Ebonie shocked over elimination for photo shoot she thought was her best yet

As hard as it was for Ebonie to accept she wasn’t going to be Canada’s Next Top Model, it was even harder knowing the photo that eliminated her was the one taken in her home country of The Bahamas.

Despite Nolé Marin saying she did a good job finding the emotion during the shoot, the resulting picture was not well received by the judges.

Jay Manuel made a face, guest judge Helen Pak said she was confused by the emotion she was showing and Jeanne Beker said it wasn’t pretty.

“Really, (the judges) kind of destroyed me,” said Ebonie, following her elimination.

“They said my picture was grotesque, that I looked like a 60-year-old dead woman on the beach and that’s pretty much what I remember. They were saying so much stuff and it was so hurtful that I kind of blocked it out of my mind because I would’ve started crying on set and I didn’t want that to happen again.”

Ebonie told the judges she disagreed and thought it was her best photo shoot yet. For the first time in the competition, Ebonie thought she was completely safe, which is why her elimination came as a total shock.

“That’s why I was so upset because I just didn’t see it coming and I felt like I didn’t deserve to get eliminated,” said Ebonie, who felt she had so much left to learn.

The photo shoot required the girls to emulate what they would be feeling if their fiancé left them at the altar and went to the beach to cry. Ebonie tried to imagine what it would be like if her boyfriend left her and managed to shed some real tears.

But crying was the last thing on her mind.

“It was really hard to try to be sad and cry on the beach (during the photo shoot) when I just wanted to go swimming and lie in the sun and tan all day,” said Ebonie.

Even so, Ebonie was so grateful for the chance to return to The Bahamas – and to be able to show the other girls around.

“It was kind of (hard), too, because everywhere we’d go I would kind of recognize places or think, ‘Oh my God once we turn this corner my aunt lives there’ and I can’t talk to my family and I can’t see them but at the same time I felt really, really blessed that we actually went to The Bahamas.”

Although she was quite upset after the elimination, Ebonie said she called her mom and felt better about everything by the next day.

She’s still determined to become a top model – with or without this competition.

“I’m a fighter and I don’t quit so I guess if they see potential in me it means it’s there so hopefully this will open a lot of doors for me and I will just continue on,” said Ebonie.

“It was an amazing experience. I would do it all over again. I didn’t win but it’s not the end of the world.”