Heidi Klum’s 16-Year-Old Daughter Is Ready To Start Her Modeling Career
Since new moneyed celebrity spawn don’t usually participate in the old fashioned system of debutante balls and coming out to society, the most common way for a young person to signal their readiness to embark on their nepotism enabled transition from private citizen/child to model/influencer is to have their most famous parent announce it to the media (Looking at you, Catherine Zeta-Jones). Either that or they just push the teen directly in front of a moving Kardashian (Hello, Lionel Ritchie). Heidi Klum is in the former category. According to People, Heidi’s 16-year-old mini-me, Leni Klum, is ready for the runway/bathroom mirror.
Leni is Heidi and Seal’s eldest (her bio dad is Italian businessman Flavio Briatore) and Heidi says that because she spent so much of her childhood on the set of Germany’s Next Top Model (which Heidi has hosted since 2006), she wants to be a model. This is weird because I too spent many hours of my childhood at my mom’s job sitting in a corner playing with a 3-hole-punch and praying for an earthquake or something to break up the monotony but never once did it make me want to become a low-level accounting associate at Shaklee. Go Figure. People reports:
On Thursday, the supermodel appeared on an episode of PEOPLE (the TV show!) to talk about the clothing line she launched in collaboration with Disney Villains, available now exclusively on Amazon. During the segment, Klum, 47, told host Kay Adams that her 16-year-old daughter Leni (whom she shares with ex-husband Seal) enjoys spending time on set of Germany’s Next Top Model and revealed that the mother-daughter duo have many similar interests.
“She kind of comes [on set] and looks and learns not just what I do but also what all the different people are doing on a TV set. I think it’s very interesting to her,” Klum said. “When you’re that age you’re still trying to figure out who you are, what you want to be and kind of see for the first time what are all these different jobs to make a TV show happen. She does want to do what I do.”
Naturally, Leni didn’t decide she was really interested in whatever the Key Grip or DP was doing. Instead, it seems she was only interested in the one job a literal child is allowed to have on a professional set.
Much like other celebrity kids, Leni has had no shortage of modeling opportunities over the years. But Klum said she always turned them down in order to protect her daughter’s privacy — until recently.
“She’s old enough now,” the German beauty shared. “I always thought she was too young. We always also decided to keep the children out of the public eye. But she’s driving a car now, she’s 16, so I figured if you can do that, you can also model now if this is what you wish to do.”
“Obviously, as a mother, [I want my] child to do what she wants to do. The industry is great and I love it and I’ve been in it for over 20 years but it’s also, it’s a lot of traveling, it’s different,” she explained, adding, “You have to be a strong person, especially as a woman you have to be very strong.”
To be fair, Leni’s Instagram is a wholesome Vollkornbrot compared to the Wonder Bread pages of some of the other models of nepotism we are used to. She only has 7 posts, and only two of them are bathroom mirror selfies!
https://www.instagram.com/p/CE70lXiJMwq/
https://www.instagram.com/p/B81iqkfpKMY/
Heidi went on to say that Leni is “playing with the idea” of taking over for her mom as host of GNTM saying “who knows, maybe in five years” when she’s done with the job.
Sounds like they’ve got it all figured out. Some poor modeling obsessed German girl is probably crying in her dirndl right now knowing she’ll never get her dream job. But she did get Brad Pitt so…
Pic: Instagram