Came to Paris from Benin at the age of 13, couldn't find a job and ended up a vagrant, sleeping under bridges and rummaging in trash cans for food. Things changed for the better when fashion designer Thierry Mugler discovered him and made him a fashion model.
School bored me. Being educated and being intelligent are two
different things. I thought I was smart enough. And I wanted to be an
entertainer. I stopped going to school as a way of saying I was mature,
a way of saying I was going to choose who I was going to become.
--Daily News, December 3, 1997.
