My Body

by Emily Ratajkowski

A week after the Super Bowl, Jho Low threw the Victoria’s Secret model a lavish birthday party and gave her a heart-shaped diamond necklace engraved with her initials. It had cost $1.3 million and, like everything else bought by Jho Low, was financed with money washed through Jho Low’s fund. Eventually, she had to return an estimated $8 million worth of jewelry. One of his gifts, a translucent baby grand piano, was not seized. It was so big that there was simply no way to take it out of her house.

I was nineteen. I loved driving down the coastline with the windows down, playing music. I loved the way my skin smelled after rolling in the sand when I drank too much sangria on the beach with my friends. I was eager to meet the kinds of smart, cool people I thought I’d find in LA if I was able to make enough money to move there; excited about the adult world and where I’d fit into it and what I might do. Do you remember what it was like to be nineteen?