Brittney "ShaRaun" Brown wants everyone to know there's more to her than just her confidence.
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"You guys saw a very, very, very small portion of me. It's only two hours you couldn't see every little detail about me," ShaRaun told reporters during a Thursday conference call that followed her elimination on Wednesday night's America's Next Top Model premiere.
According to ShaRaun, the program's portrayal of her -- which emphasized her confidence and not much else -- was incomplete.
"You didn't learn anything about me," she said. "You didn't see that I spent my spring break down in New Orleans helping out with Habitat for Humanity and building homes for Hurricane Katrina victims. You didn't see how I'm a virgin and practicing abstinence and safe sex and how much I promote it and speak on it."
Similarly, she said that she felt her relationship with transgendered contestant Isis had been misconstrued in the show as well.
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After claiming that "everyone said some things about her," she added that she had become friends with Isis while living together at the house.
"Of course they showed me saying that 'I don't think a drag queen will win America's Next Top Model,' but they didn't show me and Isis were very close in the house, and we were very close and we were cool and she was one of my friends," she said. "so it wasn't anything like me hating on her or anything like that. It was just me answering a question that I had been asked."
ShaRaun -- whose real name is Brittney but took on her middle name for the show after two other girls named Brittney made the final 14 as well -- said that some contestants and judges may have "misinterpreted" her energy, determination and drive to become a successful model as overconfidence. Calling herself "hungry," "young," and "ready to break into the industry," she added that her determination could be seen in the sacrifices she made to initially get onto the show.
"This is something that I wanted so bad. And I think that the fact that I'm 18 and I missed my prom, my graduation, everything all for this shows how bad I really want this," ShaRaun said.
With no prior modeling experience of any kind other than mock fashion shows in front of mirrors in her living room and a 2nd place finish in a "Pretty Little Princess beauty pageant" when she was eleven-years-old, ShaRaun openly wondered how far she could have progressed in the competition had she been able to gain more experience and training with the shows experts and judges.
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"Coming from that and having made it this far into the competition with no experience and no proper training at all, that's huge! And I think that if I had stayed in the competition a little longer I could've been molded and shaped into that ideal model and a better model and learned the tricks and trades of modeling."
Still, while admitting that she was "very shocked" by her early dismissal from the competition, she felt that the experience played out the way it did for a reason and had both taught her many things and made her a better person.
"The best experience you can learn in life is rejection," she said. "To be rejected makes me stronger and makes me a better person."
According to ShaRaun, getting eliminated so early had helped her in the sense that she has been free to pursue a career as a model, while also looking to branch off into acting and dancing -- two of her other interests. Thinking of Top Model as "a stepping stone," she added that she was currently taking one year off from school to pursue modeling and an eventual move to New York City as well.
"Yeah I'm confident. But I'm very humble within and I'm just very humble and grateful to have made it as far as I did," she said of her overall experience on Top Model. "I beat 100,000 girls. That's huge! And I'm just so proud of myself."
About The Author: John Bracchitta