We reported about T.I.’s Akoo ad a couple days ago The striking female model caught in the middle of rapper T.I.’s AKOO jeans billboard ad controversy said she was caught by surprise at the level of outrage over the ad. She also says there is a blatant double standard as she regularly sees much provocative mainstream ads on billboards and in magazines.

“I’m surprised that [the controversy is] as big as it is, but it’s marketing,“ says fashion model Dawn Montgomery. “It’s a clothing line. They had a direction they wanted to go as far as promoting the spring line. And they knew that it would cause a stir, but not this big of a stir. And being that Newark, N.J., has been put on the map negatively again, I can understand the mayor’s position, but I don’t agree with it.

Montgomery said she was inundated with calls the other day when CNN and other major media outlets detailed how Newark Mayor Corey A. Booker was horrified by what he believed was a sexually explicit and demeaning billboard at a major intersection. Montgomery is crouched down and appears to be taking off a man’s AKOO jeans while being positioned in a very suggestive way. It doesn’t help that the man has his hand against the back of her head, which is already in proximity to the man’s crotch, as if to encourage Montgomery to engage in a sexual activity.

Montgomery says urban models frequently face obstacles to expressing themselves in the same provocative manner that their mainstream counterparts freely do in magazines like Elle, Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar.

“Yes, I do believe there is a double standard and it’s quite obvious. I never try to throw the race card in there. But …, she says as she races to a movie photo shoot, “it was provocative. But it wasn’t over the top compared to what I’ve seen in the mainstream advertising industry … it’s the clothing industry and in this industry, sex sells. I understand what they’re saying but you have to understand how this industry works and how these things can be taken out of context.

“It just goes to prove that people at Grand Hustle and AKOO clothing line knew what they were doing when they came up with the creative art direction for the shoot.”

If this ad caused such a backlash, then it’s a good thing Montgomery didn’t agree to the ad creators’ original ideal: They wanted her naked.