Earlier this year, she and her husband, Sebastian Bear-McClard, split following cheating claims, and on Wednesday, she discussed the freedom of being single after four years of marriage.

“It’s so nice, honestly,” Ratajkowski told hosts Hoda Kotb and Jenna Bush Hager. “I don’t owe anything to anybody other than my son, that’s the only man.”

Bear-McClard and Ratajkowski share their 1-year-old son, Sylvester Apollo Bear.

During the show, Bush Hager expressed that she used to be a serial monogamist and asked Ratajkowski why, in their younger years, they felt like they were unable to be single.

“I think it was a way for me to protect myself,” Ratajkowski said. “I was entering a really crazy industry and working in a really crazy industry where now I think we can accept there are a lot of predatory, scary men, and I think it was a way for me to feel safe.”

“Serial monogamy” is a term used for someone who moves from one romantic relationship to another quickly, “spending as little time single as possible,” according to PsychCentral.

“And also I just wanted to be loved,” Ratajkowski added. “And have that validation and that’s not bad, but it’s really nice to be…I’m 31 and I have a little one and I have this career, and I’m just kind of, like, doing my own thing.”

The model said she was a “pick-me girl,” someone who “want[s] to be chosen, you want to be picked.”

When asked what she is now, Ratajkowski said, “I’ve been joking that I’m in my B era,” in reference to the word “b****.”

“I like that word because I feel like I’m reappropriating it. It has negative connotations, [but] for me it’s like, ‘No no, it’s a good thing.’ I don’t put up with s***.”

Ratajkowski published a New York Times bestselling collection of essays last year titled My Body, in which she tackled issues of feminism, exploitation within the modeling industry, and her complicity in the selling of her image and capitalism.

Following the success of her book, Ratajkowski has also started a podcast titled High Low with Emrata, to discuss everything from “politics, philosophy, and feminism to sex, TikTok and relationships,” the podcast advertises. The show will feature two episodes per week, one which will include conversations with special guests and another that is a more personal, solo discussion on everything Ratajkowski is thinking about that week.

Newsweek reached out to a representative for Ratajkowski for additional comment.

Update 11/2/2022, 1:58 p.m. ET: This article has been updated with additional information.