Sierra Horstin

It doesn’t matter whether you’re six or sixty; one always has a story to tell. Here at Beauty & Brains, we pride ourselves as being an alternative to what you read in your other favorite men’s magazines. Ms. Sierra Horstin is a testament to what HipHopDX and Beauty & Brains wants to push forward as we go deeper into 2008.

An Ohio native, Ms. Horstin has overcome something straight out the movies. In this interview, the 18-year-old Kent State University student takes you, the reader, deep into her closest and allows you to examine with her the pains of growing up beautiful in an ugly and broken world. Beauty & Brains is proud to have talked to Ms. Horstin as she also discusses drugs, how it all made her stronger and why through it all, she wanted to smile for the camera.

This is truly a must read.

Beauty & Brains: You’ve had to overcome a lot of adversity in your life. Can you talk a little bit about your home life, growing up?
Sierra Horstin: I grew up with my grandparents. My mom and dad were on drugs. I didn’t know when I was going to see them. We had a lot of money problems. My dad had a cocaine addiction; my mother was a prostitute and had a heroine addiction. How they met was my dad was a pimp and she was one of his girls. They had a one night stand. They tried to make it work, but they were both on drugs and it couldn’t work. My mom and my dad gave me to my mom’s mom. In the past, my grandmother had her issues too. She lost one of her kids due to drugs and alcohol. She had to stop all that to take care of me. She didn’t have a husband or a job, so she raised me on social security and food stamps. We had to live in the projects and all that.

B&B: So, if you say that your mother and grandmother lived a life of sex and drugs, how do you manage to not fall into that same trap in an industry such as urban modeling?
SH: I don’t know. You just learn from it. I want better for myself and my family. You just learn from your mistakes. They hit on me when I am in the clubs. I have a manager and she’s always around; so I don’t put myself in a position to where that can happen. I’m in college, so I have a lot of guy friends, so when they ask me to come over to kick it or whatever, it’s interesting to say the least.

B&B: How so?
SH: This one guy… who will remain nameless… in just five minutes was trying to get all up on me. That was not cool and I was not having it and I left afterwards.

B&B: What even made a person like you, who has been through so much at such a young age, want to be involved in a business that profits off of picking apart someone’s self-esteem?
SH: I don’t know. It’s just something that I enjoy doing. Everyone has a hobby. Everyone has something that they like to do. I can’t explain it. Just like how you like writing and you enjoy doing it, I like modeling. I guess, you can say that I’ve always been moved around and I never got to stay in one place, so I never had a place that I can call home. So, home to me, is more so a state of mind and modeling to me is that feeling that I can get.

B&B: Has the abuse you suffered throughout your childhood made yourself more vulnerable or stronger?
SH: Stronger, most definitely. When people criticize me, I don’t take it to heart. I don’t cry or get emotional, I just look at it like that’s the problem and I’ll work on it. A lot of people get into relationships and depend on that other person. I don’t get attached to people all like that. I don’t trust anyone, really. There are only two people who I trust in my entire life. So, in the game that I’m in, networking is important. But you can’t take everyone’s word, either. Truth is anyone can be a grimy person… especially in modeling; you have to be extremely careful.

B&B: After your mother passed away – how did you and your father reconnect?
SH: After my mom passed away, I realized that my father was all that I had. He was changing his life. He had a stable environment. He got the house that was passed down from him from his father. So, I moved in with him to reconnect. It was good for about a year or two. But when he would get his paycheck, he would use that to go on his binges. That was really hard because bills weren’t getting paid. We almost didn’t have a Christmas because of that. There was a lot of tension in the house. My little step-sister was around my father in that environment, where he smoked crack and you can’t have that around a little girl, like that.

B&B: So, how did doing well in high school with all those activities help you deal with the things going on at your father’s house?
SH: It was a way to get away. I knew that the only way to get out of that situation was to get out and make something out of myself. If I did well in school, I could get out and have scholarship money to pay for higher education. It was less time at home and I needed that. I went to Church after school to help tutor kids. I was on the student council. I was a statistician for the track team. I would find anything that I could get involved in for me to get away from home.

B&B: All wasn’t just atrocity and sadness in your life – what would you recall were some of the happiest moments in your childhood?
SH: I really didn’t have any good times when I was a childhood. I had to move all the time. I wasn’t going to say that I was alone or anything like that. It’s just that I really didn’t get a chance to go out and do things like the other kids. I had to be home and take care of my sister or do school work.

B&B: Do you think that your tragedy has something to do with your success?
SH: Yes and no. I feel like it’s made me a stronger person, it has made me more motivated. I have to be careful in modeling. So, I think that it has. Sometimes people can rely on their parents to help them and they can go to them for money and support, but I never really had that. I had to become more independent and growing up, I was more mature than other girls. We had a flood a while back and we had to move in with my father’s mother and it was really weird. I had never met her until I was eight years-old. She was ill. She couldn’t do much for herself and at the time, my dad was suffering with his addiction. I had to go to school and try to find ways to feed myself and my grandmother because he wouldn’t be around. A lot of people would quit during all that. Other kids may fall into that same lifestyle. It was something that I had to do and that’s when I knew I was different than other kids.

B&B: Now, that you’re at my old school of Kent State – how have the people been treating you there?
SH: Real good. I haven’t had any problems here. Everyone is real humble and out-going. It’s a really nice school. It’s not like a big school where you’re always meeting new people. But at least, Kent State gives me some sort of structure.

B&B: All adversity aside, you’ve managed to be able to be successful in a place that’s not really known as a major market city. What if the goals you’ve set for yourself cannot be accomplished? What do you do then?
SH: It’s still kind of up-in-the-air with me right now. At first, I wanted to be a social worker because of all the things I’ve been through. But I realized that I’m too empathetic towards people and I get emotional about it. My major is Fashion Merchandising and Public Relations, so, I want to be a personal shopper or buyer. I would be that or a fashion publicist. So, those would be my plan B’s.

B&B: As a model on campus – are the fellas able to handle the gigs that you’ve been doing?
SH: I don’t know. Sometimes I don’t think people see me as regular person. I go to parties and that’s the first thing that they notice me. It makes me feel good that people notice me, but at the same time, it’s annoying. I just want to have fun like everyone else.

B&B: And what about the ladies? Are they supportive of your aspirations?
SH: Some girls are real supportive. They say that they like my pictures. But there are girls who say that they’re really provocative or that I’m just trying to get attention. I deal with a lot of jealousy with girls. In real life, they won’t talk to me or they’ll make comments to their friends about me.

B&B: For what you want to do with yourself – how are you able to handle criticism and the haters and still stay focused?
SH: I just take it as structured criticism. I use it for motivation. If you’re not doing anything, then they won’t have anything to say, but when you do, that’s when they start talking. It’s foul that they do that, but I like the haters to keep talking. What happens if I get famous, then it’s the paparazzi, so it’s just something to deal with and I’m dealing with it.

Be sure to check out Cici’s MySpace page at – http://www.myspace.com/princesscicibabii