RAISING SUPERMODELS
Yolanda Hadid on life with daughters Bella and Gigi.
The Hadid family is known for glamorous Instagram posts and a jetset lifestyle, but the moments that really matter to matriarch Yolanda Hadid and her children are more low-key. “We have a Christmas Eve tradition where we build a village of gingerbread houses together,” says Yolanda, 54, of her model daughters, Gigi, 22, and Bella, 21, and son Anwar, 18, also a rising model. “That moment every year is a good breather. I look over at them and think, ‘They’re still my babies!’ ”
Highly successful ones, at that. Yolanda’s girls have both landed campaigns for designers from Versace to Dior; Anwar is the new face of Hugo Boss. Together they have nearly 70 million followers on social media. But Yolanda is focused on keeping them grounded despite their fame. The former star of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, whose new show, Making a Model with Yolanda Hadid (starting Feb. 11 on streaming service Hayu), is about aspiring models and their pursuit of stardom, was hesitant about her children entering the industry, making them wait until age 18 to begin working full-time. “I remember Gigi telling me at 16, ‘It’s not fair!’ ” Yolanda recalls. “Now she tells me thank you for giving her those extra years to grow up, be in flip-flops and play basketball.”
Born and raised in Holland before going to the US to pursue her own modelling career, Yolanda raised her kids on a farm in Santa Barbara, California, after her divorce from multimillionaire real-estate developer Mohamed Hadid in 2000. Though her kids were privileged, she taught them responsibility. ( Yes, they had horses, but they had to clean up after them, too.) When the girls began modelling, Yolanda warned them against diva behaviour. “I’ve told them, ‘There are a million girls out there who are as beautiful as you are and deserve success as much as you do,’ ” she says. “You have to be the hardestworking—and respectful. Because looks come and go.” Finally in remission after a seven-year battle with Lyme disease (Bella and Anwar also have the disease but are doing “OK,” Mum says), Yolanda adds that she has new perspective on life: “Having your health is everything. I still pinch myself every morning.” She has begun dating again following her 2015 split from music mogul husband David Foster, and is “very much in love” with a new man she declines to name. Now she says she is looking forward to the future. “I feel like I’ve hit the sweet spot in my life,” says Yolanda. “Everything is falling into place.”
“I look over at them and think, ‘They’re still my babies!’ ”