The Bite Magazine - Summer 2019 - Issue 25

bite model profile more famous. I was 100 percent independent by the time I was 18, and I paid for my own apartment. That wasn’t because of my parents. I worked my ass off for two years,” she told Instyle Magazine’s Sarah Cristobal in a candid interview, titled ‘Qué Bella’. Bella works her gorgeous butt off and always has. More noteworthy is her work ethic, something her par- ents instilled in her early on. Even though she’s from an affluent family, Hadid got her first job manning the counter of SunLife Organics, a Malibu juice bar, when she was 14 — it was her earliest lesson in earning her own money. Yolanda kept a close eye on her daughter’s spending and didn’t allow her to buy designer clothes like some of her SoCal (Southern California) contem- poraries. “My mom was like, ‘Hell no, you’re not doing that,’” says Hadid. “You are going to go to school and the barn, and if you want a custom pair of riding boots, then you can have that. But you don’t need 10 pairs of high heels because you don’t even wear high heels. ” This strict work ethic has not gone unnoticed for she was nominated and won Models.com’s Industry Award for Break Out Star: Women (Reader’s Choice) in 2015, Second Annual Fashion Los Angeles Awards for Model of the Year 2015, GQ’s Men of the Year Awards Model of the Year 2015, and then again won Models.com’s In- dustry Award for Model of the Year, Women (Industry’s Choice) in 2016. Earning these accolades so early on in her career may make some apprehensive as to “how do I keep this going?” but Bella didn’t seem worried. Be- tween her and her equally famous model sister, Gigi, they have nearly 75 million followers! That’s insane! However, with that amount of fame certainly comes cra- zy amounts of gossip and media attention. In 2014, Bel- la was arrested for drinking while driving and charged with a DUI. She was sentenced to six months of proba- tion, 25 hours of community service, had to attend 20 hours of Alcoholics Anonymous and had her driver’s license suspended for a year. Since this incident, Bella has stated she’s become more low-key as far as partying goes and would rather be 100% for work. She’s also been linked to the odd and very misleading Frye Festival disaster along with a number of other ce- lebrities and models. She, however, was the only one to issue an apology for its deceptive ads. Since then, she has also been connected to a number of famous boy- friends and flings, but so far has kept her career, family, and friends as the most important things in her life, and with best friends like Kendal Jenner, who wouldn’t? Bella Hadid, in short, has had had a career that, much like a horse race, shot out of the gate and has not stopped galloping towards superstardom! So much so that it does beg the question of what must it be like to wake up and know, ha, “I’m Bella Hadid, and I rock?”