Bella Hadid was supposed to be a rider, not a runway model. Raised on a ranch in Santa Barbara, she spent her teens in the saddle dreaming about the 2016 Olympics — a dream complicated by the fine print (her discipline, equitation, isn't an Olympic event) and then derailed entirely when she was diagnosed with chronic Lyme disease in 2012, the same year as her mother and brother. Fashion was the second plan that became the whole plan.
The Other Hadid
Born on October 9, 1996, in Washington, D.C., to Palestinian-American developer Mohamed Hadid and Dutch former model Yolanda Hadid, she grew up as the younger, darker-haired counterpoint to her sister Gigi — and started later, enrolling at Parsons to study photography before modeling swallowed the schedule. She signed with IMG Models on August 21, 2014, made her New York Fashion Week debut that September, and walked her first major runway for Tom Ford in February 2015. The first full year was a sprint through every fashion capital — Marc Jacobs and a Jeremy Scott closing in New York, Topshop Unique in London, Moschino, Missoni and Bottega Veneta in Milan, Balmain in Paris — and by December she had her Chanel debut at Métiers d'Art in Rome. Thirteen months from signing to Chanel.
The Breakthrough Seasons
2016 was the year the industry stopped saying "Gigi's sister." Hadid walked exclusively for Givenchy, Chanel and Miu Miu in Paris, made her couture debut for Chanel, closed Fendi's haute couture show in Rome, and on May 31 became an ambassador for Dior Makeup — the contract that anchored her beauty career and later her own web series, "Dior Makeup with Bella Hadid." That same year she walked Fenty x Puma for Rihanna, starred in Marc Jacobs' "My America" campaign, opened DKNY's Spring 2017 show and took the exclusive opening of Versus in London. On November 30, 2016, she made her Victoria's Secret Fashion Show debut; she would walk it three times. The seasons that followed were sheer volume: Off-White openings in Paris, Versace and Fendi in Milan, Oscar de la Renta and Tom Ford in New York, and a 90th-anniversary CR Runway show alongside Irina Shayk. At her peak she was, by the industry's unofficial arithmetic, the hardest-working show model of her generation — with the Vogue covers (Korea, Japan, México, Greece, Hong Kong, España, British Vogue with Gigi) stacking up in parallel.
The Work Beyond the Runway
Her most durable contract is beauty: ambassador for Dior Makeup since May 2016, complete with her own tutorial series, "Dior Makeup with Bella Hadid." The campaign résumé around it reads like a casting director's wish list — Calvin Klein's Fall 2017 campaign alongside Frank Ocean and Kate Moss, Givenchy's fall campaigns, Marc Jacobs' "My America," Fenty x Puma for Rihanna's debut, J.W. Anderson and Topshop Denim. Even her side projects loop back to craft: in 2017 she photographed her best friend's family, the Starks, for W magazine — the Parsons photography student resurfacing behind the camera.
The Break, and the Return on Her Terms
In early 2023, at the very top, she stopped. Hadid stepped away from modeling, later moving to Fort Worth, Texas — cowboy country, back near the horses where everything started. The comeback was gradual and pointed: Saint Laurent and Victoria's Secret appearances in fall 2024, then an official return in February 2025, closing the Saint Laurent autumn show. The same period brought heavier private news: the family's longtime Santa Barbara-area childhood home was destroyed in the January 2025 Southern California wildfires, and that May she and Gigi publicly welcomed a previously unknown younger half-sister, Aydan Nix, into the family. At the 2025 Cannes Film Festival she made headlines for elegantly defying the festival's new "no naked dress" rule in a high-slit Saint Laurent gown, and by June she was on the cover of British Vogue.
Founder Mode
Her business interests run unusually close to her biography. In 2021 she became co-founder of Kin Euphorics, a nonalcoholic adaptogenic drinks brand — a pointed choice for someone open about her mental health. In 2024 she launched Orebella, her own fragrance company, and back in 2017 she released a clothing line with Chrome Hearts, the family brand of her closest friend, Jesse Jo Stark. She has also acted, debuting with a guest role in season three of "Ramy."
Honesty as a Brand
Hadid's most quoted interview is Vogue's April 2022 cover story, where she admitted to a nose job at fourteen and delivered the line that followed her since: "I wish I had kept the nose of my ancestors. I think I would have grown into it." In the same conversation she shut down years of speculation — "I have never used filler. Let's just put an end to that" — and described her spirituality simply: "It's not about my god or your god. I kind of just call on whoever is willing to be there for me." She has been equally public about living with chronic Lyme disease and ADHD, and about the cost of speaking on Palestinian issues — after condemning Hamas' October 2023 attacks, she and Gigi donated $1 million to Palestinian aid agencies amid the war that followed, and she has described receiving daily death threats over her advocacy. "I can not be silenced any longer," she wrote. "Fear is not an option."
Private Life
Hadid dated the Weeknd on and off from 2015 to 2019 and starred in his "In the Night" video; a relationship with art director Marc Kalman followed from 2020 to 2023. Since October 2023 she has been with champion equestrian Adan Banuelos — the couple briefly separated in early 2026 before reconciling — and the pairing closed a circle: the rider who became a model, back with the horses.
Where She Is Now
As of mid-2026, Hadid splits her time between Texas and the fashion calendar on her own terms: Orebella, selective runway returns for Saint Laurent, and a public profile that has outgrown the "Gigi's sister" tag she started with — arguably the rare supermodel whose second act looks more deliberate than the first.