Supermodel Bella Hadid share a cover of i-D Magazine’s Fall 2022 ‘Ultra’ issue. In Bella’s case, she is ‘Ultranova!’. Carlos Nazario styles Bella in body-baring looks for Alaia, Balenciaga, Comme des Garcons, Gucci, Jacquemus, Loewe, Louis Vuitton, Marc Jacobs, Marni, Mowalola, Saint Laurent by Anthony Vaccarello, Schiaparelli and more.

Photographer Sam Rock [IG] captures Bella. Douglas Greenwood interviews the super in: '“Bella Hadid: People can make up stories about me. My truth will be seen.” The interview is largely about Bella’s anxiety, which AOC has covered many times over. No need to rehash it.

[Note that Sam Rock is taking a year off to search new paths into the future — probably still involving photography. These short comments are an interesting juxtaposition to Bella’s own inner reflections.]

Greenwood writes: “I imagine people look at Bella and think that she’s got a charmed life, but it’s incredibly lonely sometimes when you’re travelling the world alone, always having to perform, and not wanting to complain or they’ll replace you,” Karen [Elson] says to us. “I know a lot of people look up to her, which is why her honesty and vulnerability are really admirable, because she’s not just showing the fantasy, she’s being real. That to me is real courage.”

Elson is correct about travelling the world alone. I understand that Bella and other top models have the issue of being replaced, whereas I travelled the world alone for 10 years [probably 70% of trips were alone and every month]. Holding considerable professional power, I wasn’t particularly concerned about being replaced.

Pictures suggest that Bella is frequently in fashion capitals in the company of Marc Kalman. He is not mentioned in the interview. Yet, Bella must be sustained with some positivity in their relationship, which appears to be very solid.

Queen Elizabeth’s Precious Words

As the world is touched — for the most part — by the death of Queen Elzabeth II, I think of her quote:

“Grief is the price we pay for love.”

AOC has deep respect for Bella’s Palestinian roots, but she doesn’t used the interview to speak up for the Palestinian people at all. It’s all about Bella’s anxiety [and anger, whether she admits it or not] over being the only Palestinian heritage person on the set. Yikes!

Everything AOC hears about beloved Anja Rubik is that she seems much more assertive than Bella on the set. And if Anja has received death threats over her crusade in support of abortion rights and LGBTQIA+ issues, we don’t know about them.

Does Bella understand just how many activists have received death threats? Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has the same issue of self-absorption in her new GQ interview. The problem is being assaulted verbally and physically from both the far right and the far left for opening our mouths.

In the good old days, we called that misogyny. But women’s rights are a much lower concern today — until Roe went down.

I was in police protection for a year over abortion rights. It was insane and very scary. But years later, I remain a loud voice for abortion rights — and yes, my masked stalker flew across my windshield one cold, dark, fall night. That was pretty damn frightening, Bella.

The difference betwen serious activists and those who dabble in it and then have ongoing, fearful public tell-alls, is that I tried to run this murderous dirtbag over with my car.

My own activism is a reason why there are no comments on AOC. And the three-day running assault against me was led by Muslim intellectuals, just to be clear. They were very unhappy that I was working to stop the flogging of women in Sudan. Not that they supported it, mind you. They didn’t.

Their issue was my writing about it, even though — without dispute — I saved a woman from being stoned to death in Khartoum. She was a woman charged with having a baby out of wedlock and the man who impregnated her wasn’t even jailed. Yet the woman was set to be stoned to death after the baby was born. I was asked to intervene by activists in Khartoum, and I did.

Greenwood notes that in the past, publications have framed Bella’s heritage as a point of contention – or erased it completely, like when she and Gigi donated their fashion week salaries to refugees in Ukraine and Palestine, and only the former was reported on.

Hadid Sisters Join Mica Arganaraz in Donating Fall 2022 Fashion Week Earnings to Humanity AOC Fashion

If neither Bella or Greenwood — who writes a solid story — is willing to mention the publication, I will.

It was Vogue who edited out Palestinian relief as part of the story about the fashion week donations by the Hadid sisters and Mica Arganaaz.

Bella’s father, Mohamed Hadid, is a refugee from the 1948 Palestinian exodus. The Hadid family lineage stretches back to Dahir al-Umar, a ruler of Northern Palestine in the 18th century, who was known for his tolerance of all religions.

I find it hard to believe that at her level of success, Bella Hadid can’t say “I love Vogue, they have given me so many professional opportunities to really rise as a model, but I was really upset for myself and for the suffering of MY [or the] Palestinian people, when they were written out of the fashionweek philanthropy story about Gigi and me.”

