Corrimal model on first step to fame

Corrimal's Simone Holtznagel will bare almost all on national television tonight, in her quest for international fame and fortune.The 18-year-old has beaten thousands of other hopefuls into Australia’s Next Top Model’s top 100.Normally shy, Simone only auditioned after giving in to a bit of peer pressure from her best friend, but will appear in tonight’s show in a bikini.‘‘I love my body just the way it is, so it [the bikini catwalk appearance] wasn’t that hard for me,’’ Simone told the Mercury. ‘‘If someone says a comment about me or my body, if it’s something that I can’t change, I’m not going to get really upset about it.’’The latest season of the FOX8 reality series, which begins tonight, follows Simone and other young women as they try to prove they have what it takes to make it in the high-stress, high-stakes world of modelling.During the series, finalists are transformed from attractive girls next door into potential working models, through various modelling assignments and tasks.Simone lives at Corrimal with her mother and two sisters, but spent a lot of her time growing up on her grandparents’ farm in Nowra.She said her mother was angry when she first found out her daughter had made the cut.‘‘I guess any parent doesn’t want their 17 or 18-year-old daughter going on a reality TV show,’’ Simone laughed.‘‘We’re all going to be watching tonight and very interested to see the way I’m portrayed, but I guess I won’t be portrayed as anything but myself because I didn’t go in there trying to be someone else.’’Australia’s Next Top Model begins at 7.30pm tonight.