The model and her ex, Zayn Malik, share a 1-year-old daughter, Khai.
Gigi Hadid still can't believe she's a mom. The 26-year-old model covers InStyle's March issue, and, in the accompanying interview, discusses her wonder over having a 1-year-old daughter, Khai, who she shares with her ex, Zayn Malik.
"I still can't believe it. It's wild," Hadid tells the magazine of being a mom. "... You're obsessed with them, but sometimes you turn and you're like, 'Oh my god. Where did you come from?'"
As for what she loves about Khai, Hadid praises, "She's just so smart, and she's so aware. She watches everything, she's always learning, she's always looking. She's just awesome."
Hadid is looking forward to many special moments with her baby girl, and teaching her to ski tops the list. "I'm really excited to take Khai skiing one day, because I learned to ski when I was, like, two. We're getting close," she says.
While Hadid wonders if her daughter will take to skiing in the same way that she did, she doesn't have similar hopes in terms of Khai's future career path.
"She's going to do what she wants to do," Hadid says. "She could be an astronaut. I don't know."
Though Hadid modeled as a baby, she largely stayed out of the spotlight, an experience she's trying to replicate for her daughter. One notable exception for Hadid is that her mom, Yolanda Hadid, did star on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, though filming didn't begin until Hadid was a teenager.
"When people first started to get to know me, it was like, 'Oh, her mom was on [The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills]. That is her life.' But that wasn't my life or a part of my growing up," Hadid explains. "My mom wasn't on TV until I was a senior in high school, so I was just on my way out of the house."
Still, Hadid says, the RHOBH experience "was weird" for her.
"I would come home from school and there would be production trucks outside," she recalls. "I would scale the staircase to my room so I wouldn't have to go say hi to my mom in the kitchen... [I was] just like, 'I'm going to go do homework.'"
With her current life as busy as ever, Hadid admits, "I'm trying to learn still, being a mom and letting myself rest."
When things get overwhelming, Hadid says, "Usually I get crafty, do some water coloring or whatever. Sometimes I take a shower, or I cook. I love pesto pasta with chicken. That's just so comforting."
Hadid will also use TikTok in a surprising way when she needs a break.
"I do have a secret TikTok, which I don't post on, and I don't follow anyone I know on it," she says. "I'm a lurker, but it's for, like, mom videos and kids' lunch videos."
In addition to the kid-focused posts, Hadid says she uses her secret TikTok to watch a wide variety of videos.
"A lot of true crime storytelling, like murder, stalkers, that kind of stuff. Then there are these pool cleaners who go to these moldy pools and spray them down until they're glitzy glam and restore them," she says. "There's also a guy where his job is to go into people's homes who were hoarders, and he cleans the entire house and it is gnarly, like, rotting refrigerators. He goes in a hazmat suit, and he repairs it for resell."
Hadid likely used her self-care techniques in 2021, when she and Malik called it quits after he had an alleged physical altercation with the model's mother.
According to court docs obtained by ET in October, Malik pleaded no contest to four counts of harassment. He was put on 90 days of probation for each count, totaling 360 days, and must complete an anger management class and a domestic violence program, per the docs.
As for what she's learned throughout the trials and tribulations of the last year, Hadid says, "I've been reminded that when we get time with people, just really appreciate it and take it all in and try not to wish away moments. Even if there's something hard, find something beautiful in it."
Hadid's full interview will be featured in InStyle’s March issue, hitting newsstands on Feb. 11.
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