Could Bella Hadid really lose her supermodel status because she made a statement like that one? If this is the truth, then we have made no progress since the death of George Floyd. I do not believe this possibility about our fashion industry.

Does Bella’s anxiety prevent her from speaking up about her values, and so she doesn’t? Then she reprimands herself for not speaking up for the Palestinians.

These interviews represent real opportunities for young models to speak truth to power with facts and a history lesson. Do you think Jane Fonda lets these opportunities pass? Not for a nanosecond. Reporting on her cancer this week, all she talked about was the chemo not stopping her environmental action and protests.

Especially in i-D magazine, it’s hard to believe that they don’t welome activism commentary in their interview coverage. i-D is not Vogue. And Vogue today is not the same ‘ol Vogue.

Bella could have easily said: “When I watched the brilliant voice of Abu Akleh be snuffed out before my very eyes on tv, I felt so, so sad for the Palestinians in Jenin” — or “my people”, if she prefers.

Abu Akleh, a veteran correspondent well-known throughout the Arab world, Britain and America was fatally shot while covering an Israeli military raid on May 11 in the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank.

The Palestinians, along with Abu Akleh's colleagues who were with her at the time, have said from day one that she was killed by Israeli fire. Five days ago the Israeli army agreed.

What is the status at Jenin?

Bella could use her platform to educate us. Are we at a tipping point with the settlements and there will be turning back into a two-state solution? We’re close. Hopes are not running high — and both sides share responsibility for why not.

Is Bella distressed that if one person leaves a negative comment, she can’t handle it? Because that reality will never exist in the best of times, let alone the ones we live in.

To be fair — and especially because AOC loves Bella — she does say: “I’ve felt the repercussions of speaking out for the Palestinian people, but I‘ll continue doing so until it helps create real progress,” she says. “A few companies won’t work with me anymore, and a few people may think I’m crazy. But that doesn’t bother me and it doesn’t compare to what Palestinians suffer on a daily basis.”

To be clear — and since this interview seems deathly afraid of offending anybody, as I read it again —Bella is referring to at least this example of her May 2022 launch of the new Swarovski campaign.

Highly commercial blogs never look for a back story and they just publish the PR release images. But because AOC always takes the time to search recent history on our posts, we added the Israeli pushback against Bella with the campaign launch Bella Hadid's Swarovski Ambassador Role Hits a Speed Bump in Israel.

Activism As a Form of Personal Liberation

Democracy isn’t pretty, Bella. Free speech can be crushing, but consider that Nelson Mandela stood trial four times and went to prison for 27 years in his quest for liberation in South Africa.

Your suffering is minor compared to that of Nelson Mandela.

We note that Israeli actor Natalie Portman has taken very dramatic steps against the Israeli government, including rejecting a 2018 public acceptance of the Genesis Prize [a VERY big deal in Israel] because she is "critical of Israeli leadership” and refused to stand on a platform with Netanyahu. I don’t think it ruined her career.

Furthermore, even though Portman’s defiance happened in 2018, AOC [because we are also committed to a positive Palestinian solution and an end to this extreme suffering in Palestine], we take every opportunity when writing about Portman to praise her activism. Most recently, we did it on July 10, 2022: Natalie Portman by Sebastian Kim on Body Positivity for Sunday Times Style July 10.

Imagine if Bella had used this interview to stand up for reproductive rights for women, now under total assault in America. Imagine if she had begged young progressives to vote — because they don’t and especially in midterm elections. But with Roe going down by a right-wing Supreme Court, young women are shaken, from all I am reading.

Update 9/11/22: Thankfully, Jennifer Lawrence has written an op-ed for Vogue A Personal Plea to Save Our Democracy and Vote. Read on at Vogue.

In her own words, this is how Bella ends her i-D interview:

For so long, “I had to conform to other people’s versions of me,” she says. “I always based who I was and the validation of who I am on other people’s opinions of me.” Growing up on the world stage, refusing to take a moment to pause, it’s an understandable situation to have found herself in – but the isolation of the pandemic brought her back to herself; offered her a moment “to realise what I like again, what really brings me joy and what I love.”

Hindsight has given her sage advice for those looking to follow in her footsteps: “Know yourself, work on yourself, understand what you love and why you love it,” she says. “People can make up stories about me; they can form whatever version of me they want in their head. But I think the truth and the light always ends up coming out. My truth, who I really am, and what I stand for, is going to be seen.”

Fingers are crossed that you arrive there, Bella, because the world doesn’t have unlimited time to watch your $19 million annually — estimated by Forbes highest-paid models — suffering much longer. It’s been a couple years now, Bella. Democracy is going down, and it’s time to rise and use your power.

Sending big love, Bella. ~ Anne