Initially notable as a model, she has described herself as the first supermodel. One of the most successful models throughout the 1970s and 1980s, she expanded her profession to reality television in 2003 by judging for four cycles on America's Next Top Model. She subsequently opened her own modeling agency in 2005, which was documented in the reality-television series The Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency (2006–2008).
Dickinson has been open about the emotional and physical abuse she suffered as a child and teenager, and how her father used to sexually abuse one of her sisters. Of her childhood with her "rageoholic pedophile" of a father, Dickinson stated, "Because I wouldn't give in and let him have sex with me, I was verbally and physically abused on a daily basis. I was told that I looked like a boy and wouldn't amount to anything. I think if you abuse a child, your balls should be cut off. You should be castrated immediately."
