Iconic model, TV personality, and fashion designer,
Heidi Klum, is also a devoted mom to four adorable kids. She shares her daughter,
Lou, and her sons, Henry and Johan, with her ex-husband, Seal - and her oldest daughter,
Leni's father is Italian multi-millionaire, Flavio Briatore. She told Shape,
"I've had four children.
You know, my stomach has stretched in and out, and in and out, and in and out, four times!"
But while Klum is a very public figure - boasting over 7.5 million followers on Instagram and
appearing at events all over the globe - she's decidedly much more private about her children.
And if ever her kids do appear on her social media, their faces are always obscured.
Just take her family Christmas 2019 snap, for example, where her kids were blocked by Santa hats
and gifts. Or the fun family sleepover photo where the kids were peeking out from under the covers.
It's clear Klum is serious about protecting her children's privacy. And this is partly due
to her desire to let her children choose their own path. She told Hello in 2018,
"I'm not putting any seeds in my kids' heads of what they should do.
I want them to come up with their own things. They are not really stage kids."
But since Klum keeps her children far away from the spotlight, fans might be shocked to
see how much her daughter Leni has grown up to look just like her supermodel mom.
Soon after her biological parents split up, Leni was born in 2004 - and was later adopted
by Klum's second hubby, Seal. According to TMZ, Leni's dad, Flavio Briatore,
was not a part of Leni's life in any big way until things took a turn in 2018.
At the time, the outlet published footage of a family reunion in Italy and even
snapped some photos of Briatore hugging Leni. The reunion reportedly included Klum's own parents and
her three other children. While the relationship between Briatore and Seal was always amicable,
back in 2009, when Seal officially adopted Leni, he told People magazine,
"It doesn't make [Leni] any more or less my daughter. She always has been.
All it means is that both Heidi and I wanted her to have the same last name as the rest of
us. […] It was about Leni. I don't want her to feel different because I know what that's like,
being a kind of stepson. And I don't want that dynamic for my little girl."
But the situation has since dramatically changed for Klum in terms of her marital status. In 2019,
Klum married Tom Kaulitz, the guitarist for the German band, Tokio Hotel, in a secret wedding.
Even considering her new relationship status, though, Klum's kids remain her top priority.
Of course, even though Klum strives for her family's privacy, that doesn't mean
she won't support them if they choose high-profile careers in the future.
When asked if any of her children want to give modeling a shot, she told Hello,
"If they ask me one day, and they want to pursue it,
I'm going to look into a modeling agency for them, but no one is asking."
Klum has also been very open about how strict she has been in raising her children. In a July
2017 interview on Live with Kelly and Ryan, Kelly Ripa praised Klum for the way she strategically
hid her kids' faces on Instagram. The supermodel then admitted that her then-13 year old daughter,
Leni, actually wanted to post her face on social media, but Klum told her,
"No, you're not allowed to."
"She's like, when can I do it. Maybe next year. Then,
maybe next year, you said that last year, mom, like, when?"
Klum says she enforces this rule because she wants her children to have the chance to "be
kids." When Ryan Seacrest asked if she was a helicopter parent,
Klum shamelessly admitted she was. In March 2020,
Klum also spoke about the challenges she faces in co-parenting with Seal. She revealed to Red,
"There's always a reason why you're not with someone anymore, you know? It's not all rosy-rosy.
It just isn't. So sometimes it's hard, but then you have to all come together as a
family and sometimes everything is just like hopping on clouds. It's just the way it is."
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