JOY BRYANT - BRYANT PUT YALE EDUCATION TO GOOD USE AS TOP MODEL

Actress JOY BRYANT used her top-class education to avoid the pitfalls of modelling.

The screen beauty, who plays rapper 50 CENT's lover in new movie GET RICH OR DIE TRYIN', was educated at Connecticut's Yale University before rocketing to fame as a model, and her intelligence prevented her from signing bad deals and dating sleazy men.

She tells Complex magazine, "It (education) always came in handy because, as a model, everybody assumes you're a complete idiot.

"It saved me when I went over to Paris and there were all these playboys lurking about. I was smart enough, old enough, with enough experience to avoid them.

"Thanks to Yale, I didn't wake up butt naked in a chateau wearing handcuffs, thinking, 'Why am I here?' - with a headache.

"Who would have thought an Ivy League education would have come in handy that way?"

But she's grateful she no longer has to strut her stuff on Paris, France runways anymore: "I thought I was going to be working on Wall Street (US finance capital) but, instead, I was suddenly reckoning with the vultures in Paris.

"It was a great experience, but it was pretty brutal too."