New York, November 9, 2009 – Glamour magazine’s 2009 Women of the Year Awards were as thrilling as ever, honoring distinguished women like Maya Angelou, Amy Poehler, Stella McCartney, Rihanna, Maria Shriver and Michelle Obama.  Presenters included Bill Clinton, Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones.  Each speech was more moving than the last, and comic Amy Poehler had everyone laughing, but Tyra Banks took the cake when she introduced tennis great Serena Williams with the following anecdote:

“A couple of days ago I went to the Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum here in New York City.  So I’m walking around, checking everything out and this one figure caught my eye; and I know the real person and have even broken bread with her before, but I never really felt comfortable enough to, like, really just, like, stare at her and, like, admire her strong biceps.  And, like, I wanted to grab her biceps when I was at dinner with her, and I wanted to just kind of like pull her dress up and really, you know, get a close up of those amazingly taut legs and…the booty.  You know, I wanted to…really, like, damn, mine are nowhere near that toned!  And of course I wasn’t going to touch her at dinner, but here I am at the Wax Museum.  So my dream came true: I started to squeeze the biceps and squeeze the legs and squeeze the booty, and I was, like, oh my god, I was in heaven!  And then these little girls actually came up to me, and they were like, ‘Tyra, what are you doing?’  They were like, you’re so not cool, you’re not supposed to be touching the exhibit.  And I was, like, you guys, I can’t help it.  This woman is so amazing, and she’s so powerful, I cannot help myself.”