Mimi Tao is well known in Asia where she stars in everything from major advertising campaigns to high-end fashion shows.
This is the former Buddhist monk who is now a successful transgender lingerie model. Mimi Tao, 22, is well known in Asia where she stars in everything from major advertising campaigns to high-end fashion shows. But this glamorous lifestyle is a far cry from her early days, as a shaven headed monk living in a remote temple. Mimi was born as Phajaranat Nobantao, a boy, into a well-off family in Khon Kaen, eastern Thailand.
While her siblings were at the local public school, Mimi was packed off to live in a temple far from home.
Six months after joining, she shaved her head like other disciples, and had to live by more than 200 strict rules. But along with four other friends, Mimi got up to some decidedly un-monk like activities – wearing make up and turning their room into a secret cat walk.
By the second year, Mimi began taking birth control pills to stimulate female hormone. During one visit home her mum burst into treats when she noticed her son was growing breasts and threatened to disown him.
Mimi snapped: “I guess I am no longer your son because I won’t change my mind about who I want to become.”
“It was the worst feeling in the world to make my mum cry like that,” Mimi told the Bangkok Post.
“I promised myself I wouldn’t let her down again and would make her proud of who I am.”
After six years at the temple, Mimi headed to the coastal party city of Pattaya – a good place for transgender people to find work.
She found a job as a cabaret performer in a bar for three months, before heading to Bangkok to work for the famous Calyspo cabaret show.
But after a couple of months she realised that wasn’t what she wanted to do. Then by chance she watched a documentary international supermodel Rojjana “Yui” Phetkanha.
After seeing Yui’s story, Mimi knew she wanted to hit the catwalk. She eventually met Yui, who helped her become the transgender icon she is today. It hasn’t all been plain sailing – she was knocked back many times and one disastrous trip to a casting in Singapore saw her forced to sleep in public toilets for the night. But now the world is her oyster, and her next move is to take New York by storm. She said: ““It is even more open and I believe I have the potential to work there.” She added: “No one knows the future. I might go back to being a monk once I don’t have anything else to worry.”
