EXCLUSIVE: Molested at age 10, dumped because of her weight by one boyfriend and threatened with a butcher knife by another, Ashley Graham reveals the demons that dogged her as she became the IT plus-sized supermodel in new memoir

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She is one of the world's most famous plus-sized supermodels, but Ashley Graham has revealed the struggles with body image and self-worth that she's faced all her life.

The Sports Illustrated cover girl bares all in her new memoir, A New Model: What Confidence, Beauty, & Power Really Look Like, detailing her issues with her estranged father, losing her virginity to the high school quarterback, and the backlash she's faced throughout her career.

At 29 years old, the voluptuous model has made a career of advocating for body acceptance, frequently sharing photos of her 'flaws' to her 3.8 million Instagram followers.

But Graham admits she's come a long way. 'No matter how many jobs I landed, I always found something to criticize about my appearance,' Graham writes.

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Graham (pictured with her husband Justin Ervin and her mom Linda Graham) opened up about losing her virginity as a teen to a high school football quarterback but waiting until marriage to have sex with husband

Graham, who grew up in a Christian household, shared a throwback picture with her mom 

Ashley says she was convinced she was Scary Spice in middle school

Her career took off when she became the first plus-sized model to grace the covers of American and British Vogue and Sports Illustrated.

Now Graham is telling all about her life before stardom, including her Christian upbringing and her party-girl phase after moving to New York City. 

The supermodel moved several times around the country during her childhood due to her father's job in database marketing. After spending some time in Texas, the family moved to Lincoln, Nebraska where she was discovered as a model.

Graham describes growing up in a household with her two younger sisters, Madison and Abigail, and always hanging around in their home naked.

However, her mother wasn't as comfortable being nude around her daughters and the model had never seen her mom's breasts until three years ago.

'Although she's still uncomfortable with her daughters' habit for going around without clothes. "Where do I look?" she asks me when I talk to her while completely naked, which I do often.' "Put something on so I can hear you."  

Graham called modeling the first thing she was ever truly 'into,' after struggling in school because of her dyslexia. 

While her father supported her modeling career, she revealed he was not a regular presence at home, and when he was it was a 'dark presence,' who would scream and at times spank her.  

But it was his words that hurt more than anything she said. 'His insults, though, hurt way more than any of his slaps, and my father was a master of the cutting insult. 

'His nickname for me was Duh, because he didn't think I was very smart,' she writes.

The model often shares pictures of herself embracing her 'flaws' and inspiring women to accept their curves. 'I'm not ashamed of a few lumps, bumps or cellulite..and you shouldn't be either,' she said in an Instagram post

Graham said her thighs tell a story of 'courage' after someone once said they were 'cellulite city' 

Still, Graham said she always looked forward to her father taking her out once a year on her birthday. It was her relationship with him that led her to develop what she described as 'daddy issues.' 

Graham also said the fact the her body developed early-on led to a series of incidents with older men which left her feeling insecure and with questions over her self-worth.

She tells how at age 10 the son of 'family friends' - who she does not name - exposed himself to her in the laundry room of her home.

'That's what you did to me,' he said - and made her touch his aroused penis.

'I was scared and quickly ran away,' she writes. 'Did I do something to make that happen?' 

It was the first of a series of incidents with older men making inappropriate advances.

When she was 12, two aspiring male models five years her senior, 'Paul and Scott', tried to get her to into a hot tub with them alone.

Another time one of them noticed that she was wearing braided pigtails and said: 'Ooh, a b*** j** with handles.'

A New Model: Supermodel Ashley Graham, 29, reveals what it was like learning to her accept her curves at a very young age in her new memoir, A New Model: What Confidence, Beauty, & Power Really Look Like

But to Graham, the initial fear she felt from those comments eventually turned into what she believed to be self-confidence.

'It didn't matter how inappropriate, unsolicited, or confusing it was, any male attention was good attention as far as I was concerned,' she wrote.

The model admitted her love and longing for male attention was due to her rocky relationship with her father.

Graham recalls being dumped by her first boyfriend in high school, Craig, over her weight and because she refused to have sex with him.

'I have to break up with you,' he said to her. 'Because you won't have sex with me. And I'm afraid you're going to be as fat as my mom.'  

Her breakup sparked a string of meaningless sexual relationships, including the moment she lost her virginity to the high school quarterback, Pete. 

'Thus started the a pattern of going out with anyone who thought I was hot or my body was attractive,' she said adding that she slept with Pete simply because he gave her attention. 

'The next day at school when I went up to say hi to him in the hall, he ignored me. He never called me once. He didn't want anything to do with me,' she recalled. 

After moving to New York, she developed a 'rhythm to my interactions that went something like this: a guy would take me out; we would have sex the next time we saw each other; and then I wouldn't hear from him ever again. 'It was a quintessential sex-and-no-third-date situation,' she writes. 

