Barbara Palvin was 13 years old when she started modeling.
At 17, people at her agency kept telling her the same thing: that she needed to lose weight because her hips were too big. That phrase stayed with her for years and shaped how she saw herself in the mirror.
The Hungarian model, now 33, shared the story on July 14, 2026, on the Wildmen podcast, alongside her husband, actor Dylan Sprouse. She recalled that, after working so hard to fit traditional fashion standards, she arrived at the 2018 Victoria’s Secret fashion show and was given another label: “And then they labeled me ‘the first plus-size model'”.
The label hurt because she didn’t feel she belonged in that category. First, they asked her to be thinner; then they presented her as the opposite. Two contradictory labels for the same body.
Palvin acknowledged that those comments left their mark and that she is still working on her relationship with her body image. How many times can a body be “too much” and “not enough” at once?