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Bella Hadid credits Rihanna for helping her feel sexy on the runway.
Over the years, the 23-year-old has become a force in the fashion world, modeling for top designers and headlining major campaigns. And even though Hadid has walked the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show runway in lingerie on three separate occasions, it was Rihanna’s Savage x Fenty Show that really made her feel “powerful.”
“Rihanna’s amazing. For me, that was the first time on a runway that I felt really sexy,” Hadid said Friday at the Vogue Fashion Festival in Paris, via WWD. “Because when I first did Fenty, I was doing other lingerie shows and I never felt powerful on a runway, like, in my underwear.”
“I like being another character. I think at this point I don’t necessarily love being myself sometimes,” Hadid, who was dressed in a golden lingerie ensemble for the show, also shared Friday. “Sometimes on the runway you get either nervous or you forget how your legs move.”
Hadid also opened up about mental health and struggling with depression amid her busy career.
“For a while I just didn’t want to talk about it, and I’ve gone through a lot in the past few years with my health,” Hadid said. “I feel guilty for being able to live this incredible life, have the opportunities that I do, but somehow still be depressed. It doesn’t make sense.”
“I would cry every single morning, I would cry during my lunch breaks, I would cry before I slept. I was very emotionally unstable for a while when I was working 14-hour days for four months straight as an 18-year-old,” Hadid shared. “I think I just wanted to breathe a little bit. And so it kind of put me in a spiral.”
As for why she’s so open about her health battles, Hadid explained that she wants to help others who are struggling.
“I just hope I can help in any way I can. I feel like I would be doing a disservice to myself if I didn’t speak about something such as mental health, because that’s pretty much what I’ve been going through for the past five years very intensely,” she shared. “Now we’re here and we’re good, but it took a while,”
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