Interestingly enough, the various children of Real Housewives castmates can be a bit like side characters, with personalities that can often overshadow their famous moms’. (Jennie Nguyen’s 9-year-old daughter on Salt Lake City has particularly been a precocious addition, though fans unfortunately won’t be seeing her anymore after her mother’s controversial firing from the show recently.) But other offspring have managed to find notoriety outside the Bravo franchise, such as Gigi Hadid, and the notorious supermodel has in fact opened up about wrapping up her high school years while having all of the Real Housewives crew around her.
Before she modeled for prestigious magazine covers or walked in major Fashion Week shows, Gigi Hadid was known as the daughter of Real Housewives of Beverly Hills’ Yolanda Hadid. The Bravo mom headlined the show from 2012 to 2016, leaving after horrible accusations saying that her Lyme disease was really Munchausen’s. Appearances from Gigi were few and far between during that time, and she explained during her March cover for InStyle why that is, saying,
Yeah. When I think of my childhood, I think of the crazy, ecstatic volleyball player. I was that loud voice. I loved sports, I loved being on a team, I loved school and my friends. That’s what comes naturally to me. But when people first started to get to know me, it was like, ‘Oh, her mom was [Yolanda Hadid] on [The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills]. That is her life.’ But that wasn’t my life or a part of my growing up. My mom wasn’t on TV until I was a senior in high school, so I was just on my way out of the house. But it was weird for me. I would come home from school and there would be production trucks outside. I would scale the staircase to my room so I wouldn’t have to go say hi to my mom in the kitchen.
As if being a high school senior isn’t complicated enough, to suddenly be the daughter of a major reality TV personality certainly sounds like a double whammy of potential embarrassment. Being a Real Housewives fan myself, I would have tried to be front row for all their drama. But apparently that’s not what Gigi Hadid had in mind, and seeing the cast and crew in the middle of filming was not so interesting for her. As Hadid said, “You’re just like, ‘I’m going to go do homework.'”
Nevertheless, it’s no question that between her famous Real Housewives mom, her high-rolling real estate developer dad, and her Grammy-winning former stepfather David Foster, Gigi Hadid’s career as an international model had some assistance in skyrocketing. Ever since, she has even dabbled in other TV endeavors, including stints on RuPaul’s Drag Race, Lip Sync Battle, and MasterChef.
The 26-year-old has had her fair share of drama herself, to be sure. The Real Housewives cameras were all gone by then, but reports still broke that the father of Hadid’s first-born child, One Direction alum Zayn Malik, got into an altercation with her mom Yolanda. Malik even faced harassment charges for the incident that resulted in probation, anger management classes and domestic violence programs. The couple have since gone their separate ways.
A few other Real Housewives kids besides Gigi Hadid have also been known to find themselves in headline-grabbing situations but usually of the less-serious variety. Lisa Rinna – longtime Real Housewives of Beverly Hills castmate who started the Munchausen speculation about Yolanda Hadid – got caught in the crosshairs of Kardashian drama after her daughter dated and dumped Scott Disick. Likewise, Gia Giudice is front and center of Real Housewives of New Jersey tension in the new season, following years of making the show go viral with her “sad song.”
Clearly, it’s a hard knock life for the progeny of the Real Housewives cast. If Gigi Hadid had her own Bravo tagline during her mom’s tenure, it seems it would’ve been the teenager national anthem: Leave me alone. Something you won’t want to leave along, however, is our 2022 TV premiere schedule, which has all the major premieres that will be popping up in the near future!