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"America&amp;#039;s Next Top Model saw the girls get dirty this week as they posed covered in mud in groups separated by hair color. Despite her best efforts at trying to connect, Monique fell short and - after a difficult week - found herself in the bottom two with Mikaela. Though Tyra appreciated her unique body and stunning looks, the 19-year-old Illinois native was ultimately sent home with the advice to &amp;quot;not hold back&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;really push herself&amp;quot; to be unique. Here&amp;#039;s what she told us following her elimination...  Did you think you would go over Mikaela once you were in the bottom two? &amp;quot;Honestly, no! I remember standing up there - &amp;#039;cos I&amp;#039;d never been in the bottom two before - and I was waiting for my name to be called obviously. I remembered looking over my left shoulder and my right shoulder and no-one was there, and realizing, &amp;#039;Oh my God, I&amp;#039;m in the bottom two. How did this happen?!&amp;#039; And right at that point it was like my heart stopped beating. It was just really shocking for me.&amp;quot; Nigel said that you weren&amp;#039;t able to &amp;quot;connect&amp;quot; in the photo this week - what do you think was missing for you? &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s definitely something I just didn&amp;#039;t convey as well as I could have. I was a little distracted towards the end there. I was more focused on how much I missed my mom and my boyfriend rather than the photo shoot, which is pathetic now that I think about it. I was really struggling at that point for some reason. When Mister Jay gave us criticism, I felt like every photo shoot I was doing was better but then he&amp;#039;d say something like, &amp;#039;Oh Monique, don&amp;#039;t do that&amp;#039; and I&amp;#039;d just get irritated. It pissed me off last night because he kept telling me to stretch my body out and then Tyra was saying that she wishes I would have moved into the photo more. So it was definitely frustrating.&amp;quot; Do you think that the self-described &amp;quot;emotional breakdown&amp;quot; you were having affected your feelings about and behaviour towards the other girls? &amp;quot;I think it was partly that. I was stressed. I was irritated because I&amp;#039;m the type of person that needs to be by myself a lot. My brain goes in a million different directions and I often need to regroup and get my thoughts together but there was none of that going on. And because of that, I was near having a breakdown. Plus I was frustrated that I was never winning anything! Every time I would have these bomb photos and I&amp;#039;d think I would at least be second, and then I&amp;#039;d get called towards the bottom. I wanted to win so bad and I&amp;#039;m just not used to being third or fourth best and that was frustrating.&amp;quot; You had an issue with Kasia winning the autograph challenge. Do you really think she shouldn&amp;#039;t have, or was it more because you were frustrated with yourself? &amp;quot;I thought it was complete bulls**t that she won! We stood close together and were both asked the same questions and I guess I got a little annoyed. There was a girl who came up and said, &amp;#039;Oh, you&amp;#039;re way bigger than a model!&amp;#039; and I didn&amp;#039;t handle that as well as I should have. It made me mad because I don&amp;#039;t know why Kasia won over me and we were pretty close on the show. We&amp;#039;re both from Chicago and I don&amp;#039;t know why she didn&amp;#039;t take me with her [to the reward dinner]. Miss Jay is one of my favourite people in the world and I would have loved to go.&amp;quot;  Talk a bit about the Alexandria dispute - do you regret jokingly telling the fan that she would kiss him? &amp;quot;I don&amp;#039;t regret it at all! I was honestly joking around, I wasn&amp;#039;t trying to be a bitch like I&amp;#039;m so often portrayed on the show. I wasn&amp;#039;t trying to be rude or mean to her, I was just like, &amp;#039;Oh maybe ask her!&amp;#039; and of course the guy goes right over to her and says &amp;#039;Monique said that you would kiss me!&amp;#039; and I&amp;#039;m like, &amp;#039;Oh great! That&amp;#039;s just exactly what I needed&amp;#039;.&amp;quot; You said that you were &amp;quot;over it&amp;quot; halfway through that challenge and wanted it to end. What didn&amp;#039;t you like about it? &amp;quot;I was overwhelmed with how many people were coming up to me. Like, the guy [who harassed Alexandria] came up to me and asked if I&amp;#039;ve been in porn and said that he thought he&amp;#039;d seen me in an adult film. I thought he was a disgusting asshole. Plus a girl came up to me and criticized my size and told me I was not the size of a model and I had to try and keep my cool, so you know.&amp;quot; What was the best part of the experience for you? &amp;quot;Looking Tyra Banks in the face! Plus being with the other girls. We all connected in a way that no-one else will ever understand. We&amp;#039;re all a lot different but we&amp;#039;re all alike as well. There&amp;#039;s something about finally being around 14 other tall, pretty girls! My best friend out here is 5&amp;#039; 3&amp;quot;, average, whatever. I really am glad to have made such good friendships with everyone.&amp;quot;  Was there any advice that Tyra gave you that you&amp;#039;ll take with you in the future? &amp;quot;She just wanted me to come out of my shell a little bit and I feel like I will be able to do that in the actual modeling industry. I didn&amp;#039;t really know exactly what I was getting myself into. I don&amp;#039;t watch TV and didn&amp;#039;t really watch the show before I got on there. She&amp;#039;s such an inspiration to me because she is curvy - not like, plus-sized or anything, but she does have a booty and curves and I want to be just like her.&amp;quot; Who would you like to see win the competition? &amp;quot;I adore Jaclyn, I hope she makes it really far. I also love Brittani and speak to her all the time. I hope they are the last two. Also, I love Molly as well. I think Jaclyn&amp;#039;s face is a little too cute to be high fashion, which isn&amp;#039;t necessarily a bad thing but Brittani and Molly have that really slender, pretty face that the industry is looking for.&amp;quot; What comes next for you in the immediate future? &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m definitely going to rock with this whole &amp;#039;edgy bombshell&amp;#039; thing I&amp;#039;ve got going on. I&amp;#039;m not saying I&amp;#039;m going to do porn or anything like that, but I would love to be in Maxim or Sports Illustrated someday. I also plan on moving to LA. I&amp;#039;m 20 years old so I&amp;#039;m really on the verge of being too old to be a new model so I&amp;#039;m really going to push hard this year to follow my dream. I&amp;#039;m also going to take some acting classes so at least this way I&amp;#039;ll know how to act on camera. Sometimes [watching the show back] I would see myself making these disgusted faces and I was horrified.&amp;quot; America&amp;#039;s Next Top Model airs Wednesdays on The CW "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/tv/americas-next-top-model/interviews/a312177/monique-americas-next-top-model/>