I learned all religions as a kid: Gigi Hadid

Supermodel to raise Khai with an open mind

Gigi Hadid is all about harmonising the professional and personal, as the new mother unveiled in her first solo Vogue cover, while her little one, baby girl Khai, was rocking in her Nemo bouncer. "I am emotional and honoured to take my first professional step, in this new chapter of womanhood, with this dream come true!" began the model in a detailed caption, venerating life in general and motherhood.

On giving birth:

Hadid, in the interview, opened up about giving birth. The 24-year-old’s daughter with Zayn Malik was born in September 2020. “What I really wanted from my experience was to feel like, 'Okay, this is a natural thing that women are meant to do',” she said of the home birth experience. She and Malik decided not to go to a public hospital in crammed New York City, keeping Covid-19 in mind, and instead, had Khai at Hadid’s home in Pennsylvania. Her mother, sister and Malik were present throughout the 14-hour labour.

“I knew it was going to be the craziest pain in my life,” the supermodel recalled. "But you have to surrender to it and be like, ‘This is what it is'. I loved that. Afterwards, Z (Zayn) and I looked at each other and were like, 'We can have some time before we do that again!”

On motherhood and Khai

Khai, in Arabic means “the chosen one.” The baby has been kept away from the public eye. Hadid has no nanny; her mother and Malik help with care-giving duties.

“My dad’s Muslim and my mom grew up celebrating Christmas. I felt like I was allowed to learn about every religion when I was a kid. I think it’s good to take different pieces of different religions that you connect with and I think that’s how we’ll do that,” she said, asked how she is planning to raise Khai. “Zayn and I both want our daughter to understand fully all of her background and also, we want to prepare her. If someone does say something to her at school, we want to give her the tools to understand why other kids would do that and where that comes from,” Hadid added, referring to how how her brother was told “Your dad’s a terrorist” in elementary school after 9/11.

 

The former One Direction star has bought his daughter a retro pink VHS player and has purchased all the Disney cartoons as well as his favourite Bollywood films on cassette tapes to make her watch someday. Meanwhile, Hadid has decorated the nursery with a decorative macramé cloud mobile, a rattan changing basket and embroidered pillows.

Modelling and parenthood

About 10 weeks after giving birth, Hadid was called upon by Vogue. “I know that I’m not as small as I was before but I also am a very realistic thinker. I straight up was like, ‘Yeah, I’ll shoot a Vogue cover but I’m obviously not going to be a size 0.’ Nor do I, at this point, feel like I need to go back to that,” she confessed. “I also think it’s a blessing. This time, anyone who says that I have to be that can suck it.”

Returning to work has been slow but steady. “I’m veering toward things that feel more stable than being in a different country every week,” said the US-Palestinian beauty, who is already producing and directing her own media content from the comfort of her farm.

“I’m proud of her face on a magazine, but seeing her give birth was a whole other level of proud,” added mother Yolanda. “You go from looking at her as a daughter to looking at her as a fellow mother.”