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"While her America&amp;#039;s Next Top Model hopes were cut short during cycle 5, Lisa D&amp;#039;Amato was never a quitter. Returning during cycle 17&amp;#039;s All Stars edition, she brought her boisterous personality and effusive sense of self-confidence right along with her, almost effortlessly gliding into the finale. After excelling during the final runway show and the Cover Girl commercial shoot, the 31-year-old California native beat out Allison Harvard and was crowned the winner. Digital Spy spoke to Lisa about her win and about the incredible odds she overcame to get where she is today.   &amp;gt; &amp;#039;America&amp;#039;s Next Top Model&amp;#039;: First ever &amp;#039;All-Star&amp;#039; winner crowned After you swam to the wrong side of the pool during the runway show, did you ever think that it might affect your chances of winning? &amp;quot;Well, my brand is daring. When I went under water, I knew there were cameras under there and I wanted to do this mermaid twist thing. I&amp;#039;m risky and I wanted to take that chance and have it be awesome. I underestimated the power of that hair wig situation.  &amp;quot;I could have gotten up in the middle of the water and fixed it but the reason I went to the side was so that the audience wouldn&amp;#039;t see me. It was all tactical and I still made the best decision. In the end, I&amp;#039;m daring and I was true to my brand.&amp;quot; Having had success in other areas of the entertainment industry as well as modeling, why was it so important for you to win Top Model? &amp;quot;I think because for cycle five, even though I did really well in the competition, I didn&amp;#039;t take it as seriously as I should have and I&amp;#039;ve paid the wrath for that all these years. In the end, I always knew I was a quadruple threat and my heart has been so dedicated to the creative arts. Being on the CW at 9pm on a Wednesday night, I got my face out to the masses and I should have taken that seriously the first time.&amp;quot; The judges initially had a hard time with your outspoken personality. How did you learn to tone that down, or at least find more of a balance? &amp;quot;I think in anything, you&amp;#039;re kind of getting a more exaggerated sense of you on TV. I think the difference from season five is that right now, I&amp;#039;m more married to the future and am looking at the bigger picture whereas then, it was much more spontaneous. I&amp;#039;m definitely still crazy and fun, but I probably learned how to do more of a balancing act as well. I&amp;#039;m an awesome tight-roper.&amp;quot;  &amp;gt; &amp;#039;America&amp;#039;s Next Top Model&amp;#039; - Laura Q&amp;amp;A: &amp;#039;Every girl wants to be called sexy&amp;#039; Having gone through so much struggle in your past, how did you manage to hold onto your confidence and come out on top? &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s interesting because from the time when I was a teenager pounding the pavement in Hollywood, I was always very risky and I think it&amp;#039;s because when you come from an abusive upbringing, I always felt like I was living on bonus time and was just lucky to be alive. This confidence gets misunderstood as arrogance or all these other things when in actuality, I&amp;#039;ve already lived through nine lives.  &amp;quot;My heart has had so many holes in it that I&amp;#039;ve had to sew back up time and time again that you can&amp;#039;t break me down anymore. You can&amp;#039;t buy thick skin and you can&amp;#039;t fake it. I&amp;#039;ve earned it and you can&amp;#039;t take that away from me. I can&amp;#039;t seem less confident and more relatable because I&amp;#039;ve done this a million times, if that makes sense.&amp;quot; Did it sweeten the victory to know that you&amp;#039;re not the stereotypical contestant? &amp;quot;Absolutely! I don&amp;#039;t do things in an orthodox manner. I definitely hope to be an inspiration to people who beat their own drum and aren&amp;#039;t typically the normal types of beauty. I might not be the youngest or the prettiest, but at the end of the day, we get it.  &amp;quot;Our society is obsessed with beauty and youth. Fountain of youth? Can we have a fountain of smart? I&amp;#039;m totally okay with being the underdog and getting the wrath of things. I want people to follow in my footsteps and not be afraid to be beautiful. Be your own individual self. You don&amp;#039;t have to conform to whatever image that people want to put you in.&amp;quot;   &amp;gt; &amp;#039;America&amp;#039;s Next Top Model&amp;#039; - Allison Harvard Q&amp;amp;A: &amp;#039;I&amp;#039;d love to work in TV again&amp;#039; Do you feel like you were the rightful winner? Would you have felt slighted if Allison won? &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;ve been doing this dance in Hollywood for years. I think Allison is beautiful and unique and amazing but her heart&amp;#039;s not in it. She has an amazing fanbase and I think her fans should really support her in what she wants to do, which is her paintings and photography.  &amp;quot;If I didn&amp;#039;t win, you would still see me in 2012 somewhere really great. I don&amp;#039;t need a show to smack me in the butt to get me moving. I&amp;#039;ve been recording and performing nationwide. It seems like so many people wonder where I went. But I&amp;#039;ve been modeling - I did the Jared gold campaign and traveled all over Europe doing fashion shows, writing music and performing and being the lead in a play. I&amp;#039;ve been consistently working in this industry for years and I think the All Stars came at the perfect time.&amp;quot;  Angelea dropped out of things out of nowhere - or that&amp;#039;s how it seemed. Can you shed any light on what happened? &amp;quot;Yeah, I hear there&amp;#039;s a lot of speculation about what&amp;#039;s going on and if anyone finds out, I&amp;#039;d love to know! I think the rumours [that she leaked a possible win on her Facebook page] are the most absurd thing I&amp;#039;ve ever heard in my life but I think it&amp;#039;s so funny that we&amp;#039;re all adults in the real world and everything still turns into a gossip fest!&amp;quot; What was the highlight of your Top Model experience? &amp;quot;That&amp;#039;s a good question! You know, the All Stars cycle in general - Angelea liked to describe it as redemption and to me it&amp;#039;s so much bigger than that. You know me, I speak my mind and am a very strong individual and it actually makes me speechless. It&amp;#039;s the weirdest feeling ever. There&amp;#039;s a peace that comes over me, like proof or validation.&amp;quot;  What can we hope to see from you in the coming months? &amp;quot;Well, I cannot wait to unveil all of these projects that I have been working on for years - there&amp;#039;s a TV project and I&amp;#039;m going to tour my album - not just nationwide, but overseas. Everyone can check out everything I&amp;#039;m doing on my iPhone app called &amp;#039;Earth to Lisa&amp;#039;. Plus I have all these other things and it&amp;#039;ll be so jam packed, which I love. I&amp;#039;m a Cover Girl, I&amp;#039;ve got my Express contract and my perfume line Dream Come True.  &amp;quot;I have a blog on Vogue Italia&amp;#039;s website right now, too. I&amp;#039;m going to be taking the entertainment industry by the cojones and am gonna ride it like a crazy beast monster!&amp;quot;  America&amp;#039;s Next Top Model airs on The CW. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/tv/americas-next-top-model/interviews/a355134/americas-next-top-model-lisa-damato-on-her-win-and-overcoming-odds/>