Model Bella Hadid opens up about harbouring insecurities, her nose job and being the 'uglier sister'

Model Bella Hadid has become a generational icon in her own right. While many of us recognise her for her trailblazing street style, iconic modelling stints and for being an outspoken ally for the Palestinian cause (Bella is half Palestinian), we aren't all that familiar with the model's more vulnerable side — a facet of herself that Bella opened up about in a recent interview.

Talking to Vogue for an interview published on March 15, Bella shared her awareness of what people thought of her since an early age. “I was the uglier sister. I was the brunette. I wasn’t as cool as Gigi, not as outgoing,” she shared. “That’s really what people said about me. And unfortunately when you get told things so many times, you do just believe it."

Bella began to suffer from an array of mental health issues in high school on top of battling Lyme disease, a disease her older sister Gigi, younger brother Anwar Hadid and mother Yolanda Hadid suffer from as well. The model recounted experiencing brain fog, anxiety, exhaustion, crying spells and bone pain amongst other issues — some of which might have resulted from the Lyme disease.

For Bella, given her underlying mental health issues, the decision to enter modelling came as a surprise to herself. "I always ask myself, how did a girl with incredible insecurities, anxiety, depression, body-image issues, eating issues, who hates to be touched, who has intense social anxiety — what was I doing getting into this business? she said. "But over the years I became a good actress. I put on a very smiley face, or a very strong face. I always felt like I had something to prove. People can say anything about how I look, about how I talk, about how I act. But in seven years I never missed a job, cancelled a job, was late to a job. No one can ever say that I don’t work my a** off.”

Bella also spoke about getting a nose job at 14, a decision that she's come to regret. “I wish I had kept the nose of my ancestors,” she said. “I think I would have grown into it." The model faced accusations of getting various other plastic surgeries and fillers as well. “People think I fully f****d with my face because of one picture of me as a teenager looking puffy," she said. "I’m pretty sure you don’t look the same now as you did at 13, right? I have never used filler. Let’s just put an end to that. I have no issue with it, but it’s not for me," she said.

"Whoever thinks I’ve gotten my eyes lifted or whatever it’s called — it’s face tape! The oldest trick in the book. I’ve had this impostor syndrome where people made me feel like I didn’t deserve any of this. People always have something to say, but what I have to say is, I’ve always been misunderstood in my industry and by the people around me.”