LARA AT 30
In the shadow of Christian Dior’s beautiful Château de la Colle Noire, the model-turned-mogul reflects on her coming of age and why she stepped out of the spotlight.
Model, mogul, mother and wife: Lara Worthington has crammed a lot into her 30 years. As she lies in the languid shadows of Christian Dior’s Château de la Colle Noire, she reflects on her milestone birthday, in her own words
“YOU NEED TO live how you want to live AND DO WHAT YOU WANT TO DO. IF YOU’RE NOT HAPPY, just change it”
I spent my recent 30th birthday at the Blue Lagoon in Iceland. It was a surprise trip – Sam [Worthington, Lara’s husband] had arranged for my mum to look after the kids. I’ve wanted to do the spa experience there for a long time so it was super sweet of him. From there we did four cities in four days, going to four concerts. We flew to Ireland and saw Radiohead, to Brussels the next morning for Coldplay, and then to London where he took me to Royal Ascot – because he knows I like getting dressed up – and Ed Sheeran that night. The last concert was U2 in Toronto. At the end of each day I would get a T-shirt revealing the band I was seeing the next night. It was crazy but so much fun. It took him six months to organise. No-one’s ever done anything that extreme for me.
Big, milestone birthdays like that make you look back and think about where you are and what you’ve done. I’m so proud to have had two sons [Rocket and Racer] before I turned 30 – that’s definitely the highlight so far. I always knew I wanted children, but I’m not really big on planning. I tend to just go with the flow and I think that comes back to my roots, growing up by the beach. My dad was a surfer and a landscaper; he worked outdoors for a living and I was always surrounded by that kind of carefree lifestyle. He and my mum really drummed into me that you need to just live how you want to live and do what you want to do and don’t worry about anything. If you’re not happy, just change it.
I was super-close to my dad. When he passed away, I was at a place in my life that I didn’t know how to get out of. But it brought me and my mum closer together. As much as he was my dad, he was her husband;
“MOTHERHOOD shifts your way of thinking... HAVING CHILDREN IS THE ANTIDOTE TO SELFISHNESS”
I can’t imagine being in her shoes. But she’s so strong and that strength is something I feel she’s passed on to me. It has helped me through life. I was thrust into the public eye so young and it was a different world back then – social media was only just beginning so it was print, TV and radio. Now if something happens, it usually passes pretty quickly and people forget. Over the past few years I’ve realised that I find more comfort in keeping quiet, and as much as sometimes I would love to respond to things, in the end my theory is that it’s never really worth it. The only people who matter are around me and they see me every day, they know the truth. My family doesn’t read any of this stuff, so who would I even be saying it for?
Being portrayed in a different way to what I knew the truth to be was always a challenge for me. I’d read something and it was like I was reading about someone else; it was a creation of a person, not the real me. I think for a long time I’d overcompensate by trying to control it but mostly it made things appear worse. I don’t blame anyone else, but I was young and naive in the sense that I was always taking on other people’s opinions. Back then I didn’t know how to push forward and follow my own path – I sought guidance and hoped that I was being led in the right direction. I had my mum, but when your mum gives you advice, you’re not necessarily going to take it all the time.
Meeting Sam is when things really changed for me. Until then, I never really trusted anyone entirely. When I was younger, I think maybe I’d try to impress a person by adapting to their ways, but with Sam, from the get-go, I was just myself. I wasn’t trying to be anyone else and I think that’s the basis for a strong relationship. Sam is present. I always feel like I’m the priority, our family comes first and our marriage is the most important thing to him – he always says that our work is secondary. These days it’s hard to be there sometimes – between phones and work and everyone wanting things immediately. It’s nice to just slow things down. Sam’s different in that he doesn’t use social media, it’s just not where he spends his time. If he’s on the internet, he’s not looking at other people’s lives. It’s refreshing. When I first met him, I was nervous and I’d be like, “Don’t read anything, you might get pulled away,” because there was a lot of crap. And he was like, “I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”
As much as I flourished after meeting Sam, it was having Rocket and being a firsttime mum that made me realise there’s a bigger world out there than just Lara. It wasn’t just about me anymore, there are three other people with me now. When I’m making decisions and choices, it’s always about what’s best for them. Motherhood shifts your way of thinking – there’s this big, universal understanding, like you are part of something bigger. Having children is the antidote to selfishness. I have help from the grandmas – my mum flies over quite a bit – but I very much wanted to figure it out on my own. There are definitely days, though, when Sam’s working and I’m there by myself with the two of them and it’s challenging. I’ve always wanted to have a big family and I’m only 30 but, I don’t know, to do that all over again, those sleepless nights...
I have a handful of really close girlfriends, people who have been around for a long while.