Controversial opinion: I love this Bella Hadid cover. Bella covers the new issue of InStyle and it’s a great shot. I love the length of her hair, I love the red tinge to her current brunette shade, I love the red Fendi dress on her and I love her expression. She’s actually giving FACE, as opposed to all of those times where she just sort of looks dead-eyed and blandly neutral in photos. You can see InStyle’s cover package here, and here are some highlights from the interview:
On her independence: “I’m not saying I don’t love my job, but people think modeling is a bullsh— thing to become more famous. I was 100 percent independent by the time I was 18, and I paid for my own apartment. That wasn’t because of my parents. I worked my ass off for two years.”
On The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills: “I’m not really into the whole gossip thing or the drama, but there are some parts that are funny… The women [on the show] are all super cute. I’m not sure I could be on reality TV. It’s nothing against them— love them, bless their hearts. But I think I’m going to stick with modeling for now.”
On living with Lyme disease: “When I was 16, 17 I went out and did the whole thing…Now I feel like a grandma. I’ll go out occasionally, but I’d rather go to work and have 100 percent energy, because I barely have enough to get through the day as it is.”
On the media: “They’ll say that I had a conversation with someone I’ve never even met before. Or people will judge me for things I can’t change. Imagine that somebody is telling you that you’re a piece of sh— every day on social media. You kind of feel like, ‘Well, am I a piece of sh—?’ You don’t really know.”
On becoming friends with Kendall Jenner: “That was before we started modeling. I was probably 14 or 15. We met up and had sushi, and now we’re best friends. She’s a pretty significant human I met online.”
On a potential acting career: “People think that I don’t smile and I’m super cold…With acting you can show more of who you are. I would have to get a hold of my ADD, but otherwise I think it would be fun.”
Was it shady, what she said about RHOBH? Her mother, Yolanda Foster, left RHOBH last year after she was demoted from series regular. It was widely believed that Yolanda only did the show to give her daughters increased exposure and help launch their modeling careers, in which case… that was a success. But it feels like Bella is sort of disrespecting her own launching pad, and she’s disrespecting the platform that made her family famous? “It’s nothing against them— love them, bless their hearts. But I think I’m going to stick with modeling for now.” Until the modeling career stalls, and then she’ll be all over reality TV, like dear old mom?
All of which goes into the conversation about Bella’s independence and how she made enough money to buy her own apartment, etc. I’m not saying she hasn’t worked and all of that. She has. She’s a better runway model than her sister. But I always think the same thing whenever these Instamodels/nepotism models talk about how hard they work and how independent they are: would it really be that big of a deal to acknowledge that they are so famous and successful as models because of A) their names, B) social media and C) the involvement of their momagers and assorted family connections? We’re being force-fed nepotism and they keep insisting it’s meritocracy and that’s what bugs me.
Photos courtesy of WENN, cover courtesy of Kacper Kasprzyk for InStyle.
Oh, it has everything to do with your parents, honey. But bless.
And her plastic surgeon.
Exactly. Who paid for the nose job? Who made calls to get your foot in the door? Who got you on TV? I don’t even like her parents. I think they’re very shallow. But come on girl. Your parents made your modeling career possible.
Don’t these privileged kids ever want to be doctors, scientists, teachers or even philanthropists? Why modeling and acting?
I assume its because they are raised in California surrounded by models and actors. Her father probably wasn’t around that much and step dad is a music producer. I guess its the same with families that have generations of Teachers, Doctors, Lawyers and Law enforcement.
Gigi and Bella’s father, Mohamed Hadid, is very involved in his children’s lives. Bella must have forgotten that she was on a reality show. Daddy provided a luxury apartment, and mommy bought all the furniture and other furnishings, and decorated it fully. This when Gigi was living alone in her own gigantic, extravagant apartment.
>Don’t these privileged kids ever want to be doctors, scientists, teachers or even philanthropists? Why modeling and acting?
Because even daddy can’t make enough phone calls to get her through med school while she’s taking selfies on a yacht in the Caribbean.
I love her saying “by the time I was 18 [, and] I paid for my own apartment. That wasn’t because of my parents. I worked my ass off for two years.”
TWO YEARS. Girl worked her ass off FOR TWO YEARS. Here’s a cookie, Bella.
