Supermodel Bella Hadid has said she regrets having a nose job when she was 14 and spoken of her struggles with mental health issues in a candid new interview.
The star confirmed she had the surgery as a teenager to US Vogue, following years of speculation about her appearance.
Hadid also discussed what it was like growing up being known as “the uglier sister” compared with older sibling Gigi Hadid, also a supermodel.
Speaking about her nose job, the model, now 25, told the fashion magazine she wishes she had not had the procedure, and denied having any other cosmetic work.
“I wish I had kept the nose of my ancestors,” she said. “I think I would have grown into it.”
Hadid’s comments have led to the interview going viral online, with many questioning how the star was able to undergo the surgery at such a young age.
Addressing rumours of other work and how photographs of herself as a young girl are often compared online with later pictures, the model said: “I’m pretty sure you don’t look the same now as you did at 13, right?
“I have never used filler. Let’s just put an end to that. I have no issue with it, but it’s not for me. Whoever thinks I’ve gotten my eyes lifted or whatever it’s called – it’s face tape! The oldest trick in the book.”
Hadid said she suffered from “imposter syndrome” and added: “People always have something to say, but what I have to say is, I’ve always been misunderstood in my industry and by the people around me.”
‘I was the uglier sister’
Later in the interview, she said: “When you are forced to be perfect every day, in every picture, you start to look at yourself and need to see perfection at all times, and it’s just not possible.”
Bella (right) and her sister Gigi on the catwalk together in 2020
Speaking about comparisons with her 26-year-old sister, Hadid said: “I was the uglier sister. I was the brunette. I wasn’t as cool as Gigi, not as outgoing.
“That’s really what people said about me. And unfortunately when you get told things so many times, you do just believe it.”
She said she often asked herself how “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?”
Hadid said she “became a good actress” and “always felt like I had something to prove”.
‘For so long, I didn’t know what I was crying about’
Hadid said she now makes a conscious effort to protect her mental health after years of believing she “didn’t have the right to complain” or have therapy because of her privileged upbringing and celebrity lifestyle.
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“For so long, I didn’t know what I was crying about,” she said. “I always felt so lucky, and that would get me even more down on myself.
“There were people online saying ‘you live this amazing life’. So then how can I complain?
“I always felt that I didn’t have the right to complain, which meant that I didn’t have the right to get help, which was my first problem.”