Martha Stewart Reflects on Inappropriate Moment from Her Teen Modeling Days: 'I Walked Out of The Room'

Martha Stewart is reflecting on her teen modeling days.

For Elle, the lifestyle guru, 83, interviewed Pamela Anderson about her role in The Last Showgirl. During the conversation, the pair swapped stories about navigating an industry that is focused on physical appearance.

Stewart shared an experience she had as a teenage model when she refused to put on a bikini for an audition.

"They asked all the girls to bring bikinis, and after my interview with about 15 guys sitting around a table, they said, 'Go get into your bikini,'" she recalled. "And I said, 'Does the part require a bikini?' And the guy said, 'No, but we have you here, so we might as well look at you.' And I just walked out of the room."

She continued, "I was maybe 17 [years old] at the time, but I just wouldn’t put up with that crap. That’s the way I’ve been all along, I just wouldn’t put up with it. When you see that other girls put up with it because they need the money or they need the job, it’s a difficult situation. I think that might be getting better after all these years."

Anderson, who got her start as a Playboy model, commiserated with Stewart. "It’s hard to navigate a business that is based on physical beauty and also naïveté," said the actress and activist, 57. "You’re in this business and you want to please people and you have a gut feeling that maybe it’s not the right thing to do, and you can get yourself in these dangerous situations."

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Before starting her lifestyle empire, Stewart signed with Ford Models as a teenager and did TV commercials.

"I played married parts when I was 16 years old. I was so skinny and so perfect for modeling, but I didn’t know that I was beautiful," she previously told PEOPLE. "That was my only problem. I knew that I could model, I knew I could pose for pictures, but I was not sexy, and I was not provocative. That feeling never came. It still hasn't come."