Bella Hadid’s Nose Job At 14 Sparks Conversation Around Yolanda’s Praise Of Gigi Hadid’s Eurocentric Features

Bella Hadid has opened up about feeling regret over erasing her ancestral features, revealing that she had rhinoplasty surgery at the age of 14.

The now-25-year-old supermodel reflected on her insecurities in an extremely candid interview with US Vogue on Tuesday, marking the first time she’s publicly spoken about getting a nose job.

“I wish I had kept the nose of my ancestors,” she said, referring to her father Mohamed Hadid’s Palestinian descent. “I think I would have grown into it.” The interviewer noted that Bella was 14 when she had the surgery, and it’s a “decision she regrets.”

Bella went on to reveal that her insecurities stemmed from feeling like “the uglier sister” in comparison to Gigi Hadid, her elder sibling by a year, who’s also a world-famous runway model. The two have long faced side-by-side comparisons in spite of their distinctive appearances.

“I was the uglier sister. I was the brunette. I wasn’t as cool as Gigi, not as outgoing,” Bella said. “That’s really what people said about me. And unfortunately when you get told things so many times, you do just believe it.”

As soon as the interview was published, Bella’s comments garnered widespread sympathy from concerned fans, who noted that she’d felt pressured to conform to “Eurocentric beauty standards” at such a young age.

Another user noted that Bella’s nose before surgery was strikingly similar to that of her grandfather’s, according to a photo shared by the model of him as a child in Palestine.

On the whole, fans seemed empathetic about Bella seemingly erasing a representative feature of her Arab side with the hopes of adhering to a Eurocentric definition of beauty — something that, unfortunately, isn’t uncommon in the experience of ethnic people.

But as the conversation evolved online, several users went on to question the influence of Bella and Gigi’s mom, Yolanda Hadid.

If you didn’t know, Yolanda is a reality star and former renowned supermodel of Dutch descent, who was discovered by Eileen Ford of Ford Models as a teenager. She was married to Bella and Gigi’s dad, Mohamed, from 1994 to 2000.

Yolanda has notoriously spent years obsessing over her daughters’ body image, with her fixation on virtually everything — from what they ate to how they dressed to what sports they played — documented across three seasons of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.

And Yolanda has long been accused of perpetuating Eurocentric beauty standards, by consistently glorifying Gigi’s blonde hair and blue eyes, while often describing her as an “all-American girl.”

During an episode of real housewives that aired in Season 5, the matriarch discussed the sisters’ distinctly different looks, referring to them as “the black swan and the white swan.”

“They are the black swan and the white swan, and obviously, as sisters that close in age there’s always going to be competition, but Bella’s going to do it her way,” Yolanda said, while discussing Bella’s first steps into modeling.

Touching on the “competitive business” of the industry, she said: “When somebody’s looking for a brunette with blue eyes, Gigi’s not gonna get the job. If they are looking for an all American girl, they’re not going to hire Bella.”

She echoed this sentiment in an interview with W Magazine published four years later, during which she said that the sisters are “so different,” while once again describing Gigi as “the all-American,” and referring to Bella as “darker and exotic.” .”

Yolanda said: “In Gigi and Bella’s case, they’re so different, especially with their looks. In the industry, if someone’s looking for, you know, the all-American, blonde, blue eyes, they’re not gonna book Bella, and if they’re looking for someone darker and exotic, they’re not gonna book Gigi. ”

And over the course of RHOBHfans have called Yolanda out for seemingly favoring Gigi’s features over Bella’s, with a huge part of the show depicting how she has long encouraged Gigi to pursue a career as a model.

With all this in mind, fans were quick to point out that Bella’s insecurities could have been influenced by her mom’s obsession with the “all American” picture of beauty.

Many went on to highlight that it’s not uncommon for young adolescents especially to feel insecure about the way they look, with 14 being an incredibly vulnerable age.

Before long, Yolanda’s apparent dismissal of Bella’s Middle Eastern features reminded some fans of her past comments made about fearing that Gigi looked “Chinese” with a certain makeup look. Back in Season 3 of real housewifes, the matriarch told a beauty artist to “round Gig’s eyes a bit on the side,” because she felt that the current style “[made] her look Chinese.”

Elsewhere in the Vogue interview, Bella delved further into her insecurities, revealing that she dealt with anorexia and awful “body-image issues” in the past. Noting that she has a healthy relationship with food today, the model admitted she can still “barely look in the mirror” as a result.

“I always ask myself, how did a girl with incredible insecurities, anxiety, depression, body-image issues, eating issues, who hates to be touched, who has intense social anxiety — what was I doing getting into this business?” she said.

“But over the years I became a good actress. I put on a very smiley face, or a very strong face. I always felt like I had something to prove,” she added.

Bella went on, “I was on this calorie-counting app, which was like the devil to me. I’d pack my little lunch with my three raspberries, my celery stick. I was just trying, I realize now, to feel in control of myself when I felt so out of control of everything else.”

Once again, while fans tweeted in support of Bella, many brought Yolanda’s influence into question, given that she infamously monitored her daughters’ diets for years while consistently obsessing over their bodies.

In an old episode of real housewives, Yolanda shamed Gigi for eating a slice of cake at her own graduation party, reminding her that she needed to stay “on the skinny side.” In another, she advised her daughter to “have a couple of almonds” when she called her in a distressed state and said she felt “really weak.”