‘I’m a girl who rushed into being a woman’
She’s the millionaire face of Dior Makeup, but supermodel Bella Hadid tells Celia Walden that she just wants to be a teenager again
‘It worries me sometimes, that you can look at my Instagram and know about my whole life’
‘OK, this is crazy,” murmurs Bella Hadid. “Have you seen the size of that lens?” The 20year-old supermodel and I are standing at the entrance of the Dior: The Art of Colour exhibition at the Photographic Festival in Arles when the mayhem begins.
All it took was a gaggle of French teenagers – “C’est Bella Hadid!” – to turn this narrow Provençal backstreet into a safety hazard. Within seconds, iphone-wielding girls are clambering on one another’s backs, desperate to get a picture of their Instagram idol, and the paparazzi have appeared en masse, taking aim with their foot-long
lenses. “What do they need those for?” she whispers. “To get a close-up of my eyeball?”
Hadid’s eyeball is hot property right now. People would share it, like it and follow it, just as they share, like and follow everything about Californian supermodel sisters, Bella and Gigi. The daughters of Palestinian-american property mogul Mohamed Hadid and The
Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star Yolanda Hadid have a whopping 49million Instagram followers between them.
Bella, the younger Hadid, stepped out of her 21-year-old sister’s shadow last year, when she became the face of Dior Makeup. And last month she monopolised Paris Haute Couture coverage when she walked the catwalk for the likes of Fendi and Maison Margiela – in whose show she wore a sadomasochistic metal brace over her mouth. “I literally couldn’t speak at all,” Hadid laughs, when we sit down together before the exhibition.
She has flown in from Paris. “So I’m afraid I’m a bit of a zombie,” she apologises, tugging at her tiny white crop top that keeps riding up. Needless to say, she is beautiful, utterly professional – and shy, which I wasn’t expecting. What with all the hotel bedroom and backstage social media photos, I assumed Hadid would be an open book.
“Sometimes it worries me that you look at my Instagram and know about my whole life,” she muses, when I tell her this. “Of course, that’s a blessing and I want to be personal with people, but I sometimes think, ‘wow, that’s the whole world I’m sharing these things with’.”
Alongside close friends and fellow models Kendall Jenner and Winnie Harlow, Hadid is a fantasy figure with a fantasy life – one that girls and women pore over. But there’s also a sobriety to her online persona that sets her apart. The supermodel has never been tinged by scandal, and there’s an old-school demureness to her behaviour that means she doesn’t join the rest of her “squad” by the pool when we arrive at the hotel, ducking off instead to spend some quiet time with creative director of Dior Makeup, Peter Philips.
One gets the feeling that both Gigi and Bella (or “Sugar” and “Spice” as their mother calls them) have had the importance of professionalism instilled in them from the moment of their first Baby Gap campaigns. But Hadid used to get nervous in public.
“When I was 17, I was put in situations where I had to talk to 100 adults and wouldn’t know what to say. But over the past year-and-a-half, I’ve really found my voice.” Was it a confidence issue? “Not so much confidence as feeling more comfortable speaking to people, because ever since I was a child all I’ve really done is ridden horses. The only people I grew up talking to were my horses and my mum.”
Two years ago, Hadid still had her heart set on becoming a professional
equestrian and was training for the 2016 Olympics when her ambitions were shattered by the discovery that she had Lyme disease, along with her mother and 17-year-old brother, Anwar – also a model.
Doctors were unable to pinpoint how the family had contracted the illness (her mother believes it may have been down to the decade they spent living on a Santa Barbara ranch) but the symptoms – chronic fatigue and joint stiffness – were so debilitating that Hadid had to be homeschooled and has said she “felt like a grandma”.
Today, although she is on daily medication, she still tires easily. Her work ethic, however, has only got stronger. “I genuinely try that much harder because I feel it’s important to be a role model,” she goes on. “But my fans have known me for a long time, so they’ve watched me grow into the girl I am now.”
I am amused to hear her use the word girl. After all, she is a businesswoman and an influencer capable of spawning trends off the back of a single image. “Well I’m still only 20,” she smiles. “And I feel like I’ve rushed into becoming a woman, so now I just want to be a teenager again.” A teenager with a luxury Manhattan apartment and an estimated net worth of $3million (£2.3million). “To be completely financially independent by the time I turned 19 was amazing,” she says, “The most rewarding part is being able to help my mum and family. Modelling is just a job, but it’s a great job.”
I tell Hadid that when I interviewed Cindy Crawford – whom she grew up idolising – she admitted to feeling envious of the younger crop “because models can have their own voices and talk to fans directly, so there are more pathways available to them”. Does she see herself modelling, like Crawford, until the age of 50? “I’d like to carry on for a while but then I’d like to use my platform to become more; to find something that’s more fulfilling for the soul. In the next 10 years, I’d love a project to work on with my mum, start acting – and have more of a voice in the world.”
One idea Hadid is considering is her own Goop-style lifestyle website. “I’d love to create something like that. I’ve always been very strict with myself about exercise, and my mum taught me and Gigi how important it was to have a healthy lifestyle.” Yolanda may have passed down her advice, but it is Philips who has taught Bella how to capitalise on her look. “It is important for me to keep Bella as she is,” he explains, “we don’t want to transform her into a doll. She’s a vibrant, beautiful girl who expresses what modern beauty stands for.”
Says Hadid: “I can’t believe that I used to walk down the red carpet with absolutely no make-up on, and always wore my hair in a bun, because it was the only style I knew how to do. Peter changed all that. I’m one of those girls who loves to share tips with other women, so a wellness empire would be a great idea.”
Should she go on modelling, it is likely that Hadid’s career would last longer than most. She’s got “an old soul” she assures me – and feels strongly that companies should use models of various ages (Natalie Portman and Charlize Theron are also faces of Dior).
“It’s so important that cosmetics brands have that message of female empowerment,” she explains. “When you walk into Paris airport there’s a huge ad with Charlize. I must have seen it 300 times but I’ll still stand there and be late for my flight because it gives me the chills. These are some of the strongest women in the movie industry – some are Oscar-winning.” She looks over at her agent faux accusingly: “Why haven’t I won my Oscar yet?”
Is that something she aspires to? “Oh yes,” she replies quickly. “I need to start taking acting classes and figure out a way to memorise things better, because I have a really bad brain. But yes,” she smiles, “the Oscar: one day…”
‘The only people I grew up talking to were my horses and my mum’