MELANIE IGLESIAS For Bello Mag Sexy Issue – August 2014 #Beauty Cover + Exclusive Outtakes
Here is another look inside our current August 2014 Sexy issue with the gorgeous Melanie Iglesias photographed in Los Angeles by Emilie Elizabeth. We also have two gorgeous exclusive outtakes of Melanie just for you at the end of the post.
This issue is available digitally worldwide on iTunes Newsstand and online at www.bellomag.com.
Pretty Girl Melanie Iglesias has hit the ground running with her various appearances on MTV shows like Guy Code, Guy Court, and my absolute favorite—Girl Code. But this extreme beauty comes with brains, lots of it, and she doesn’t plan on letting you forget that. The Brooklyn born but Staten Island raised 27-year old opened up about her more than humble beginning, her new romance, and of course what it means to be an east-coast girl.
You have so much going on with MTV right now. Walk me through the process of getting involved?
I’m on like four MTV shows right now, which is crazy. It started three years ago. I never got the full story but I believe they found me on YouTube, talking about men’s pickup lines. I had done a video for MAXIM magazine that producers over at MTV must’ve found funny, so they asked me to come in and audition for a pilot. I was like; “I really don’t have any money right now. Is this paid?” I didn’t even have money to get on the subway for the audition. They were like, “We’ll give you 200 bucks.” I went in, and they asked me a bunch of questions; about being a man, what manhood is… I didn’t really understand what was going on, but I was brutally honest in my interview and talked about how I used to be a bottle waitress, because one of the questions was—should men get bottle service? So I completed the interview and didn’t hear back for a while, so I had forgotten about it, before getting the call about the show getting picked up, and that it was going to be on MTV and I was part of the cast. I was so caught off guard, but I was ecstatic. My life was about to change, and it really did.
You’re a fan favorite of the Girl Code Guy Code frenzy. Do you think the way you answer questions would differ had you not grown up in a super-fast paced city?
You know, they auditioned a lot of women. Girls from the west coast, girls from the east coast, and lot of the girls they ended up choosing are from the east coast. I guess because we deal with a lot of men. You walk everywhere in New York city and you meet a lot of different people; you hear a lot of pickup lines. Our patience has really decreased. We don’t have a lot of tolerance for buttheads. It’s pretty fun.
Tell me something about you that the world doesn’t know yet?
This is going to sound terrible, but people aren’t sure of how I came to be on TV. They think I got everything because I’m good looking, and that’s really not fair. I’m very fortunate for my life and I understand that I’m a blessed person, but there’s a lot of work that goes into what I do. People think that we’re having fun and games all day, but my schedule’s really busy, I take classes to maintain my career. I don’t expect to have everything handed to me just because of the way I look. I appreciate that MTV gave me a fighting chance at a hosting career. I never took that for granted. I went and began taking improv classes at UCB. I have mentors, and people that are helping me become a better host every day. I’m going for the longevity here in my career, so I do everything that I can to make sure that happens.
You recently had a very New York birthday. Care to tell?
I had the best birthday ever. You know what’s crazy; I never really celebrated a birthday. Not since I was nine years old anyway. Even on my sweet 16, my parents threw a house party and it was a bunch of my parents’ friends drinking beer, so I left.[Laughs] I don’t even know if I stayed long enough for the cake. This year I’m embracing the fact that I’m getting older, because I finally feel comfortable in my own skin. My boyfriend flew to New York from LA and got to spend the entire week here with me my family. The first night he got here we went on a dinner dance cruise around Manhattan and New York City in general. We got to see the statue of liberty, ate amazing food, listened to great music. Then I went to a Sam Smith concert at the Apollo Theater, who I’m just in love with lately. My boyfriend and I got to see him up-close. It was gorgeous, I felt like he was singing directly to me and I cried. Then Mary J. Blige came out, it was all amazing.
On my actual birthday I went to go see a Yankees game. They were playing the Blue Bays and I’m a big Yankee fan, my entire family is. My boyfriend’s even a Yankees fan and he’s not even from here. We sat right behind the Blue Jays dugout, it was so great. It was indeed a very New York birthday and probably the best week of my life.
There are so many bizarrely funny things said on the show. What makes it on screen and what’s left out?
It’s funny the way they edit the show because they use the most ridiculous things I’d say. A lot of the time when shooting I forget that I’m on camera and I’m joking around. I’ll get silly and say the first thing that comes to mind, and it’ll be something that’s not even true to who I am, and they’ll use that. [Laughs] When I get a little more serious, they won’t use that too much. I think they’re just trying to keep the tone fresh and fun. For example, a topic like bullying. That’s a serious topic because I was bullied a lot through school, I feel like everybody has been, somehow. But I’ll talk about it in a serious manner, and they’ll end up using one of the other comedian’s joke about it, and put a little bit of the serious stuff in it. But I get it; they’re keeping it light. Making fun of certain situations and fun of us, too. But there’s a lot of times where I’ve shown a much more serious side of me. Everybody thinks I’m ditzy or a bit of an airhead, but—no regrets. You know, I say what I say and I think it comes off pretty funny.
I’ll have guys tweet me “I can’t hear you because of your boobs,” I think I come off much more serious on Girl Code than on Guy Code. I want to empower women. If you want to show your body and you’re not shy, then show it. That’s what female empowerment is; if you want to hide it then hide it. Nobody should tell you how to dress. I’ll get a lot of tweets like “How come there are no boobs on Girl Code?” I’m like because; I’m talking to the girls.
What is one thing you can’t live without?
Well actually, I have been getting better at living without my phone. I put it down at least five hours a day. Which seems like nothing but I used to have it in my hand from morning to night. I feel like I could live without a lot of different things because I’m always changing up the pace. I feel like I’m the type of person that would drop everything, go to Europe and just stay there. I’ve been through so many changes in my life. I lived on my on since I was 18, so that’s about 9 years now. I’ve always had to drop a bunch of different things at a random moment just to work. I like to go see the world and experience things. I can live without pretty much anything, except my family and food and water.
photography EMILIE ELIZABETH http://www.emilieelizabeth.com
photo assistant ADRIAN ESPINOZA
styling LIZETTE PENA http://www.lizettepena.com
fashion assistant DANIELLE ADAMS
makeup NICOLE WALMSLEY http://www.nicolewalmsley.com
hair AMBER KERNS at THE MAGNET AGENCY using RENE FURTERER
