So many things Kate Moss said on Desert Island Discs were shocking and yet not shocking, but before any of that, just the sound of her voice was absolutely arresting. For over 30 years, she has been the sphinx at the very centre of the culture: no chat shows, no panel games; no podcasts or voiceovers; no Simpsons cameo, no gentle segue into the kind of familiarity where someone who sounds a bit like her could make a decent living doing voiceovers for radio ads. She has been, at various points, just about the most famous person in the country, without anyone who didn’t know her being able to say with certainty what she sounded like. And maybe it’s because she’s really shy, as she told Lauren Laverne on Sunday, or maybe it’s because she made a decision, at the age of 14, that she wouldn’t become public property – in which case, she’s just about the wisest person, famous or otherwise, who ever lived.
It’s terrifically sad to hear what it was like to be a model in 1990, partly because it’s probably exactly the same today. Moss described going to a casting for a bra catalogue when she was 15, and some garden-variety predator asking her to take her bra off. It’s such a low move. An equal could retort, “Why do you need to see me without a bra, when you’re specifically hiring me to wear a bra?” It’s a pure leverage of shabby, middle-ranking power.
