Television personality Tyra Banks has packed on more than thirty pounds since turning in her supermodel’s crown in 2005.

Tyra is firing back at critics who blasted her after an unflattering bathing suit shot hit the media in late December:

“I get so much mail from young girls who say, ‘I look up to you, you’re not as skinny as everyone else, I think you’re beautiful,’ ” she says. “So when they say that my body is ‘ugly’ and ‘disgusting,’ what does that make those girls feel like?

The five foot ten inch former Victoria’s Secret supermodel is now weighing in at 161 pounds, and claims to be taking it all in stride: “I still feel hot, but every day is different. It’s when I put on the jeans that used to fit a year ago and don’t fit now and give me the muffin top, that’s when I say, ‘Damn!’ ”

People magazine’s Galina Espinoza told Access Hollywood that T.B has mixed feelings about her weight gain:

“She says when she puts on her jeans, bigger jeans than what she wore a year ago, mind you she doesn’t like the fact that her stomach spills over the top of the waist band.”