Gigi Hadid on How Pregnancy Changed Her, How Khai Really Sees Her, and Coping With Media Attention
Gigi Hadid is selective about the parts of her life she shares on social media, but, as she tells ELLE in her March 2023 cover story, she’s ready for the world to know her as more than just the picturesque model.
Hadid spoke to the magazine about how her pregnancy with her and ex-boyfriend Zayn Malik’s daughter, Khai, changed her priorities. She also shared how her now-two-year-old sees her and how she copes with media attention. Hadid’s relationship with Malik and rumored romance with Leonardo DiCaprio are just a small sampling of the kind of headlines she generates.
She teared up when asked what people wouldn’t know about her from the media coverage or her Instagram posts.
“What does the world not know about me? I don’t know. I’m getting emotional [thinking about it],” she said. “I think that I’m someone who you have to be in front of to experience. It’s not hard. This isn’t a complaint. It’s more that in my job, you see a lot of snapshots.”
She wiped away her tears and added, “Apparently, I needed to say it. There are a lot of snapshots and really quick moments where, again, there’s not a lot of context given.” She expressed hope that her hosting gig for Netflix’s Next in Fashion would let people get to know her more deeply.
Khai, however, sees her completely. “She obviously sees me in every state and way, and whether she knows it or not, I’m going through and learning through life with her,” Hadid explained later. “I think that she has a really realistic kind of 24/7, around-the-clock view. We’re up chatting in the middle of the night if she’s up; we’re talking about, I don’t know, random stuff, but it’s fun. Having a daughter, although it shifted my life to make me really want to feel more settled, has also really made me appreciate the chaos as well. Being at shows and shoots and just being in the city again; being around friends [after] becoming a mom, with everyone also coming out of COVID—I have an appreciation for both sides of it.”
The coronavirus pandemic and her pregnancy greatly changed her priorities, Hadid said. “I got pregnant and I really started to think about what I wanted after, when the world opened back up,” she said. “It kept coming back to just a more stabilized schedule where I’m not in a different country every week. This is very stabilizing. I have an office that I come to. I know everyone here. I don’t have to look a certain way to show up. It’s a different experience for me, and it was the right time because I was ready for that.”
Hadid is in therapy, like her sister Bella Hadid, which has helped her cope with the fashion industry and life in the public eye. She also has a better sense of what line she wants to draw between her public and private life.
“I’ve had early experiences where you learn how the world reacts when you share things in certain ways. Sometimes you just leave something feeling like you were taken out of context. Or just feel like you revealed too much, and it was taken advantage of. Whatever those learning-the-hard-way experiences are, you grow a certain skin,” she said.
She accepts that her life will get press attention right now, and she has gotten better at coping with the scrutiny and criticism by “realizing that nothing really matters. Serena Williams once told me, ‘Nothing stays in the press longer than three weeks.’ You can feel like your life is ending, [but] if it’s a mistake, then it will pass. I think it’s about not taking yourself that seriously and being like, ‘When I am on my deathbed, I’m not going to remember that one awkward interview from when I was 19.’”
You can read Hadid’s full interview here.
Senior News and Strategy Editor
Alyssa Bailey is the senior news and strategy editor at ELLE.com, where she oversees coverage of celebrities and royals (particularly Meghan Markle and Kate Middleton). She previously held positions at InStyle and Cosmopolitan. When she’s not working, she loves running around Central Park, making people take #ootd pics of her, and exploring New York City.