Tyra Banks opened up about losing her home in the recent L.A. wildfires that have displaced thousands of Los Angeles County residents.
The former Dancing with the Stars host says she learned her house had burned down while working in Australia.
“I lost my house,” Banks said on Australia’s morning show Sunrise. “I haven’t really talked about it, but, yeah, I have.”
She continued, “I just didn’t want to pull a lot of attention to me. I feel like there’s a lot of people that need that attention, so I haven’t really talked about it, but I can’t sit here and not tell the truth that, yeah, we lost our house.”
The America’s Next Top Model host and creator said she was “at a friend’s house here, and we were celebrating just having fun” when she learned about the wildfires.
“I kept checking my phone, not for my house, but for friends and family, making sure they were evacuating and everything,” Banks said. “And then I asked my partner, I was like, ‘I’m seeing something here, what do you think?’ and he [nodded]. And I just pulled it together and just didn’t say anything to my friends and just stayed in that moment, and then we went home and we cried and we had our moment.”
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Banks said that although she had a home in L.A., she is living between Australia and New York City, adding, “We’re between here and New York, so a lot of those memento-mementos are here and in New York, so I didn’t lose that, thank goodness. There were some mementos that we lost. But yeah, it’s tough.”
The fires across L.A. have killed at least 27 people and destroyed more than 15,000 structures, with the Palisades and Eaton wildfires still burning. Firefighters continue to battle the Palisades Fire, which is now over 60% contained, while the Eaton Fire is almost 90% containment after almost two weeks.
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Watch Tyra Banks’ full interview below.
