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Bella Hadid says she lost modelling jobs for supporting Palestine
Supermodel Bella Hadid, an outspoken advocate for Palestine, said that she had lost work over her activism, but nevertheless would continue to stay true to her convictions.
It comes days after she revealed that her advocacy had caused some companies to stop working with her.
Hadid is the daughter of Palestinian real-estate developer Mohamed Hadid and Dutch model Yolanda Hadid and is often lauded as being one of the most outspoken celebrities advocating for Palestine.
The 25-year-old acknowledged that while she sometimes worries about saying the right thing, she is determined to stand by her convictions and highlight her Palestinian background.
"I really do believe that if I started speaking about Palestine, when I was 20, I wouldn’t have gotten the recognition and the respect that I have now," said the model.
"I had so many companies stop working with me...I have friends that completely dropped me."
.@BellaHadid admits one of her bigger regrets is that she wasn’t raised around Muslim people https://t.co/yhXT4GdjcC pic.twitter.com/1BH5HV9V6y
— GQ Magazine (@GQMagazine) August 16, 2022
In a joint interview with Egyptian-American actor Ramy Youssef for GQ magazine, Hadid referenced her parent's divorce in 2000 when she relocated to California and felt that she was "extracted" from her Palestinian side of the family.
"For so long I was missing that part of me, and it made me really, really sad and lonely," she said, talking of her Arab heritage.
Instagram silences Bella Hadid over posts on Palestine
Hadid’s father fled Palestine during the 1948 Nakba, the Catastrophe, when tens of thousands of Palestinians were forced to flee their homes during the creation of the state of Israel.
Later in the interview, the model explained why she continues to speak out: “I speak about [the Palestinian cause] for the elderly that are still living there that have never been able to see Palestine free, and for the children that can still grow up and have a beautiful life”.
The supermodel will soon make her acting debut in the new series of Ramy, an Emmy-nominated dark comedy about an Egyptian-American navigating life in New Jersey.
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