Exactly
Except your family money did help you! How many 16-17 year olds have the money to travel to New York, Milan, Paris and pay for shoots and hair and clothes and nails just to be looked at by agents??? Not a whole lot, you need a wealthy family to fund these things until you “make it.” Then if you don’t get a contract you always have a cushy life to fall back on without worrying that you have 0 education. Also having the same last name as your billionaire daddy gives you a huge step-up in the world vs. those with unrecognizable names.
Bella is a decent model…although where is GiGi these days? She wasn’t at PFW or MFW.
Is she stepping down from modelling?
“…they are so famous and successful as models because of…” D) The plastic surgery their MEGA RICH FATHER PAID FOR *right* before their “career” started.
Please. Just. Stop.
“She’s a pretty significant human I met online.” What?? Why does that not make sense to me?
Also, her dad is a billionaire, so spare me the whole, I did everything myself crap. She would never have failed monetarily on her own, and she had tons of help to get into the modeling industry. She literally did nothing on her own. I cannot stand this group of nepotism models.
Yolanda was one of the oddest Real Housewives ever…and I’m in the camp that does’t buy her BS, especially after watching Dr. Oz shut her down.
Yolanda seems to be a very self aware gold digger. As such, she took pains to portray herself as down to earth and later as a sickly victim. But she is very calculating and also has a mean streak. Her last sugar daddy sure beat a hasty retreat. If was as if he suddenly realized he married a con artist. Heh.
I don’t see anything wrong with her dissing the Real Housewives franchise. Her mom chose to do that, not her.
Even if she benefitted from the connection, I don’t see any difference between her disliking reality tv and, say, Kirsten Dunst disliking the idea of child stardom.
That said, a lot of these new models look like hostesses you’d see in restaurants. The hostesses are all really pretty, but kind of interchangeable.
Born on third base. I have no doubt she did work hard but still did NOT hit a triple. Ain’t this the way with many things anymore “We’re being force-fed nepotism and they keep insisting it’s meritocracy.”
Yolanda did it for her daughters, but she was also hoping to launch her own lifestyle blog/entity at one time as well. But Bella Hadid thinking that she is successful completely independent of her parents (and her sister) is ridiculous. On her own, Bella is a pedestrian model. Her mom’s connections and dad’s money got her in the door, which was is about 75% of the way. Yes, her own hustle got her the other 25%. But that is most definitely not “completely independent”.
There’s no way she’d be on any covers without the nepotism.
I don’t really get why people get so mad when celebs say that they are self made. How many regular people are self made? A lot more than celebs of course but we’ve all gotten places from helping hands. Whether its people we knew with connections, parents who payed for schooling and driving licences etc. Its the same thing but on a smaller scale so try not to get so bunged up about it.
Hmm never looked at it that way. Although when my parents financially bailed me out of certain situations, I did stop turning my nose up at the multimillionaires who have it the same way, just with milllions more. Good point.
Do regular people really claim to be self-made? Granted, they’re not giving interviews, but I’ve never heard a regular person really claim they’ve made it all on their own. I’m not sure if it occurs to a regular person to make grandiose claims (probably because no one really cares what we think about anything.)
I think it has a lot to do with the chosen profession (model, singer, actor…) of celebrity offspring.
in this special case: a regular “self-made model” would have struggled a hundred times harder than Bella did.
sure, the parents of our regular model would maybe also try to support her financially, but probably wouldn’t be able to on the same scale as the Hadids. sure, Bella had to network, but she’s already one step ahead, because the people she needs are already in her immediate surroundings. sure, Bella had to make a name for herself, but her name was already pretty well-known, so people could connect her face to it more easily.
Bella Hadid was born into her privilege. a privilege regular people don’t have.
so, no, she’s not self made. she had all the tools she needed for becoming a model right at her hands. what regular person has that?
Why does everyone assume models should act? I don’t think this one even knows how to read.
Buhahahaha @ Neelyo
I don’t think she was trying to deny the way her connections and family money launched her career, just saying that what she has now is from that career, not from the bank of Dad.
That’s what I took away from this too.
Yeah, that’s kind of how I took it, too. I mean, I’m sure her name helped. But since she can’t help who her parents are, it’s kind of beside the point. She is a model and she does work.
Sorry, what expression? I must have missed it.
Its just.. she thinks she works hard because she doesnt know what hard work is. She hasnt done it before. I work 12 hr shifts and I can barely find the time to use the bathroom at work. To her modelling is hard, I believe her.
Dead eyes!
Honest question: what kind of work did she do to be able to afford buying her own apartment? She doesn’t mention a mortgage, maybe there is one, maybe not. And in two years?
