Entertainment

I gave up modeling for God

Kylie Bisutti, 23, saw her dream come true when she beat 10,000 other girls in the 2009 Victoria’s Secret Angel Search competition. In her forthcoming book, “I’m No Angel,” she reveals why she gave up a multimillion-dollar career for the quiet life in Montana. She tells The Post’s Kate Storey her tale:

I’m lying on a bed wearing a tight, little T-shirt and boy-cut panty bottoms while camera flashes keep popping away. I’m giving the camera that seductive, bombshell look I’d become famous for.

“Pull the top further up,” the FHM photographer encouraged me. “Hold up the covers like you don’t have any panties on.”

I didn’t feel comfortable but he kept urging me on.

“This is what Victoria’s Secret models do,” he said. “This is why they hired you. If you want to be like Gisele, this is what you have to do.”

That’s when it hit me. I was being paid to strip down and pose provocatively to titillate men. It wasn’t about modeling clothes anymore; I felt like a piece of meat.

The next day, I broke down and started sobbing. I was in my bedroom and dropped to my knees and started to pray.

“God, why did you have me win the Victoria’s Secret Angel competition if it was going to make me feel this way? I’m not honoring my husband. I just want answers!”

That was two years ago. Today, I’m living in Montana with my husband, enjoying the fresh air and volunteering with our church.

The old me would never have believed that I gave up my career for this quiet, country life. When I was a little girl growing up in Las Vegas, surrounded by billboards of half-dressed women, I dreamed of becoming a Victoria’s Secret Angel.

I thought the models I saw defined beauty, and beauty meant you were important. I would watch the Victoria’s Secret fashion shows at home on TV and imitate the models’ signature struts when I’d walk to my bedroom at night.

Kylie, with her husband Mike Bisutti, married in Cabo San Lucas in 2009.Chris Schmitt Photography

Adriana Lima was my favorite.

I don’t remember wanting to be anything other than a supermodel. And people were always telling me I should model — family, teachers, even random people on the street.

When I was 8, I won my first casting call, but my parents couldn’t afford to send me to California for the photo shoot — my dad was a poker dealer and my mom was a housekeeper. So I started modeling every weekend at the Fashion Show Mall in Vegas.

Until I was 15, modeling was the most important thing in my life, but then a girl I barely knew at school invited me to her church’s youth group. That party changed my life. I’d never been to church, but hearing that Jesus died for my sins was just amazing to me.

Shortly after that party, although I was just becoming a Christian, I didn’t think twice about moving to New York to pursue my dream of becoming a model.

I moved in with four other models on the Lower East Side. One of my roommates was a Christian, and we’d take the long subway ride to the Upper West Side to go to church, but we were the exceptions. I’d see girls getting into black SUVs with club promoters at night and getting home when the sun was coming up the next day — teenagers my age!

I was never tempted by alcohol because I have relatives who were alcoholics, so I knew how destructive it could be, but I could relate to wanting the attention that those older men would give the girls. But the girls didn’t seem happy, and it broke my heart.

Over the next two years, New York really opened my eyes to the dark side of the modeling industry. One of my roommates was so bulimic she would involuntarily throw up when she ate. She would go to sleep crying every night and just look at herself in the mirror thinking that she was so fat. And she was so thin.

I had photographers and male models hitting on me constantly. Once, a photographer actually pushed me up against the wall and tried to kiss me.

And while I was still going to church and consulting my Bible, I was so desperate to succeed in the business that I complied when my agent told me, “All models have a topless shot.” I was only 16 when I posed for mine.

I pretty much restricted my diet to oatmeal, fruits and vegetables to meet runway expectations. I’m 5-foot-10, and I got down to 115 pounds with measurements of 34-24-34. In February 2007, New York Fashion Week was approaching, and while everyone I knew was being sent out to auditions, I wasn’t.

“Why am I still going on test shoots?” I asked my agent.

“It’s because you look like a fat cow right now, Kylie. You need to lose 2 inches off of your hips,” the agent said.

After cutting my diet even further to just pineapples, watermelon and liters of water while exercising two hours a day, six days a week, I finally dropped down to 108 pounds, which satisfied my agent, and the gigs started rolling in.

I didn’t recognize the names of most of the designers I walked for, except for the American Eagle show. All I knew of fashion was what I’d seen in the mall, like Hollister and Express.

For my 18th birthday, I got to escape from the pressures of the city for a week. My dad had won a trip to Mexico, and he and Mom paid extra to bring me along.

At dinner the first night, I noticed the most handsome man I’d ever seen in my life at the table next to ours. Our eyes met, and I can’t really explain it, I was just drawn to him. It was like nothing I’d ever felt.

Turns out that my dad knew the handsome stranger from work. His name was Mike Bisutti. We spent the next couple of days snorkeling, riding ATVs and getting to know each other. At a group dinner, Mike began praying before the meal. He was a Christian!

I hadn’t dated many Christians, but before the trip to Mexico, I told my small group leader back in Vegas that I was totally done with dating and I was going to wait for the guy God had in mind for me.

Turns out God had a plan all along. After meeting Mike, I knew I didn’t want to return to New York. Things had been tense with my roommate, and I was still reeling from the comments about my weight. I had the agency ship home the rest of my belongings, and rented out my room to someone on Craigslist.

Mike and I were married about a year later at a beautiful ceremony on the beach in Cabo San Lucas. I had taken a break from modeling and was living a quiet life with Mike in Montana.

