Bella Hadid took part in the Vogue Fashion Festival a few Fridays ago. I don’t really know what the Vogue Fashion Festival is, but I would assume it’s just a series of vendors and Q&A sessions. This one was in Paris, and Bella did a Q&A session where she talked about runway modeling for Victoria’s Secret versus modeling for Savage x Fenty, and how too much modeling work affected her mental health. Some quotes:
Walking for Victoria’s Secret (three times) versus Fenty lingerie: “Rihanna’s amazing. For me, that was the first time on a runway that I felt really sexy. Because when I first did Fenty, I was doing other lingerie shows and I never felt powerful on a runway, like, in my underwear. I like being another character. I think at this point I don’t necessarily love being myself sometime. Sometimes on the runway you get either nervous or you forget how your legs move.”
Getting burned out on modeling: “For a while I just didn’t want to talk about it, and I’ve gone through a lot in the past few years with my health. I feel guilty for being able to live this incredible life, have the opportunities that I do, but somehow still be depressed. It doesn’t make sense. I would cry every single morning, I would cry during my lunch breaks, I would cry before I slept. I was very emotionally unstable for a while when I was working 14-hour days for four months straight as an 18-year-old. I think I just wanted to breathe a little bit. And so it kind of put me in a spiral.”
Finally being able to talk about mental health: “Showing people what I support, the things that I love in my life that I’m passionate about, is something that’s very important to me, so I hope that in the future I can show that more. For a while I just shut it off, but I’m back. I just hope I can help in any way I can. I feel like I would be doing a disservice to myself if I didn’t speak about something such as mental health, because that’s pretty much what I’ve been going through for the past five years very intensely. Now we’re here and we’re good, but it took a while.”
She knows she seems closed off to strangers: “I think I look really scary online a lot of the time,” she mused, adding that having briefly studied photography at Parsons in New York, she is generally more comfortable behind the camera than in front of it. “I don’t love the camera that much but I’m a model, so I guess I should start.”
This reminds me of how Prince William said, earlier this year, that “not one celebrity” wanted to work with him on Heads Together because of the issue of “mental health.” It is just a reminder that discussions about mental health – especially among celebrities/models/public figures – have been happening now at a steady clip for years. It’s odd that so many of these celebrity mental health advocates don’t want to work with William and Kate, huh? As for what Bella said… I mean, I always think that everything must be magnified when it comes to that celebrity world. It’s not just imposter syndrome with starting a job or career, it becomes magnified because you’re walking a runway or starring in an ad campaign or you’re on the cover of a magazine. Bella’s message is “I had a hard time, I struggled, but I dealt with it and came out on the other side.” Which is a healthy message.
Photos courtesy of Backgrid.
“Cold” image aside, she seems like a sweet young woman to me. I like what she says here.
Poor thing. I know that for me, my extreme clinical depression makes me feel like my wonderful opportunities and things I have are completely wasted on a pile of crap like myself. Like they’d be better given to someone who deserves them. It’s a bad spiral.
Same here.
sending love <3 you are worthy!
The amount of opportunities that I can look back on…. and know I screwed up because of depression…. ugh.
One time I very depressed and it was making me crazy,
I could sit there and list all the great things happening: work was good, had enough money…. love life was in good shape for the first time ever…. I’d just had an article published in a magazine… I was at a decent weight…. I had other jobs lined up (entertainment industry— always looking for your next job)….. my family was doing well.
EVERYTHING was better than normal. And I was still depressed.
I know this well. We can only keep trying, right?
Bella seems like a nice young woman but she comes from nepotism and she has a non-fulfilling career. Perhaps she feels like there’s more to life than playing dress up everything and trying to sell handbags and make up. That sounds like 100% fun for a while but it must tiresome after a few years.
Still, she seemed very happy to have her bought and paid for spot in the VS fashion show. Now that they aren’t that cool anymore, it’s time to suck up to Rihanna. Who feels “powerful” while doing his/her job anyway?
🙄 Bought and paid for spot. Please. No amount of money could haVe bought her a spot on that show. They pick the top “sexy” models (from the skinny models). She has a huge following and has been one of the world’s top-ranked models (whether they readers here like it or not) for several years now. They wanted her desperately.
Bella and Gigi May have gotten a huge head start in modelling because of money, reality TV and the resulting connections; but their success today is largely because they are extremely popular models and they are loved in the industry. They are apparently polite, well-mannered, sweet and they work hard. Photographers, stylists, editors, makeup artists, hair stylists, bookers and other models all adore them and sing their praises. Even if Bella “bought herself a new face” as people here like to say on every article about her, she is an extremely successful model.
You are right that modelling is unfulfilling. I hope she finds something that fulfills her and is less soul destroying. I suspect that someone with depression and at least some self-esteem issues (evidenced by her nose job and weight loss as well as the uneven treatment obvious on Real Housewives from her mother to her favourite Gigi and her other children) really shouldn’t be in an industry that is wholly about surface appearances.
She seems like a sweet girl, I wish her only the best.
I admire her for being able to talk about this publicly. It’s such a incredibly difficult and personal issue, and people still judge it like it’s something people choose instead of an illness. The only thing she should feel guilty about is wearing that outfit in the header photo!
Bravo to her. The more we normalize mental health discussions the more likely we are to save people who might otherwise feel hopeless. I know because I’ve struggled with mental health myself.
I have always liked Bella even though she gets a lot of undeserved hate and is accused of being a nepotism model and only relevant because she is Gigi’s sister or The Weeknd ‘s girlfriend. I imagine that does a number on your Self esteem. I think she loves what she does but does not trust it because it can turn on you overnight. She is only 23 so she has a lifetime to find a purpose beyond being pretty
Ugh! the tongue
I know right? When people stick out their tongues it kills me. WHY?!
I know the feeling. And this time of year is hard. But man I would love to wake up looking like that!
I’ve never paid much attention to the Hadid girls, thought they were pretty enough or whatever. But I saw a clip the other day from that Housewives show where Yolanda and Gigi are standing in the kitchen. Gigi is quite young (maybe 16?) and she just came back from soccer practice. She looks glowing, youthful, healthy, etc. And all Yolanda can talk about is how she “eats like horse”‘ and shouldn’t be eating, etc. Gigi looked so depressed. Now, I’m not saying that Bella’s clinical depression is caused by her mother, but I just wonder if these girls even WANT to model?? Maybe they just wanted to go to college and play soccer and live normal lives, but their mom forced them into it?
Nailed it.
I think these girls could and should do whatever they want. If they can’t, then who the hell can? Break the chains, girls. Only you can do it for you.
Not body or diet shaming but if you can’t eat normally (have to maintain a very svelte figure), you’d probably be more likely feel depressed or have mental/emotional issues. Also flying that much exposes you to a lot of radiation. A LOT.
I agree. The brain really breaks down and anxiety and depression take over without enough fat.