Victoria’s Secret casts transgender model Valentina Sampaio amid fashion show cancellation rumours

Just days after rumours emerged the Victoria’s Secret show had been axed over backlash — the brand has made a huge casting.

Transgender model Valentina Sampaio, who Victoria’s Secret has reportedly hired. Picture: Instagram/@valentts

Victoria’s Secret has reportedly hired its first-ever transgender model — less than a year after the lingerie company came under fire after an executive made remarks about transgender people walking in its annual fashion show.

Valentina Sampaio, of Brazil, posted to Instagram a photo of herself at a shoot with “VS Pink,” writing: “Backstage click,” alongside the hashtag “diversity”, Fox News reports.

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Transgender model Valentina Sampaio took to Instagram to reveal she was backstage with Victoria’s Secret. Picture: Instagram/@valentts

The news was seemingly confirmed by fellow Brazilian model Lais Ribeiro, who tweeted she was “so happy” Sampaio experienced her first photoshoot with Victoria’s Secret.

The 22-year-old model was also the first transgender model to grace any edition of Vogue magazine when she posed for Vogue Paris, in February 2017.

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Late last year, Ed Razek, chief marketing officer of Victoria’s Secret’s parent company L Brand, said transgender and plus-size models shouldn’t be included in the company’s famed televised fashion show “because the show is a fantasy”.

“I don’t think we can be all things to all customers. It is a specialty business; it isn’t a department store,” he said during an interview with Vogue.

Razek later apologised for his remarks which he said “came across as insensitive”.

“To be clear, we absolutely would cast a transgender model in our show. We’ve had transgender models come to castings...and like many others, they didn’t make it,” he said. “But it was never about gender. I admire and respect their journey to embrace who they really are.”

The annual fashion show has suffered from diminishing ratings for several years, and, according to Angel Shanina Shaik, the 2019 show has been cancelled. It was initially reported that the show just wouldn’t be televised.

This story originally appeared on Fox News and is republished with permission.