bitchy | Bella Hadid: ‘I think nobody really understands chronic illness’

Bella Hadid covers the latest issue of British Vogue, to promote various projects and side-gigs. She’s not just a model, she’s a perfumer and actress and a cowboy’s girlfriend. She moved to Texas a few years ago and she’s still using Texas as her base and the place where she can be herself. Her boyfriend is Adan Banuelos, and apparently he had no idea who Bella was when they first met. She sounds deeply in love. She also sounds especially scattered in this Vogue interview, like she barely has any time off and like she’s someone who really needs her decompression time. Some highlights:

She’s been exhausted: “I went to Rome and then I went to YSL and then I went to Venice to shoot [The Beauty], then I went back home. I showed my horses, which is still a 4am start. It’s funny because even my agent, Joseph, thinks I have time off. Little does he know the scheduling is still full on. And my boyfriend is a horse trainer, so his schedule is out of control. He is riding 60 horses a day.”

She has Lyme disease, depression, anxiety, ADHD, endometriosis, PMDD, PCOS and other ailments: “There are days that I felt down on myself for being so sensitive. For apologising so much, or saying thank you so much, or whatever the things are that sometimes people make fun of me for where I’m overcompensating. I think nobody really understands chronic illness. Everything feels… It’s hard to take a shower most days, which I promise guys, if you’re reading this, I shower every day. But sometimes, if I have one day off, if I can get in the shower and make myself breakfast, I see that as an accomplishment. Our interview today was at 3pm. I was in excruciating pain until 11am and had a very tough morning. Can you make this all sound a little bit prettier and less dramatic?”

Why she moved to Texas: “My mom was already building a house with my stepdad in Texas. They were like: ‘OK, we’re not going to leave you by yourself.’ At the time I was a 26-year-old living with her mom on our farm that I also pay for, feeling a full tiny baby child. They were basically like: ‘Just come. You can ride, sleep, tap out. You just can’t be alone.’ So I go. I’m with my stepdad. We move cows, we’re on trail rides, and I’m starting to feel a little better, but just still dealing with my own stuff. Then, the next day, I meet my boyfriend. I saw him walk in and it was like a gust of fresh air,” she says. The pair had ended up at a horse show in the local town. “So he basically came in, walked into the exhibit hall, which is where we do all of the show stuff. I was getting a cowboy hat fitted. I just saw him and I was like that’s the…I always wanted the cowboy. And he’s pretty gorgeous, let me tell you something.”

More on her boyfriend: Adan Banuelos, unaware of her fame, would later tell her: “I never knew who you were until I saw your face for the first time.” “For me, that was such a breath of fresh air,” says Hadid. She’s so proud of him. “He’s the youngest Mexican cowboy to ever be inducted into the Hall of Fame.” But it’s the everyday stuff she really adores. “He works for his family, he works for his customers and he works to hopefully build a home and a family one day.”

She can’t wait to start a family: “Family is on my mind. I can’t wait to be a mom. I think that I’m somebody for a lot of people, but in the real intimate way of being the person that somebody can count on consistently, that will change my life for me. And I cannot wait. I never grew up being like, ‘Oh, I have this vision of marriage.’ I have this vision of being a mother. But it’s got to a point where I’m like: ‘You know what? That’s something that’s for me.’ I think that would make me truly happy.”

Modeling & working while on her period: “I didn’t get that whole fluid thing going through. I was like 17, 18 years old not knowing or loving myself a hundred per cent yet. I had just moved out of my parents’ house and gone straight into a world where you have to stare in the mirror every single day. And we get our periods. You’re shooting Victoria’s Secret on your period, with endo. That should be illegal. I’m going to talk to the White House about it, because we should literally ban women working on the week of their period. And the week before, to be honest.”

Her relationship with the woman in the mirror: “I hate the bitch,” she whispers softly. You hate that bitch? “Well…There was this picture of me a couple years ago. I had just got my eyebrows bleached and I was wearing a white tank top and these little blue, I think Juicy, sweats and, well, it was just a bad picture. But little do people know I had just gotten treatment and I was pale in the face, no make-up on, not thinking there were any paps, still smiling and still happy. But the fact that people can comment on something like that: ‘Oh, she is on drugs, she’s getting this done, she’s on whatever…’ I’m like: ‘Can’t you look at that girl and just think, “Wow, she actually looks sick?”’ Because I look at that picture now and I feel so sorry for myself.”

[From British Vogue]

The thing about wanting to go to the White House and advocate for women not working while they’re menstruating is WILD!! I know there’s this whole trad-wife-adjacent “I’m just a girl” movement, which is dangerous enough in a period of time when women’s hard-earned rights are all being stripped away. But to actually say that you would advocate for women not having to work on their periods?? That’s playing into every stereotype about why women can’t be leaders, managers, presidents, everything. As for the rest of it… yeah, society just doesn’t know what to do or say about people in chronic pain, especially when the pain comes from “invisible” injuries or illnesses. Poor Bella.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, cover courtesy of British Vogue.