Kaia Gerber: "Label me whatever you want, I don't make the same mistake twice"
Kaia Gerber opens up about the heavy price she paid to avoid burdening her parents while her brother battled addiction. The model also shares her personal struggle with eating disorders and addresses the public criticism regarding her dating life.
Model and actress Kaia Gerber (24), daughter of supermodel Cindy Crawford and Rande Gerber, posed for a cover interview for Vogue magazine with her older brother Presley (27), deciding to open up about the realities behind the scenes of one of the world's most famous families.
"There is a limit to how much you can hide from the world," Kaia said regarding her brother’s struggle with severe drug addiction. At the same time, she addressed her own demons, revealing her past battles with eating disorders. "People say, 'You look terrible,' and that doesn't really help you overcome a mental illness. Negativity has never saved anyone's life."
While her famous parents chose to maintain a strict silence about their private life, Kaia expressed pride in her brother’s choice to face his demons in front of the cameras. According to her, attempting to hide the situation only made her brother feel that the family was ashamed of him.
As her brother required special attention due to his medical and mental condition, the young model chose to stay in the shadows and suppress her own needs to avoid adding to her parents' burden. "When something like that happens in a family, it kind of resets everyone. I started identifying as the 'easy' child and never wanted to ask for help, because it felt like too much to have two children who need support."
The star also discussed the constant comparisons to her mother, one of the most iconic models of the 90s. "We are clearly in a period where people are very thin," Kaia noted. "As someone who has been thin most of her life, I was always compared to my mom—'What's wrong with Kaia?' I am so jealous of my mom's body; I would have been happy to be born with more curves."
Regarding the "nepo baby" discourse, the model admitted that she benefited from her background, but added: "I also find myself doing it to other nepo babies, thinking, 'Okay, show me why you deserve this job.'"
Her love life has also been a target for criticism. Now in a stable relationship with actor Louis Pullman, she admitted that the labels she faced in her youth were hurtful:
"There are so few things you get to protect as a famous person, and being defined by who you date when you are 18 is something I find challenging. I think I've been labeled in ways that are quite misogynistic: serial dater, slut, greedy. My mom always says, 'Just don't make the same mistake twice.' And I'm pretty good at not doing that."
