Meet Billy Eldridge: British male model and former Hokie
‘Virginia was a huge culture shock’
In a recent interview with Harry Pettit from DailyMail, Billy Eldridge told about his humble beginnings in Yorkshire and rise to the A-list, and of course had to mention his pit-stop at Virginia Tech along the way. But let’s be real here, you clicked on this for the pictures. Don’t worry, there’s plenty of that too!
The Abercrombie & Fitch model was raised in a Yorkshire village called Pickering after his parents’ divorce when he was five. He, his older brother and mother lived in a hotel owned by their grandparents. His mother was working towards obtaining a degree in hospitality, working two jobs and raising the two boys on her own.
When he was in secondary school, Billy became really interested in basketball. He was on the England team by the age of 16 and ended up receiving a scholarship to attend Virginia Tech!
“Virginia was a huge culture shock for me,” he said. “I was dropped right in the middle of the Bible belt living with the most religious family I’ve ever met. We weren’t even allowed a poker night!”
Basketball didn’t exactly pan out for Eldridge. Instead, he was recruited by the America’s Next Top Model host Nole Marin while on vacation in NYC. The short man looked him up and down before deciding he had potential, gave him his card, and told him to come to his office the next day.
Marin happened to be starting a new modeling agency, and Billy ended up being one of the first models signed. At the age of 22, he began modeling for Abercrombie and Fitch and traveling the world.
In the blink of an eye, he found himself hanging out with some of the biggest names in Hollywood, living a luxurious lifestyle and attending the biggest fashion events, which ended up being his favorite. During fashion weeks, he attended parties after each event and was paid to talk to the celebrities.
After two years of the modeling life, he decided to get a master’s degree in economics from University College London. With all the networking he did as a model, he was able to use his connections to become a gold trader in Hong Kong. Now, he’s successfully set up a charity to rehouse orphans in rural China.
Good looks AND a good guy? Eldridge may seem too good to be true. But he is in fact real (and so are those abs) and being a Hokie certainly adds to his already impressive resume. Here’s one more pic for good measure: