Adriana Lima's Make-Up Free Selfie Explains Why She Makes the Big Bucks

‘90s supermodel Linda Evangelista told Vogue in 1990, “We have this expression, Christy [Turlington] and I: We don’t wake up for less than $10,000 a day” — but Victoria’s Secret Angel and Brazilian bombshell Adriana Lima is telling the world that the hustle is real, even if you’ve won the genetic lottery.

Last Thursday, the 34-year-old model posted a close-up makeup-free selfie on Instagram, captioned with lengthy paragraph about her 10-hour workday at a photoshoot, getting her photos taken with “a very bad cold, coughing no stop and a massive headache.”

RELATED: Adriana Lima Has Insecurities Over Her Appearance
RELATED: Adriana Lima Is Not A Fan Of Selfies

“Sometimes, people question, that model life is easy, and that’s wrong, we work as hard as any other individual,” she wrote.

She mentioned that after the photoshoot, she went to the airport to go home to her two daughters — arriving home at 2 a.m. after a three-hour delay.

“Happy to be here,” she concluded her message.

“And wanted to share the face of a hard working model, and share that I am not the only one that works this hard.”

This isn’t the first time that Lima, the second highest-earning model of 2015 with $9 million, made headlines for telling the truth about her career.

In 2011 in an interview with The Daily Telegraph, she was heavily criticized for revealing her strict diet regimen to prepare for the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show.

“No liquids at all so you dry out, sometimes you can lose up to eight pounds just from that,“ she said, adding that she worked out twice a day in the weeks leading up to the show.

Anderson Cooper ridiculed Lima for her diet, and later Lima responded on E!.

“I know it’s very intense but I just have an athlete’s mind and I appreciate doing this thing,” she said.

Lima walked the 2012 Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show just eight weeks after giving birth to her daughter Sienna.

“We were doing four to six hours [of exercise] every day, seven days a week,” her personal trainer Michael Olajide, Jr., told People in December 2012.

“It was a roller coaster, but she’s a fighter. She just bit down on her mouthguard and got it done.”

And this hard work and determination is probably why Lima is getting paid to get out of bed for $25,000 a day.