Child models are just born beautiful, or at least that's how it seems. Sometimes they
continue their careers into adulthood, while others retreat from the spotlight. Keep watching
to see what some of the most famous child models are up to now.
Kaia Gerber, daughter of iconic supermodel Cindy Crawford and businessman Rande Gerber,
landed her first modeling job when she was just 10 years old. But after some controversy
over a short skirt, her mother put the kibosh on her modeling career, at least temporarily.
Once Gerber was a little bit older she returned to the industry and has been killing it ever
since. And it's not lost on her that she's the spitting image of her mother, something
that's become more apparent to her as she's gotten older. In a 2019 essay for Vogue, she
admitted,
"It's everything from our mannerisms to our voices. It used to be that I didn't see it
at all, but now I will look at a picture and have to take a moment before realizing which
one of us it is."
If you ever have any trouble telling the two of them apart, just look for Crawford's trademark
mole on her face, a trait she didn't pass onto her daughter.
"My mom just always told me to just stay true to myself, be myself, and I think people don't
remind girls that enough."
If anyone was ever born to be professionally beautiful, it was Gigi Hadid. She started
modeling at the wee age of 2 years old. But like her friend Kaia Gerber, she took a break
after her early gigs to have a normal life. In a 2019 interview with Vogue, she explained,
"A lot of people make assumptions about my family, but our childhood wasn't 'Hollywood.'
I modeled when I was young but my mom intentionally had me stop before it ever felt like a job."
These days, Hadid is one of the most famous models in the world, with millions of Instagram
followers and an insanely successful career. As she told Vogue,
"There are still dreams coming true that I didn't even know I could possibly dream when
I started...Above any job or career moment, my greatest honor has been getting to know
and spend time with the designers and fashion creatives, getting to experience them as people.
Those are the most surreal and cherished moments to me."
Most people probably first got to know Lindsay Lohan from her two-for-one performance in
1998's The Parent Trap. But before she charmed her way into the hearts of millions of moviegoers,
she was quite the successful childhood model. She appeared in a commercial for Jell-O in
1996 as well as a host of other advertisements, including spots for Abercrombie & Fitch, Calvin
Klein, and Caravan.
Since then, some famous legal troubles have largely derailed Lohan's career, but that's
not something she beats herself up about too badly. In 2016, she told Vanity Fair,
"I can’t turn back time. But if I could, I would have listened more to my mother and
gone back home to N.Y.C. earlier in life and chosen my friends more wisely."
While Lohan has relocated to Dubai, she's not quite done with the spotlight just yet.
She's expressed interest in appearing in a potential Mean Girls sequel, and in 2019 she
starred in the MTV reality show Lindsay Lohan's Beach Club.
"So Dubai is a place, and that is in where?"
"The Middle East."
When Thylane Blondeau burst onto the modeling scene when she was just 4 years old, she was
quickly dubbed "the most beautiful girl in the world" by the internet. With her arresting
gaze and naturally captivating looks, she was destined to ascend into modeling royalty.
However, along the way Blondeau has found herself mired in controversy, thanks to a
2011 Vogue photoshoot that was criticized for dressing child models too provocatively.
Blondeau's mother Véronika Loubry, however, staunchly defended her daughter and the publication,
telling a French newspaper,
"The only thing that shocks me about the photo is the necklace that she's wearing, which
is worth 3 million Euros."
Fortunately Blondeau was able to weather that storm and has since cultivated quite the modeling
career. She's served as a brand ambassador for L'Oreal Paris, founded her own line of
apparel, and has her sights set on Hollywood.
Brooke Shields rose to fame thanks in part to her work in the controversial 1978 film
Pretty Baby, in which she plays Violet, a 12-year-old prostitute. Despite the controversy
surrounding the movie, Shields treasures the experience and doesn't regret a thing. In
2018, she told Vanity Fair,
"It was the best creative project I've ever been associated with, the best group of people
I've ever been blessed enough to work with."
Shields was already working as a model when she landed the role of Violet. That career
started very early, as she appeared in a commercial for Ivory Soap when she was just a baby. She
also raised hackles for some suggestive commercials she did for Calvin Klein.
"Reading is to the mind what Calvins are to the body."
In a 2016 essay for Vanity Fair, she wrote,
"We were no longer just catalog models but had transitioned into a more credible and
artistic realm."
Shields continued to model over the decades, and her acting career is still going strong.
Before Robert Pattinson stole the hearts of vampire lovers as Edward Cullen in The Twilight
Saga, he was quite the popular underwear model. As he recalled in an interview with Hello!
Magazine,
"When I first started I was quite tall and looked like a girl, so I got lots of jobs,
because it was during that period where the androgynous look was cool."
Alas, once Pattinson started to come into his manhood, the modeling work dried up. That's
okay, though, as his destiny was clearly to become an actor. Since breaking out in Twilight,
he's since delivered memorable performances in such varied films as Water for Elephants,
Good Time, and The Lighthouse. He even managed to land the seriously coveted role of Bruce
Wayne in the next Batman movie, thus proving again and again that he has what it takes
to run with the big dogs.
