Kaia Gerber says people have compared her to Cindy Crawford her whole life.
A model turned actor spoke about growing up with a famous parent, and about strangers who have commented on her appearance since she was young. Her answer named something she has rarely discussed on the record.
Kaia Gerber opens up about comparing her body to mom Cindy Crawford and her struggles with body image
Growing up in the spotlight brought Kaia Gerber a particular kind of scrutiny. Her mother is supermodel Cindy Crawford, and the comparisons started early. She told Vogue how it felt.
“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.”
Gerber, 24, said the ongoing commentary keeps returning her focus to something she would rather not think about.
“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.”
Kaia Gerber says runway work has overshadowed her acting.
She started out modeling. Acting takes far more of her dedication now, and she wanted that career all along.
Her runway career still draws more notice than her acting work. Her 2025 role in the play Evanston Salt Costs Climbing offers one example of that gap.
“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.”
Her relationships have faced the same treatment. Her past romances with Pete Davidson, Jacob Elordi and Austin Butler drew heavy public attention, but she has worked 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.”
She described her relationship with Pullman as the healthiest she has 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.”
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