Sailor Brinkley Cook believes Good Morning America unfairly edited the interview she gave about her struggles with body dysmorphia.
On Friday, the 21-year-old model and daughter of Christie Brinkley spoke to ABC News correspondent Deborah Roberts about her private battle with eating disorder tendencies, a topic she first came forward with last week on Instagram. But according to Sailor, GMA omitted "95 percent" of what she said during the virtual sit-down, calling the segment that aired "extremely tone deaf."
"I'm a little upset about the GMA piece that aired this morning," Sailor shared in a lengthy statement posted to her Instagram Stories. "I have nothing but respect for GMA and Deborah, and have nothing negative to say about either one. But I wanted to set some things straight."
The rising star continued, "I understand that 'comparisons to model mom' and 'eating disorder struggles' are great taglines for click bait on news outlets. But when I agreed to do this interview I was under the impression that it would be in a positive light and would be inspirational."
"I ONLY agreed to do it during this awful time in America because I thought it would be a small beacon of positivity for people who have dealt with the same things as me," she assured.
Acknowledging lives lost to the coronavirus pandemic and the persistent issue of police brutality in the U.S., Sailor added, "I want to sincerely apologize for the tone deafness of the interview. If I were in control of the editing it would've been shown in a very different light and would've highlighted the inspirational things I said rather than the explanation of what I went through as a 15-year-old."
Instead, Sailor said she hoped to "be a voice for people who are facing their mental illnesses and body image issues head-on right now in isolation, and tell those people how strong each and every one of them are."
As for what did air on GMA, the Dancing With the Stars contestant recalled a time that she felt "disgusted" with her appearance. "I grew up a little bit overweight and I felt the weight of my overweight-ness on me constantly from people teasing me, from people looking at me differently," she shared.
GMA has yet to address Sailor's comments about the segment.