Bella Hadid Explains Why She Posted Those Crying Photos

Last November, Bella Hadid posted a carousel on Instagram that began with a video of Willow Smith sharing a reminder that whenever you feel insecure, lonely, or anxious, you most definitely aren’t alone. Even within that context, the slides that followed came as something of a shock: A few swipes revealed a whole trove of photos of the 25-year-old supermodel in tears. Three months later, in an interview with the WSJ. Magazine, Hadid has revealed that they were part of a whole collection of her darker moments over the past three years. “I would have really depressive episodes and my mom or my doctor would ask how I was and instead of having to respond in text, I would just send them a photo,” she explained. “It was the easiest thing for me to do at the time because I was never able to explain how I was feeling. I would just be in excruciating and debilitating mental and physical pain, and I didn’t know why.”

As for why she felt compelled to share some of those photos, Hadid said she wanted “to make sure that anybody that was feeling that way knew it was OK to feel that way.” She’s well aware that the post was quite a departure from her usual fare. “Even though on Instagram things look so beautiful, at the end of the day, we are all cut from the same cloth,” Hadid continued. “I felt like it was just good for me to be able to speak my truth and at some point I wasn’t able to post nice pretty pictures anymore. I was over it.” And she still is today. “I don’t know if that’s not what people want on Instagram, and that’s fine,” Hadid continued. “I don’t have to be on Instagram forever. I feel like real is the new real, and that’s what’s important to me.”

If you’re prone to feeling “that way,” too, you might want to add Hadid’s original post to your bookmarks for whenever you need a pep talk. “Sometimes all you’ve gotta hear is that you’re not alone. So from me to you, you’re not alone. I love you, I see you, and I hear you,” she began her lengthy caption. “Self help and mental illness/chemical imbalance is not linear and it is almost like a flowing rollercoaster of obstacles… it has its ups and downs, and side to sides. But I want you to know, there is always light at the end of the tunnel, and the rollercoaster always comes to a complete stop at some point. (There is always room for it to start up again, but for me it’s always been nice to know that even if it’s a few days, weeks, or months, it does get better, to some extent, even for a moment.)”