Yaya Da Costa
Camara “Yaya” Da Costa is from Freeport, New York. She was a student at Brown University and can speak three other languages, namely Portuguese, Spanish and French. Yaya stands at 5 feet, 8 inches and weighs around 118 lbs. She likes to nibble on sweet plantains and reads Trace magazine in her spare time. Her favorite movie is the Sci-Fi film The Fifth Element with the very versatile actor Bruce Willis.
Her modeling career was off to a promising start when she became one of the 14 finalists for America’s Next Top Model, Cycle 3. Yaya worked her way through all twelve weeks of photo shoots and catty exchanges between the other models in the group, and came very close to winning the competition. Like the past two seasons, the final week’s challenge was a walk-off between the two remaining finalists, Yaya and
Eva Pigford . Both girls did very well on the runway, with a few minor glitches. During the judging session, Yaya was criticized to have looked lifeless while walking, but it did not do much to downplay her performance. Nevertheless, the judges decided to go with Eva, making Yaya the 12th person to be eliminated.
After her appearance on the show, Yaya got to show off her dancing skills in the film, Take the Lead, with highly-acclaimed actor Antonio Banderas.
(Photos courtesy of UPN/CW)