Kate Moss has said she was made a “scapegoat” for other people’s problems in the 1990s when she faced criticism for allegedly glorifying thinness and drug use.
The catwalk star reflected on a shoot by the photographer Corinne Day which featured in Vogue magazine in 1993 during an appearance on Desert Island Discs.
The photographs, which were taken in her flat and showed her dressed only in her underwear, prompted criticism from some commentators.
In the rare interview, Moss told host Lauren Laverne: “I think I was a scapegoat for a lot of people’s problems.
“I was never anorexic, I never have been. I had never taken heroin. I was thin because I didn’t get fed at shoots or in shows and I had always been thin.
“It was a fashion shoot. It was shot at my flat and that is how I could afford to live at the time.
“And I think it was a shock because I wasn’t voluptuous and I was just a normal girl. I wasn’t a glamazon model, and I think that shocked them.”
The 48-year-old, who grew up in Croydon before being scouted in 1988 aged 14 by the founder of Storm Management, distanced herself from her controversial “nothing tastes as good as skinny feels” mantra.
Her quote was published on women’s fashion website WWD in 2009 and prompted criticism from some quarters.
Kate suggested the phrase had been taken out of context as a “soundbite”.
“Basically I was doing an interview and at the time I was living with (hairdresser) Jimmy B and my friend and she was a bit of a snacker,” she said.
“So on the fridge Jimmy B had written, ‘Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels’ and when the person asked me, I don’t know why, it just came (to me) because that was what was happening at the time.
“We were saying it because it was funny. But obviously they were like, ‘Soundbite!’ and that was that.”
Kate also addressed the furore around a number of photographs that were published by a newspaper in 2005 appearing to show her taking cocaine in a recording studio with then-boyfriend Pete Doherty.
She said: “I felt sick and was quite angry because everybody I knew took drugs, so for them to focus on me and try to take my daughter away, I thought was really hypocritical.”
Asked why she had apologised publicly, she replied: “I kind of had to apologise really because if people were looking up to me, I had to apologise.”
Her musical choices included Harvest Moon by Neil Young, Life On Mars? by David Bowie and a version of Back To Life by Soul II Soul featuring Kanye West’s Sunday Service Choir that she had specially remixed for the show.
She chose The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery as her book, and a cashmere blanket in either duck egg blue or pink for her luxury item.
Desert Island Discs will be on Radio 4 at 11.15am on Sunday and on BBC Sounds.