Suki Waterhouse covers the new issue of British Vogue with her baby girl, whose name has still not been publicized. Suki and Robert Pattinson welcomed their daughter in March of this year. Before this interview, I honestly thought they were already living full-time in London, but no – they met in LA and they’ve been mostly based out of LA throughout their six-year-plus relationship. Suki covers British Vogue because she’s promoting her music – her new album, Memoir of a Sparklemuffin, comes out this summer. The Vogue piece is full of conversations about her music, but I’m only really here for the gossip (I apologize to all of the Suki-music lovers). Some highlights from the interview:
Her last trimester, nesting mode: She was doing a “complete excavation” of her “Virginia Woolf disaster room” – a fashion and God-knows-what-else dumping ground – to turn it into a nursery; Rob was “doing things he’s never done before, like driving to [shopping mall] The Grove at 6pm on a Saturday evening and staring at Williams Sonoma pans”.
She played at Coachella six weeks after giving birth: “Every mum’s morality is in question so much, not just from yourself, but from society. Everyone’s projecting something onto you. That’s an insane thing.” Take the criticism she came under online for playing Coachella six weeks after giving birth. “Like, honestly, of course [I was thinking]: ‘Holy sh-t, how is this going to work, is this even going to be possible?’” she says. But ultimately: “You just have to go, ‘This is what we’re doing, this is what we’re about and f–k what anyone else thinks.’”
She was one of the last of the old-fashioned It-girls: She wasn’t scared to be a bit messy, to let it hang out a little, to make the most of the opportunities that come your way when you’re young and beautiful. “Didn’t you feel like there was an energy then that’s a little bit lost now? Everything’s become so clean. You would look at all of us and think, ‘Oh, they’re actually having fun.’”
Modeling as a 19-year-old: “It’s not an industry where everyone has their sensible cap on all the time [but] it was a brilliant thing to happen to me really young in a lot of ways.”
Her two-year relationship Bradley Cooper, which started when she was 21 & he was 38: “I really will say that I’m pretty strong at this point, but when something very public happens to you and the story behind it is dark and difficult, and you’re actually not doing well, and you can’t explain yourself to the world, that’s very isolating and disorientating. It probably has taken a decade to work myself out and actually be able to have this expansion in my life.”
Her chaotic relationships in her 20s: “Your 20s are pretty sadistic. The love I experienced [then] was only ever a fetishisation, and I think when you only get loved in that way, you only get punished. When you get into your 30s you’re almost instantly afforded a little bit more respect. It’s kind of delightful and shocking at the same time.”
Whether she & Rob will move back to the UK: “Trust me, it’s at the forefront of our minds.”
Her pregnancy was planned: “No, we really planned it. One day we looked at each other and said, ‘Well, this is as ready as we’re going to be.’ I was like, ‘What can make more chaos?’”
She’s planning a tour but not obsessed with her weight: “I definitely think, ‘Oh, I’m shooting the cover of Vogue and I’m 25 pounds heavier than I normally am right now,’ but it’s also like, ‘Who gives a f–k?’ It is what it is.” (And also? “The boobs are so fun.”)
There was zero prep or classes with her pregnancy: “I really had no concept that there was a baby inside me. Like, I knew that was the case, but I was like, ‘What do you mean? That’s insane.’”
She’s shocked by early motherhood. “Shocking in every way.” She recalls her realisation a baby needs to be breastfed “every two hours. I was alarmed in the hospital when they kept waking me up. I was like, ‘Excuse me? Is this what this entails?’” What got her through the birth was a rap playlist and Pattinson. “He was there with me and like all dads, he was really nervous,” she recalls, “but for someone who’s quite an anxious person, he’s been very calm.” He is “the dad I could have hoped for”, she says. Her eyes go wide and twinkly. “I mean a dad and his daughter? It’s an actual love story.”
She also talks about meeting Rob at a “game night” in LA, a party attended by Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem, and of course she and Rob were drawn to each other as fellow Brits. But they didn’t start dating then – they met again six months later and that’s when things started happening. It’s interesting to hear that the pregnancy was planned, especially given her sort of chaotic post-birth life, performing at Coachella (yikes) and planning a tour with the baby. She’s coming across as “eccentric British.” Also: are we really at the point where we’re romanticizing the bygone era of the early-and-mid 2010s modeling scene?
Cover & IG courtesy of British Vogue.
…she sings???
LOL. Yeah…
“ I’m only really here for the gossip (I apologize to all of the Suki-music lovers)”
I mean @Kaiser it’s nice of you to apologize, but everyone including her knows next to no one is here for the music. That’s why the baby and gossip are front and centre in the magazine.
Same question I have… she is a singer?
