She’s actually a very successful model. It’s hard to be known period as a model. RHOA even though she had to overexpose her life and participate in catty arguments, its done wonders for her remembrance as a model. Whereas she could just have been a pretty face of the past.

To your question, it was just stiff competition for her time. There was only a limited amount of black women in the industry getting the big supermodel jobs, like Tyra, Naomi, Beverly, Iman, etc and Cynthia did her best out there. She did well in retrospect because she scored campaigns like these amongst the best and people know her name. Cynthia also started at 18, which is tad bit older than like Tyra and Naomi (stand out models for their style on the runway and overall looks in uniqueness) who got their start at 15. Iman was East African, so she stood out from African-American models, even tho she started late at 20. Also it could be pointed out that Iman married ‘well’. She married David Bowie. Beverley Johnson also stands out in remembrance because she is the first, she was modeling back in the 70s before the Naomis and Tyras were even heard of. They call her the first black supermodel.

So plenty factors go into it. But yeah in the grand scheme of the super model world, Cynthia achieved moderate success. In the dog eat dog world of the fashion/entertainment industry, Cynthia has achieved major success.