She just doesn’t realize that working hard is never a guarantee that you’ll get anywhere with it, bless her heart
While I do understand the annoyance at nepotism models, I actually do think she’s the prettiest one of all of the current bunch. She’s gorgeous and likely would have gotten modelling jobs without her connections. It just would have taken a lot more “work” to be seen by the right people and work her way up to this point.
Modelling may not be easy. However, for Bella and her sister, it’s easier than for other models, especially in the beginnings of their careers.
The Hadids are heiresses first and foremost. They have a former model mother. Their first jobs were as favors to friends of the family or their mother’s associates. They’ve been chauffeur driven to castings and appointments from before they were earning models and they’ve never had to cope with living like a squashed city rat 6 to a room in grotty apartments usually in cities that you don’t know. They had hotel rooms and nice apartments paid for by their family wealth to retreat to after castings or fashion weeks, a luxury other models dream of.
They’ve also never had to worry about paying off agency fees or earning enough to be kept on the agency board nor about sending money back home to help with family commitments. It’s easier to get rich when you start at 0 rather than at -10, and even easier than that if you start at +10. If you can’t see that then you really are being wilfully stupid.
Some exceptional models make a tremendous amount of money. The Hadids are pretty but not great at modelling, especially not on the catwalk. They’re not exceptional models. They might be earning top dollar but it was money that was being put into an already overflowing money-box. They’re in the financial position they’re in because of their background as the pretty daughters of a millionaire and a model. To deny it is to have blinkered privilege and be outright ignorant. It’s not a black mark to be born rich. It is, however, incredibly obtuse to pretend or believe that you reached your elevated standing in life by yourself with no help from other factors (name, wealth, connections, etc.), especially, as in this case, when the evidence to the contrary is abundant.
I’m a former model and this kind of “we made it on our own!” talk coming from the new nepotism/heiress models really p*sses me (and a lot of my former colleagues) off, so apologies for the rant. The only model in the nepo/heir category I like is Adwoa Aboah, because she really does have “it”. But these two? No. And they front like they’re self-made. No thanks.
Hear, hear.
This is exactly why I’d eyeroll every time the press made a big deal of some celeb nepotism model for ‘standing up for herself’ esp when it came to matters of weight. It’s very easy to throw in the towel and diss the industry when you can afford the plane fare to fly straight home and don’t have to worry that you’ll be in debt to your agency for it. And as for this ‘hard work’ Bella or the other instabots claim.. … let’s just say the likes of Gisele or Kate Moss – ie actual supermodels- would laugh in their faces.
even if she didn’t have that last name, her family is still terribly rich. people tend to forget that most models (even/especially the ones in the big campaigns) don’t earn that much. they start bloody young with about 14 and live in crappy model flat-shares and some are barely getting by. the agencies pay for their apartment, their food, their travels to castings. most are deep in debt. they have to get jobs. not only to keep a roof over their head, but also to have hope to ever be able to pay off their debt.
Bella, Kendall &co should understand what kind of luxury it is to have parents that can pay for all their needs (and maybe even the name, so the agencies might not try anything), so they never went through any of that hardship or were in a bad situation like that.
that’s why I think “instagram models” is a legitimate name. they aren’t “models”. they are more known for their brand, their instagram account, their friends, their parties whatever. and that’s why they are not living and never have lived the “normal model life”. and they definitely should stop complaining or bragging that they were so independent and paying their own damn apartment at 18.
end of rant
oh my, just saw swede’s comment, ignore me she worded it so much better
All she has accomplished by this interview is demonstrating that she is terribly insulated from the real world and that she never gained analytical skills. It doesn’t seem she has even experienced challenges in life or work!
Ahhh, another person born on third base thinking they hit a home run. We definitely don’t have enough of those. 🙄
I have no problem believing that she worked her ass off. But who do you think opened those doors for you in the first place?
Oh COME ON. Try being an underage Russian or Ukrainian model coming from the middle of nowhere and abject poverty trying to survive the abuse of the modeling business and then we’ll talk.
That’ surely why one interview of Georgia May Jagger really sticked with me. Asked the same questions as all these insta models, she did acknowledge that the name and connections not only opened doors for her but actually kept them open . That her mother’s knowledge of this world helped her navigate through it and avoid some traps and dangers anonymous girls aren’t always protected from.
She also said that the sibling they were all really proud of was Karys cause she was the one who graduated Yale.
So yes, honest and gracious answers to these questions can be given.