Top model Joan Smalls covers the May 2022 issue of Vogue Italia. Ally Macrae styles Smalls in images by Cho Gi-Seok [IG]. Samira Larouchi is on the Zoom interview with Smalls, talking topics including her close family ties in Puerto Rico and the fertility treatments she is undergoing.

Joan Smalls is also reading a well-known book ‘A New Earth’ by spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle. Since Christmas Smalls is working on the intentional life she’s currently manifesting.

Not included in her Vogue Italia interview is signing with M88 agency in an effort to pursue her acting career. Smalls continues to be represented by IMG and WME. You can read about M88’s mission and pursuit of diversity at the Hollywood Reporter.

Joan Smalls on IVF Treatments

The top model has been going through IVF treatments, a topic that’s not often discussed in today’s media.

Everyone’s going through it! It’s so mind boggling to me. When I went to the doctor’s office to start my treatment, I saw so many people from different ages, religions, ethnicities and age groups in that room, and I was thinking wow, we are all going through this but no one talks about it. It made me realise that it’s basically a taboo, because it’s a reminder of my womanhood and whether I'm meant to be having a child at a certain age because society tells me to, and then I have to put my goals and aspirations on the backburner. It’s so many things happening at once that I don't think people understand the pressure of it all. And then that’s just the psychological side of things, then there’s your body [laughs], I was like damn women really are honestly like gods.

Smalls explains that in order to have a good pregnancy you need 15-20 eggs — which is what the medication is supposed to produce — but there are no guarantees.

At every appointment they’ll tell you how many are viable, and how many can be saved. And in November, when I did the latest round, they didn’t get any and I was a disaster. I was pumping so much medication into myself, so to not even get a little bit, I became so down, I wouldn’t talk to people, I went into my shell just to not beat myself up. The journey isn’t easy, it’s mentally exhausting. Women are becoming more open but it’s still stigmatised and it’s a taboo we need to talk about.