A couple of months later, Mike and I were visiting his dad and stepmom, Susan, when Susan brought home a flier from the mall advertising a Victoria’s Secret Angel search.

Mike said, “You should go for it, sweetie.” And all of those old, competitive feelings of needing attention returned. I wanted to be an Angel.

Mike’s sister drove me to the LA auditions, where we saw thousands of girls waiting in line. Once it was my turn, I did my runway walk for Victoria’s Secret, and top exec Ed Razek told me it was one of the best walks he had ever seen.

A few days later, Victoria’s Secret called and said I had made it into the Top 10, and they would be flying me out to New York to compete. I was so excited, it took everything not to scream into the phone.

I was a hit at the competition. The curves that made me “too fat” by runway standards were perfect for Victoria’s Secret. And even though I was only 19, a newlywed and growing in my relationship to God, I didn’t think twice about strutting my stuff in skimpy bikinis and underwear in the TV contest.

Then came the moment that would change my life forever: Heidi Klum announced that I had won. I gave the runway my best sexy walk that I’d been practicing since I was a kid — blowing kisses, rocking my hips and winking at the camera — and the crowd went wild. And my husband was right there, cheering me on. I was on top of the world.

But my euphoria didn’t last long.

The day after I won, one of the Victoria’s Secret execs e-mailed to tell me that I’d caught the eye of one of the celebrities at the after-party.

“You should get together with him,” he said.

“But I’m married! And completely in love with my husband,” I replied, refusing to meet.

During the Angel competition, I was encouraged to play down my marriage to Mike, because I was supposed to be flirting with everyone all the time. A lot of models don’t talk about their relationships unless they’re married to a celebrity, like Miranda Kerr and Orlando Bloom, which is more of a draw to the brand. [Kerr recently decided to hang up her Angel wings.]

After winning the competition, I signed with the top modeling agency in the world, IMG. Mike and I got an apartment in California, because that’s where a lot of the photo shoots are, but I was also flying to New York every other week for shoots there, too.

One of the first shoots I was sent on was at a photographer’s studio in Brooklyn to help build my portfolio. They raved about his artistic work.

Mike stood outside while the photographer convinced me to slip on a nearly-sheer bikini.

“Don’t worry, we’ll Photoshop it if it’s too sheer,” he assured me.

I tried not to think too much about it, but a couple of weeks later, I was Googling myself and saw that the photos had been uploaded onto a porn site.

It was heartbreaking for me, but even more heartbreaking for Mike. He was furious at the photographer and called our lawyer.

IMG said they would handle it, and they encouraged us not to take action. They sent a cease-and-desist letter to the photographer.

A week after showing up on the porn site, my agency booked me with Maxim, and then FHM shortly after that. They were men’s magazines, not pornography, but they were still selling sex.

The day after that FHM shoot, I knew my life had to change. I told my agent that I wouldn’t model lingerie anymore. So, they sent me to bathing-suit shoots. Then, I got a call to do the famous Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue. But looking through the magazine, those bikinis are sometimes skimpier than lingerie. So I turned that down, too.

Two years after I won the Angel Search, I realized I didn’t want to model anything that sold sex. At the time, a Victoria’s Secret lingerie show was airing on TV, and I was looking at Twitter and saw loads of tweets from women comparing themselves to the impossible image of the models.

It made me think back to earlier in my modeling career, when my 8-year-old cousin was watching me put on makeup and said to me, “I’m going to throw up my food so I look like you.” I realized my career was sending a bad message to women about confidence and body image.

I was traveling with my husband on a business trip and, from the hotel room, I sent out my own tweet.

“I quit being a VS model to be a Proverbs 31 wife.”

(Proverbs 31 talks about being a virtuous and capable wife that a husband can trust. It says, “Charm is deceptive, and beauty does not last; but a woman who fears the Lord will be greatly praised.”)

I hadn’t modeled lingerie in months, but it was the first time I’d gone public with my reason. Surprisingly, my agent, who I hadn’t warned about the tweet, was supportive of my decision. The only backlash I got was from some models I know who felt judged by my decision who commented on my tweets.

Quitting modeling has probably cost me millions of dollars. Victoria’s Secret Angels have the longest careers in the business. Even after they stop modeling lingerie, they can go on to host TV shows, like Heidi Klum, or design clothes, like Gisele.

But I’ve never been more content. These days, I’m living in Montana with my husband. Mike is the best Italian cook, and just last night, we canned 40 jars of fresh pasta sauce.

I no longer restrict what I eat. I weigh 124 pounds right now, but my ideal weight is 125. I want young girls to see me at a healthy size.

After my infamous tweet, I turned down an offer to do “Dancing With the Stars” and an opportunity to act on a show on The CW because I didn’t think it was promoting the right message. I didn’t want to dance with a man other than my husband on the reality show or shoot scenes in a bikini for The CW.

Today, I’m focused on creating a Christian clothing line, speaking tours and my blog, imnoangel.org. My clothing line comes out next month, and it will feature models of all shapes and sizes promoting our modest clothes. I want girls to see people who look like them, so they feel good about themselves.

I’m also releasing my book, “I’m No Angel: From Victoria’s Secret Model to Role Model,” on May 14, which tells my story and spreads my message, which is that beauty isn’t about what you look like, it’s about what’s in your heart. That’s the most important thing.

Kylie Bisutti now opts for a more natural look — and maintains a weight of 124 pounds. As a fashion model, she dropped to 108.Stephen Vosloo