Bella Hadid says she lost modelling jobs over her support for Palestine

Palestine supermodel Bella Hadid vowed to continue her public support for Palestine despite losing jobs, saying she was fearless when it comes to her activism. 

Hadid, who has a Palestinian father and Dutch mother, opened up to Libyan-American journalist Noor Tagouri for the podcast Rep about how her vocal support for a Palestine had cost her friends and career opportunities. 

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.

 

 

 

 

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"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."

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. 

The supermodel has often used her platform to shed light on atrocities faced by Palestinians, sharing posts on Instagram highlighting Palestinian stories, marching in Free Palestine demonstrations and donating her earnings to organisations supporting Palestinian refugees. 

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. 

In a recent interview for GQ with co-star Ramy Youssef, Hadid said she would have loved to have grown up with her father and “live in a Muslim culture. But I wasn’t given that.”  Her parents separated and Hadid went to live with her mother in Santa Barbara, California. 

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”. 

Palestinians living in occupied territories are systemically subjected to forced expulsions and violent attacks.

They are denied basic rights and freedoms, amounting to what multiple human rights organisation have called "the crime of apartheid".