Romee Strijd has disputed Victoria's Secret's casting timeline after being left out of its 2026 fashion show. The company said the Dutch model was released from the casting process on 6 September, while Strijd said she attended a casting on 10 September.
The 31-year-old former Victoria's Secret Angel questioned the dates in a social media response to the company's public statement. Her comments followed videos in which she described weeks of uncertainty over whether she would return to the runway after several years away.
'then how come I went to the casting september 10th?' Strijd wrote in response to the company's explanation. The wording and lower-case letters appeared in the comment reproduced in coverage of the dispute.
Victoria's Secret Addresses the Casting Decision
A Victoria's Secret representative said the brand valued its longstanding relationship with Strijd and the work she had done during her career with the company. 'Romee holds an important place within Victoria's Secret and we deeply value her longstanding relationship with the brand and the dedication she has demonstrated throughout her career with us', the representative said in a statement published by Vanity Fair.
The representative said Victoria's Secret and casting director Piergiorgio Del Moro had communicated directly with Strijd's representatives and formally released her from the process on 6 September. The statement also said the company could not speak to communications between talent and representation, and that it valued and respected its talent partners, past, present and future.
Strijd's later comment raises a question about the chronology but does not establish when her agency received the decision or what it subsequently told her. The company has not publicly clarified why Strijd says she attended a casting four days after the date it gave for her release.
Strijd Describes Her Attempted Runway Return
In videos posted on 12 October, ahead of the show, Strijd explained that she had trained throughout the summer in the hope of returning to the Victoria's Secret runway. She said she travelled to New York for casting in September and expected to hear whether she had been selected soon afterwards.
Strijd described wanting to return after becoming a mother of two. She shares daughters Mint and June with her fiancé, Laurens van Leeuwen, and said the timing had felt right to attempt another appearance. 'I wanted to do the show again even after kids. It felt like the right timing', she said in one of the videos.
She said she believed she was on a 'maybe' list, rather than describing that list as a confirmed formal stage of the brand's casting process. She continued training while asking her modelling agency, IMG, for updates.
'I knew the casting director already. I went and I thought I was gonna know soon after if I was gonna do the show or not, but I didn't hear anything for weeks', Strijd said. She added that the uncertainty made preparations difficult while she was still waiting for a definitive answer.
In her earlier account, Strijd referred to travelling to New York for casting in September. The specific date of 10 September came from her subsequent public response to Victoria's Secret's statement.
Model Criticises Communication With Her Agency
Strijd said she learned through a call with her agency that she would not be appearing in the show. She described being disappointed by the communication and said she had felt left in the dark while waiting for an answer.
'I just hung up the phone [and] it's a no, which is fine because rejection is part of modeling and that's totally fine', she said in her TikTok video. She said she had asked for a reason and was told the casting team did not think she would fit that year's show.
Strijd said her agency then told her she had been released from consideration, a description she indicated was new information to her. That was her account of what IMG communicated; it does not independently establish when the agency received any earlier notification from the brand.
Her complaints about feeling unsupported and receiving insufficient updates were directed at her agency. Her separate response to Victoria's Secret concerned the date supplied in the brand's public statement.
Strijd also said she did not think she would audition for another Victoria's Secret show. 'I don't think I'm gonna cast anymore in the future "cause I don't like the way it went",' she said, while adding that she wanted to preserve her positive memories of working with the company.
Former Angel Receives Support From Viewers
Strijd walked in the Victoria's Secret fashion show each year from 2014 through 2018 and became an official Victoria's Sec'et Angel in 2015. Her last appearance came before the brand's extended break from its traditional runway event.
Her October videos prompted reactions from viewers who objected to the exclusion of established Angels while influencers and other personalities appeared in the show's wider promotional conversation.
'Influencers doing the show but not the OG angels????? Insanity', one commenter wrote on Strijd's video, in a reaction reproduced by Us Weekly. Another viewer wrote: 'Honestly... if you don't walk and they use influencers and nepo babies thats a [sic] absolute joke!!!'
Those comments represent the views of individual social media users. Neither establishes why the casting team decided not to select Strijd, and the brand did not identify the specific factors behind her rejection in its public statement.
The Victoria's Secret Fashion Show took place on Sunday, 18 October 2026, without Strijd in the lineup. Coverage of her subsequent Instagram Story described her thanking supporters and reflecting warmly on her earlier experiences with the brand. The exact wording of that Story has not been independently confirmed here.
The company has addressed the casting decision and its communications with Strijd's representatives. The specific difference between its stated release date and Strijd's account of attending casting on 10 September remains publicly unexplained.
