Interview: Ex-Victoria's Secret Model-Turned-Believer 'Relies on God' in Stage 4 Cancer Battle
Although she’s just 38, former Maxim and Victoria’s Secret model Nicole Weider, who walked away from her lucrative career at 24 to follow Christ, has lived many lives: model, actor, producer, author, teen girl’s advocate and social media influencer.
But the one that has offered her true fulfillment, the one that ultimately led to her becoming a wife and mom, has been her life as a devoted Christian.
Now, as she’s battling Stage 4 breast cancer — a time when some might question their faith — Weider says it’s “stronger than ever” and that she’s “feeling really optimistic.”
Understandably, Weider says she went into shock for a few minutes after she was diagnosed, but she says “I felt God’s presence. … I was sitting there and I felt God reassuring me, ‘You know that I’m with you. I love you. You’re in my hands.’”
The popular social media influencer revealed the news within hours of her diagnosis because she said God told her to ask for prayers and because “God wanted this journey to be shared. He wanted me to be vulnerable and share what happened to me. It was like a prompting from him.”
Weider has been publicly sharing her faith journey for well over a decade now.
Ever since her abrupt departure from the modeling industry, where she says she felt “sexualized” and “degraded” beginning at the tender age of 14, she’s chronicled her joy in finding Jesus and has invited young women to join her in her faith.
Those very personal posts — and warnings to girls to avoid her experiences — grew to include articles, Bible lessons, Christian book recommendations and lifestyle advice about dressing modestly and dating within a Christian context.
Eventually, all of that morphed into “Project Inspired,” an immensely popular online gathering place (now migrated to Instagram) for teens growing into young women to learn about and celebrate living a Christian lifestyle.
“Project Inspired” led to Weider’s well-received book, “Project Inspired: Tips and Tricks for Staying Who You Are,” and a successful petition called the “Anti-Cosmo Mission,” which influenced Walmart, the nation’s largest magazine retailer, to remove Cosmopolitan magazine from checkout stands and implement an age limit for purchase.
Although she says she doesn’t know what mission God will place in front of her next on behalf of young women or to spread the gospel, she’s ready for it when he does.
Here Weider shares more about her cancer battle and how she found God at her lowest point in life.
TWJ: So how are you feeling? Where are you right now in your treatment?
Weider: I am feeling really optimistic and feeling great. The treatment that I’m doing is very targeted to this type of cancer, which is such a Godsend. I only have one chemotherapy session left, and my tumor markers are now down 95 percent from when I was first diagnosed in November. I honestly couldn’t be doing better through my treatments. I’m so thankful.
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Take me to that moment of diagnosis when you posted that you went into shock but felt God’s presence so strongly. Can you elaborate?
I got diagnosed with breast cancer [that had spread to the lymph nodes and liver] on Nov. 19, and it was about a week before my 38th birthday. The doctor came into the room [after tests] and he looked so freaked out. And he said, “Ma’am, I’m so sorry to tell you that you have breast cancer.”
And I was like, “What? You’re joking.” I thought, “There’s no way I have this,” you know? And my mind went into this weird place where I just thought it was a joke. I was going into shock, basically. He said, “No, ma’am. I would not joke about this.”
It’s really weird because my mind was so scared, but I felt God’s presence in a way that I had not felt in a long time. It was weird because I was sitting there and I felt God reassuring me, “You know that I’m with you. I love you. You’re in my hands.” And then I just felt God’s presence.
As soon as I was diagnosed, I just started feeling like God was healing me through the doctors. Even though it’s still crazy to me that I have cancer, I’m seeing God now more and more while I’m going through it.
Are your kids aware of your diagnosis and treatment? If so, how did you deal with telling them?
I have two kids. My son is 10 and my daughter is 3. My husband and I were pretty honest. It’s kind of like a blur, but I did tell [my son] I had cancer. I didn’t tell him I was going to die, because obviously I didn’t know that. But I didn’t tell him all the details. And then my daughter, I just told her that I was sick and I would need to see the doctor a lot to get medicine.
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So many other people have shared their cancer and faith journeys in response to your posts. What is that like?
I had no idea that this would happen, but all of a sudden, people shared with me their tips on surviving and things that would help me in my journey. … People that were diagnosed with breast cancer after me were saying, “Thank you so much for sharing your journey, because I went in to get a mammogram because you spoke about it.” They say like 1 in 8 women will get breast cancer.
A lot of women said, “Thank you so much for speaking about this. I got a mammogram and you really helped spread awareness.” Because they don’t recommend women get mammograms until they’re 40, and I was 37 when I was diagnosed.
Now I’m sharing things that are helping me and I’m encouraging them. So it’s like this whole new community. It’s really awesome. I don’t wish this on anyone, but I’m seeing a lot of good come from this.
Do you think you could have gotten through this treatment process without your strong faith?
Oh, it would have been so much rougher and almost impossible.
For me, it seems like common sense to have faith in God. God’s supernatural peace and the Holy Spirit have been guiding me on what to do and what to say. And so it’s like I literally hear God speaking to my heart, and he’ll tell me what to say in a way. He’ll tell me in an inner way. He really speaks to me in loud ways.
And if I don’t do it, it’s like I have a prompting that’s like him telling me, “Hey, Nicole, you’re not listening. You really need to do this.” So he just has been guiding me and giving me peace when I needed the peace.
