Bella Hadid has not been shy about her mental health struggles, and the 25-year-old model recently opened up about the extent to which she’s been suffering from anxiety in a candid chat with WSJ. Magazine. After revealing that she’s been styling herself for nearly two years, Hadid shared the anxiety that comes with leaving the house and the paparazzi.
Easing into the topic of mental health, Hadid shared that she stopped using a stylist but was “in such a weird place mentally that it was really complicated for me to get out of the house and put an outfit together, especially with the anxiety of [paparazzi] being outside and all that.” However, fashion became an outlet once she worked through some of the mental struggles.
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“In the last year, it was really important for me to learn that even if people talk about my style or if they like it or if they don’t, it doesn’t matter, because it’s my style,” Hadid said. “When I leave the house in the morning, what I think about is: Does this make me happy? Do I feel good in this and do I feel comfortable?”
The model also described her struggles with anxiety as “excruciating and debilitating” and has worked to make mental health a more commonly discussed topic on social media after posting a carousel of images of herself crying on Instagram in November with a lengthy caption on the reality of her seemingly glamorous life.
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“I would have really depressive episodes and my mom or my doctor would ask how I was and instead of having to respond in text, I would just send them a photo,” she explained of the photos. “It was the easiest thing for me to do at the time because I was never able to explain how I was feeling.”
She continued to reveal, “I would just be in excruciating and debilitating mental and physical pain, and I didn’t know why. That was over the past three years,” adding, “[When I posted] it was to make sure that anybody that was feeling that way knew it was OK to feel that way.”
Hadid also recently opened up about quitting drinking alcohol—another step she’s taken to care for her mental health and take control of her life. “I don’t feel the need [to drink anymore] because I know how it will affect me at 3 in the morning when I wake up with horrible anxiety thinking about that one thing I said five years ago when I graduated high school,” she told InStyle.