I got almost piled on when I said this last time but Pattinson did surprise me when he started dating her! From Kristen, FKA to Suki… ok!
All the best to them
I thought the same at first but her songs are actually pretty good. I was bopping to a song on KEXP, looked to see who it was, and was shocked to see it said ‘Suki Waterhouse’.
I had the same experience and now I’m a full-on fan! Always ready to snark on a vanity music project but IMO she’s got the goods.
And as far as romanticizing the early aughts modeling scene…I mean I get what she’s saying, today’s equivalents to “it” girls of those days feel very “clean” and boring. Not that there’s anything inherently wrong with that but I think it ties into the relative asceticism of Gen Z, the sobriety and “puriteen” of it all.
She writes her own music and it’s amazing.
Her music is sooooooo good. Seriously, I know people don’t want a socialite nepo-model to also be incredibly talented, but the woman is a freaking great songwriter.
So the timing of the pregnancy appears to be the only planned. Otherwise she comes off as completely incurious about actual pregnancy and parenthood. She’s an odd one indeed.
I actually can’t believe she said that stuff out loud, it sounds alarmingly ignorant.
It’s entirely possible that she was being sarcastic. I’ve said similar things myself about parenting, because let’s face it, reading about it is not the same thing as experiencing it.
I always wonder why everyone finds her so offensive. Whenever there are articles about her on CB people mock her music and call her plain-looking and boring. I don’t know her so I’m always wondering if she’s a jerk or something. Boring is definitely not an insult in my book!!
Please translate the BradleyC quote..
That and most of the rest of what she says. I don’t understand what she is trying to say about her 20s relationships either. And is she bragging about not preparing for motherhood? It does not warrant mom shaming, but I don’t think she gets how ignorant and incourious she comes accross.
It reads as though she was treated like crap by the men she dated in her 20s, and Bradley Cooper was…awful? Apparently? Not sure. How again did she become an It Girl? Is she related to somebody rich & famous or something? She makes it sound as though she puts little effort into everything–work, motherhood–yet she played Coachella, which does take work, so I don’t know. I know nothing about her. And after reading this article, still know nothing. Congrats on the baby & the relationship, though!
“I really will say that I’m pretty strong at this point, but when something very public happens to you and the story behind it is dark and difficult, and you’re actually not doing well,”
All I remember, people rightly criticized their relationship because of the gross age gap, especially her being early 20s. Then, they went for a picnic with paps and they were reading “Lolita”, which I am assuming their gross pushback to the critics. I don’t remember her talking about that time before, so I don’t know if she has different feelings now about the relationship, since she is in her 30’s now.
Sounds like it was an abusive relationship she never was able to talk about.
Cryptic comment ab Bradley that can be interpreted so many ways.
I think Vogue had a problem with her being 25# heavier and that’s why they put her in a very fashionable albeit feathery paper bag. I don’t know her, but Vogue sucks. Why are they still so backwards?
Agreed.
Vogue does this with everyone not stick thin. Shame on them.
In this post- Roe world, I appreciate that she says she and her partner planned the pregnancy when they were ready. It’s important.
More power to her if she was able and willing to perform at Coachella 6 weeks postpartum. F*#k, I was such a mess emotionally at that point. It wasn’t until about 12 weeks that I finally felt that bliss with my baby that I’d heard about and began to feel like myself again. Postpartum was scary as hell.
Agree that it’s an odd thing to share with the world and just to think this way. You plan the pregnancy and then don’t find out what you will need to do when you give birth and have to take care of the baby. Huh. I mean maybe there is a philosophy around this? It seems harmful. Maybe because if you have resources you can be just whatever about anything and then buy what you need or pay people to do what you need. So a privileged take. Average folks responding to having a baby without preparation could be very bad I think…
That’s what I was thinking, Nanny to the Rescue!
I think she’s trying to sound witty and quirky just to say it was to drop whatever she was doing (sleeping, texting, etc ) every two hours to feed the baby.
I hardly believe she didn’t prepare in any way or get any advice while she was expecting.
Since she obviously didn’t need to keep working on schedule until childbirth bc of money, most obgyns would have her sign up for prenatal classes, bc it makes their jobs easier and more effective for all parties involved. I’m sure she’s a sweet, motivated young woman; but a pick-me girl if there was one.
She lost all my respect with the “babies eat every 2 hours?” comment. Lack of curiosity is one thing but lack of BASIC preparedness? Not charming or cute.
Lmao that’s dramatic
Well I knew babies eat every two hours or more often but it was still brutal to wake up that often.
A lot of women don’t realise how intense breastfeeding is. The majority I might say. I don’t think she said anything at all out of the ordinary there. Breastfeeding killed me!