Tyra. So, when she looked at the girls on Top Model, she was looking at the whole girlnot just their posing or their runway walks. How they laughed, how they smiled, how they treated other people, how they lit up a room, or their quest, their fire, their journey.

Tyra connected to Tiffanys spirit and her potential. Tiffany was pure heart and soul, and Tyra was set on making sure that beauty rose to where she deserved to be.

Tyra: That cycle, we had created a judging room challenge that had the models doing mock live TV commentating and reading really difficult words off a teleprompterthings in French, difficult designer names, tough technical terms for patterns and stitches. The point wasnt to see who knew how to pronounce the words perfectly, but who could butcher the heck out of them without losing her cool. We knew that no oneno onewas going to get those cray-cray words right. Everyone tried their hardest and everyone messed up, but when Tiffany messed up, we felt like she acted like she personally had been set up to fail. That all the other girls were perfect and she, well, wasnt. Like it was her fate to lose, entirely out of her control.