In 2011, Lea T. was one of the most in-demand supermodels in the world. She had it all — beauty, fame and a big paycheck. But, as she revealed that year on “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” she had spent much of her life tormented by a painful secret.
Lea T. was assigned male at birth and grew up the son of a world-famous Brazilian soccer star and a very religious Catholic mother. As a child growing up in Italy, T. always felt different and questioned her sexuality at a young age.
“Realizing young [that] I like the same sex, for me was a taboo,” Lea T. said on “The Oprah Show” three years ago. “I was feeling really uncomfortable.”
When T. began presenting as a woman, she felt more like her true self, but still struggled with this new life. “It’s really difficult because you fight with all the world,” she explained at the time. “You fight with your family, you fight with yourself, too, because you have to change everything in yourself.”
Read more: Huffington Post
