Before the multi-million dollar cookware empire, the Twitter wars, and the red carpet walks with John Legend, there was a girl in a surf shop. Honestly, if you look at Chrissy Teigen 2000 through 2005, you wouldn't see a "celebrity." You’d see a teenager from Snohomish, Washington, who just moved to Huntington Beach and was trying to figure out how not to be broke.
She wasn't born into Hollywood royalty. Not even close. Her dad was an electrician. Her mom, the famous "Pepper Thai," worked in a tavern. They moved a lot. Utah, Hawaii, Idaho, Washington. By the time she landed in California in the early 2000s, she was basically just another girl working retail on Main Street.
The Huntington Beach Discovery
It sounds like a cliché from a bad movie. A photographer walks into a surf shop, sees the girl behind the counter, and says, "You should be a model." But for Chrissy, that’s exactly what happened in 2004. She was 18. She was working at a shop called Surfside.
She didn't think she could do it.
"Modeling had never crossed my mind," she admitted years later. She felt too short, not "waif-y" enough for the high-fashion standards of the era. You have to remember, the early 2000s were obsessed with the "heroin chic" look. Chrissy had curves. She had a personality that didn't fit the silent mannequin vibe.
Her first big break wasn't Vogue. It was becoming an "IGN Babe." Yeah, a video game website. It was 2004, and she was 19. She told interviewers back then that she actually wanted to go to college for broadcast journalism. She wanted to be on a reality show. She had no clue she’d end up being the face of the 2010s lifestyle boom.
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The Gritty Side of 2000s Modeling
Social media makes early careers look like a montage of wins. The reality for Chrissy Teigen 2000 era was a lot of $200 paychecks. She recently shared throwbacks from Miami Swim Fashion Week in the mid-2000s. She’d sit on the floor of the Mondrian Hotel for five or six hours just to be seen for a casting.
Then there were the "direct bookings." These are the horror stories. She once showed up to a Forever 21 shoot. They asked to take a "test photo" to check the light. They sent that photo to her agency and fired her on the spot. Why? They said she was "too fat."
Imagine being 20 years old and told you're too big for Forever 21.
She also lived in Miami for four years, doing the "six months on, six months off" grind. It wasn't glamorous. It was cattle calls, spray tan vouchers, and constant measurements. It’s probably why she’s so outspoken now. She spent years being told to be quiet and "suck it in."
The Briefcase Era
In 2006, things shifted slightly toward TV. She landed a spot as a briefcase model on Deal or No Deal. She was model number 12.
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Guess who else was there? Meghan Markle.
They weren't stars yet. They were just "the girls." Teigen has since described the experience as a "fever dream." They had stations for everything: lashes, hair extensions, bra padding. It was a factory of 2000s beauty standards. She’s been very clear that without those early TV gigs, she might have just quit entertainment altogether.
Meeting John and the Shift to "Influencer" (Before the Term Existed)
By 2007, the Chrissy Teigen 2000-era hustle finally paid off in a way she didn't expect. She was cast in a music video for a singer named John Legend. The song was "Stereo."
She was the love interest. They ate In-N-Out after the shoot. They hooked up. They didn't "fall in love" instantly in some Disney way—they grew into it. But that relationship put her in rooms she hadn't been in before.
Even then, she wasn't "famous" yet. She was just the "model girlfriend."
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Everything changed in 2010. Her friend Brooklyn Decker (who was already a star) basically forced the editors at Sports Illustrated to look at Chrissy. She got in. She won "Rookie of the Year." That was the moment the "Chrissy Teigen" brand actually started.
Why the Early 2000s Matter Now
We see Chrissy today as a titan of "relatability," but that grit came from the 2000s. She learned how to handle rejection when she was being fired from fast-fashion catalogs. She learned how to talk to a camera because she spent years as a "substitute" on game shows.
She wasn't an overnight success. She was a ten-year "slow burn."
If you’re looking at her career and wondering how she stayed relevant while other 2000s models vanished, it’s because she never took the "model" part too seriously. She knew she was funny. She knew she liked food. She started her blog, So Delushious, in 2011 because she needed an outlet that wasn't about her waist size.
Real Talk: Actionable Insights for Your Own Career
If there's anything to learn from the Chrissy Teigen 2000 timeline, it's these three things:
- Don’t wait for the "perfect" break. She did the video game websites. She did the briefcase gigs. She did the catalogs that eventually fired her. Every "small" job built the muscle for the big ones.
- Network horizontally. Her big break at Sports Illustrated didn't come from a CEO. It came from a friend and peer (Brooklyn Decker) who vouched for her.
- Pivot when the industry rejects you. When she was told she didn't fit the high-fashion mold, she leaned into personality and food. She stopped trying to be a "waif" and started being the girl who tweets about Taco Bell.
The 2000s version of Chrissy Teigen was a girl trying to survive a brutal industry. The 2026 version is a mogul who owns the industry. The difference was just ten years of saying "yes" to the weird jobs until she was big enough to say "no."
To dive deeper into how she transitioned from these early gigs to a lifestyle mogul, look into her first blog posts from 2011 on So Delushious. You can still find archives of her early recipes that eventually became the foundation for the Cravings empire. Check those out to see how her voice evolved from "briefcase model" to the brand we know today.