If you've ever seen the famous Diane Arbus photograph entitled "A very young baby, N.Y.C.,"
you may be surprised to learn that the infant in the snapshot is none other than CNN journalist
Anderson Cooper. Arbus was friends with Cooper's parents, so she was able to spend three weeks
taking photos of baby Anderson, including the iconic image.
Cooper went on to do more modeling when he was ten years old, signing with Ford Models
and appearing in advertisements for Macy's, Ralph Lauren, and more. But when he was 13,
he abruptly stopped modeling due to a traumatic experience. As he revealed on The Howard Stern
Show in 2014,
"I got propositioned by a photographer...a male. He somehow got my number and called
me up and offered me money, and it so freaked me out. I never told anybody. I just stopped.
I was like, 'Forget it.'"
Although Cooper never returned to modeling, his journalism career has turned out okay.
Perhaps the most famous child model of all time is the Gerber Baby, whose playful mug
adorns millions of jars of baby food. That iconic face belongs to a woman named Ann Turner
Cook, a retired teacher who lives in Tampa, Florida.
"I probably was about three years old when mother pointed out the baby food jar and said
that that was my picture."
Naturally, Cook thought her claim to fame was pretty cool, although she didn't run around
boasting about it, as the company kept her identity a secret for many years.
"All the years when I went to college and so forth, I didn't tell people that I was
the model for the Gerber Baby. That would seem a little self-promoting."
Even without Cook promoting herself, her face nevertheless became one of the most iconic
logos in advertising history.
William Franklyn-Miller isn't exactly old by anyone's standards, but given how early
he started working, he's already come a long way in the world of professionally beautiful
people. He started modelling in the United Kingdom when he was about four years old.
He was scouted in London and worked on campaigns for such brands as Marks and Spencer, Next,
F & F, and Hackett.
After becoming a successful model, Franklyn-Miller decided to try his hand at landing gigs in
Hollywood. In a 2019 interview, he revealed,
"A highlight is the feeling when after hundreds of self tapes, you get a call back from the
director and you are in the room with them working on the script, knowing you are down
to the last 2 or 3 actors for the role. I met Sir Ridley Scott in December and that
was amazing, I didn’t get that role, but even getting to meet him is an amazing feeling."
While that audition didn't quite work out, Franklyn-Miller did secure a spot in 2019
on the Netflix series Medici.
Karlie Kloss was only 13 years old when she was discovered by Mother Model Management
at a charity fashion show. Just two years later, she made her big debut at New York
Fashion Week, walking the runway for Calvin Klein, though her real focus was elsewhere.
In a 2018 interview with Porter, she recalled,
"I thought of everything in six-month increments. Not to mention I was in high school and my
priorities were, 'How can I still get straight As and also do this after-school side hustle
called modeling?'"
But it didn't take long for Kloss to realize that she had a real future in modeling, even
though she was still juggling it with her educational pursuits. As she told Porter,
"None of my friends at school understood the magnitude of this other life that I had."
Kloss has since become one of the most recognizable models in the world and has pretty much done
it all when it comes to her modeling bucket list. She's also launched entrepreneurial
endeavors, like her workshop for girls cleverly titled Kode with Klossy.
"In, I think it was 2013, you go, 'I want to learn how to code.'"
"Yeah. It's not probably the most linear path, but that's kind of just been my life."
When Chanel Iman was only 13 years old, she signed with Ford Models. That came on the
heels of placing third in Ford's Supermodel of the World contest, which set her career
into high gear, landing her on the cover of Teen Vogue alongside Jourdan Dunn. She told
the magazine,
"I was a subscriber to Teen Vogue since I was 13, so that was really exciting. But shooting
with Jourdan, it was just such a powerful cover because we were both, at the time, on
top of our game."
Iman went on to walk the runway for a variety of top designers, including Gucci, Dolce & Gabbana,
and Valentino, just to name a few. She also strutted her stuff for Victoria's Secret as
an Angel and made her acting debut in the 2015 film Dope. In 2018, she married New York
Giants wide receiver Sterling Shepard and started a family shortly thereafter.
Some models land their big break by accident. That was the case for Jade Weber. When she
was 9 years old, she tagged along with her brothers when they were getting headshots
taken, and then she managed to catch the attention of a modeling exec. In a 2017 interview with
Flawless Magazine, she revealed,
"The photographer thought I should become a model, so she sent a picture to her sister
and it turns out her sister was the director of an agency."
In that moment, a young Weber decided to give modeling a shot. She went on to be cast in
the video for Hayden Summerall's cover of "Can't Feel My Face," and then she started
getting various modeling jobs around the world. As for her future ambitions, she hopes to
travel to France someday for work. As she told Flawless Magazine,
"My dream modeling job would be to work for Dior, or Chanel! I dream to go to my country
and work in Paris. I am French and that would mean a lot to me."
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