At that time, Graham said her euphoria rested in sex. 'That was the moment, when I was the sole focus of a man's attention, when I was happiest. And if it meant I had to be slutty in the eyes of some, so what?' 

Graham's views on sex were even further complicated as a result of being raised in a Christian household where she was taught that premarital sex was a Sin, 'with a capital S.' 

Graham and her sisters were raised in church and would attend every Sunday and Wednesday. Despite knowing 'any and every Christian song that you can imagine,' she grew disconnected from her faith after moving to Nebraska and attending a 'cliquey' church. 

'A big deal was always made about saving yourself until marriage, but the only reason to do that was because God wanted you to. And I guess that just wasn't a good enough reason for me.'

She veered further from her religious upbringing when she moved to New York at age 17.

She flashed her breasts to bouncers to get free drinks and entrance to clubs.

Within her first three months in the Big Apple, she experimented with cocaine and ecstasy and would party with older men in exchange for free champagne.

During one of her nights out, she was taken to the hospital after she collapsed on the street after drinking heavily. 

Graham said it was her frivolous spending and partying that led her to blow through $100,000 she made at 17.  

But it was the moment when she missed a flight to a shoot which almost cost her her job that Graham fwlt she had hit rock-bottom. She had overslept after a night of drinking. 

She continued partying, but was 'just smarter about it.' 

After her phase of sleeping with men on the second date - and not making it beyond the third - Graham met her first real boyfriend Carlos, 'a muscular, Dominican web designer,' when she was 19.

Carlos, was ten years her senior, but the two 'had lots and lots of sex,' she writes. 

Eventually, Graham realized he had an abusive side when he drank.

She describes the time he flipped a couch upside down during a fit of rage, while she had been sitting on it. 

Graham's memoir A New Model: What Confidence, Beauty, & Power Really Look Like, is set to hit the shelves May 9

She once had to lock herself in her bathroom, 'terrified' he was going to kill her, after he chased her with a butcher knife during a fight in their apartment.

Graham eventually ended the relationship and returned to church for guidance. It was there where she met her husband, Justin Ervin.  

Her relationship with a black man exposed a disturbing side of her family that she had never experienced.

Graham recalled the moment she brought Ervin to meet her grandmother in Nebraska where she welcomed him with a 'cordial but cold' greeting. 

'When it came time for them to go, they didn't even acknowledge him. Instead my grandmother looked me in the eye, with Justin standing right behind me and said: "Tell that guy I said goodbye."'

It wasn't until Ervin called Graham's grandmother to congratulate her on her wedding anniversary that he won her approval.

'And from then on out, she loved him. Loved him,' she writes. 

The two married a year after meeting in 2010, when Graham was 22 years old. 

Of their relationship, she said 'the physical followed the spiritual' and the two waited until they tied the knot to have sex - despite her past - in a mutual decision.

But happiness with her husband and a stellar modeling career could not solve her issues with her body. 

'The girls at my school teased me mercilessly and made fun of me for my height, my build, and my big hair. 

'Thunder thighs, cottage cheese thighs ... name a fat joke or mean description for thighs, and I've heard it,' she said. 

The scrutiny wasn't any better coming from talent agents who often urged her to lose weight when she would come in for fittings.

'Another senior agent's favorite line was: "It's time for you to put the Snickers down." Never mind that I didn't eat Snickers. I got the point,' she said. 

The body activist from Lincoln, Nebraska rose to fame when she became the first plus-sized model to be featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated and British and American Vogue

Another agent advised: 'If you want some more of this,' he said fanning dollar bills, 'you gotta drop the LBs, baby.'   

But she said the moment that caused her to feel like 'the fattest person alive' was when a German stylist joked about her weight while cutting her jeans for a shoot. 

'Later, when I asked someone to translate, I found out she had said: "If this big girl falls on me. We are both going to die. Her from the scissors, and me from her."

Graham revealed she had not only received criticism for 'being fat' but also for being too thin. 

The model was slammed on social media and was accused of 'losing her curves' in 2016 after she posted a promotional picture on the set of her new show America's Next Top Model, where she appeared slightly slimmer. 

Even the first huge gig of her career, being on the cover of Sports Illustrated, 
came with backlash. 

After the announcement, Graham recalls being in tears after reading the flood of comments which argued she wasn't fit enough to be in such a coveted spot. 

Multiple fashion campaigns and various gigs later, the supermodel admits her struggles as well as support from her mother led her to develop a thick skin in the industry.

'No matter what your job is, you've had to do things a little differently if you are a curvy woman. I have had to constantly justify my career choice over and over. But that might just be the secret to my success.'  

Graham's book is available for pre-order on Amazon.com