Content warning: This story discusses disordered eating.

And for someone like Kaia Gerber, whose mother is supermodel Cindy Crawford, that magnified scrutiny can be especially difficult to navigate during the formative years of one’s life. 

“As someone who’s been thin most of my life, I’ve always been compared against my mom,” The Shards star told Vogue in an interview published Aug. 11. “Like, ‘What’s wrong with Kaia?’ I’m so jealous of my mom’s body. I would have loved to be born with boobs and a butt.”

The constant comments have drawn attention—both publicly and personally—to an area of her life Gerber, 24, would rather keep out of mind. 

“People have always commented on my body, which is hard because I’m not always ready to comment on my own body, you know?” she explained. “I’ve had disordered eating in my life. People are like, ‘You look terrible,’ and it doesn’t exactly make you go, ‘Oh, good. Let me get over this mental illness then!’”

As she put it, “Negativity has never saved someone’s life.”

These days, while Gerber may have gotten her start by modeling, she is much more dedicated to acting—the career she always preferred for herself.

And yet, the work she’s done on the runway has often overshadowed that of the stage and screen. Take, for instance, the reaction to her role in the play Evanston Salt Costs Climbing in 2025.

“My character is struggling with suicidal thoughts every night, and then I’d walk out and people are holding pictures of me posing naked as a teenager, asking me to sign them,” Gerber recalled. “It’s like, I want to bleed out for people, and then I’m sort of hit in the face with this other thing.”

Another thing that is hard to avoid while growing up in the spotlight is a public preoccupation with a young star’s love life—and Gerber is no exception. But while her past romances with Pete Davidson, Jacob Elordi and Austin Butler consumed the public, she’s made a concerted effort to keep her two-year relationship with Lewis Pullman more private.  

“There are so few things you get to protect as a famous person, and being defined by who you date when you’re 18 is something I find challenging,” she reflected. “I think I’ve been labeled in ways that are quite misogynistic: serial dater, slut, greedy.”

But with Pullman, she’s reveling in what she described as the healthiest relationship she’s ever had. 

“I think the ultimate goal is that your relationship doesn’t change you, that you’re not code switching between relationship, friendship, professional life,” she said. “I would love to always feel like me, and in this relationship I’m having the pleasure of doing that.”