You’ve written that at one point in your modeling career, when you were about 24, you had this great hunger for the Lord, and you didn’t know where it came from because you had no religious background. Can you describe that pivotal time?
I was at rock bottom. I was partying in clubs. I was staying up all night. I was drinking all the time. I was, you know, smoking. I was doing really bad stuff. I was never criminal, but I wasn’t taking care of myself. I was partying and in relationships with horrible guys, and I hit rock bottom. I was depressed. I had suicidal thoughts.
And I had read all these self-help books, and nothing was helping me. And I just started praying outside to the stars and God. It was so crazy because God just started revealing himself in these big God incidences.
And I read this book, “The Purpose Driven Life.” And God spoke to me through that book because the first sentence in the book was about how it’s not about you. And I thought, “Wow, in all the self-help books, it’s always about you. It’s about you and your happiness.” This book was the opposite of that. You are here to serve God’s purpose.
And I thought, “Maybe I have gone through this to give God glory and to help other people.” Then I just started seeing God everywhere. I was talking on Facebook as soon as I became a Christian. I just started publicly sharing my faith all the time. I just was so in love with God.
How soon after you became a Christian did you quit your modeling career, which was your only source of income?
It was overnight. I didn’t want to be in the industry anymore. It was really hurting me, hurting my spirit. And at that time I didn’t know that it was God’s prompting, you know?
You began modeling young. How did that happen?
My mom was a single mother, and she had me when she was 16 years old. We were on welfare, and she raised five kids. My biological dad left my mom. I convinced my mom and my siblings to move to LA, and then I started modeling right away.
You started at just 14 years of age, right?
I started modeling locally in catwalks when I was like 6, and then I modeled in middle school, even with braces on. I modeled for Nike and radio stations.
When I was in eighth grade, I modeled for a radio station called Z100, and I was on a billboard that was on one of the main freeways in Oregon. It was so crazy because I was only in eighth grade, but the campaign said, “There’s no bad date a good song can’t cure.” I was only 14 when they put me on the billboard about going on dates! I was already being marketed as sexy when I was 14 and 15.
When I was 16, my agent said, “You’re a little too curvy for high fashion, so we’re going to do swimwear stuff.” I started doing swimwear modeling, and then when I was 18, they said, “You’re going to do lingerie modeling.”
So I basically was sexualized from a young age. At my lowest point, the photographer said, “Take your top off, and just cover your chest with your arms.” And I felt like I didn’t want to talk back to her. And then my images were online. I wasn’t even a Christian then, but I thought, “This is just terrible.” You didn’t have to be a Christian to feel that something just didn’t feel right.
You also were doing Victoria’s Secret at the time, correct?
I thought it was a dream come true at first. But then again, they said, “Take your top off and just hold your chest with your hands.” It just was so degrading.
Then one of the photographer’s assistants was retouching one of the famous model’s photos. He was removing her freckles, he was making her thighs thinner. And I thought, “What?” She was already really thin. And I thought, “This is just crazy.”
When you left modeling, and since you said you didn’t come from a Christian background, you could have easily stumbled. How did you learn about God and fulfill that hunger without support?
Well, I started reading a lot of Christian books. I’m a big reader. I had no one, really, and I wasn’t going to church. So I went to Barnes & Noble and I was obsessed with reading all these Christian books. I read the Bible, and I just was in love with God.
Shortly after you began your faith journey, you founded “Project Inspired” to teach girls and young women to live a Christian lifestyle. Why was that important to you and how did it evolve?
I was looking online for Christian resources for young women because at the time there was nothing for young women talking about dating and fashion and pop culture [in a Christian context]. And I thought, “Why does this not exist?”
I wanted to create an online place where young women could get inspiration. So I created a website and I hired writers, and I was just creating content all the time. And I developed an audience of young women who just said, “Thank you so much for creating this.”
Did you get any criticism about giving such advice when you had been a lingerie model?
Yeah, I had a couple people who would comment, “Who are you to talk about this?” I just ignored them. But I had lived that life and I then lived the modest life. I knew what it was like to be degraded and to be sexualized.
So with “Project Inspired,” I would send out emails and I would do Bible studies once a week, and it just kept growing and growing. I had it for like 12 years and migrated it to Instagram where a lot of young people were.
How did you get involved in acting and producing Christian films?
When I was younger, a teenager, I was doing extra work, which I thought was so much fun. Modeling was easier for me than acting. I was more comfortable posing than acting. So I didn’t really pursue it full-time.
So I helped finance a film called “Switched.” I’m so proud of it. It’s such a good movie. We made our money back and a profit. And there have been so many young girls who have also messaged me telling me that they loved the movie, and it helped them in some way. That means more to me than being in a popular horror film or something like that.
What’s next for you after your treatment?
That’s a tough question. Right now, I’m not quite sure. I used to care so much about “making it.” But I could care less now. I like to do what I’m doing. I do the projects I’m passionate about. I don’t care if mainstream Hollywood likes me or not, because they don’t really like God. And there are so many celebrities who are corrupt and crazy, and so projects have to be aligned with my values.
If you could title this piece, what would you title it?
I think that’s really nice. I’ve never had a writer ask me that. I would say something like “former lingerie model diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer relies on God” or something like that. I don’t know. I have this serious diagnosis. It’s a serious diagnosis, but it’s also trusting in God.
Note: Answers and questions from the video interview may have been edited and condensed to remove random utterances, such as pauses or filler words that are a part of speech, and for brevity and clarity.
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