Karlie Kloss: “It’s Been Hard” to Be Related to the Kushners and Trumps

This time last year, life looked a lot different for Karlie Kloss. Last July, the 26-year-old model became engaged to her longtime boyfriend Joshua Kushner. But when they got married a few months later, the change extended far past Kloss’s official marital status—hence the cover line “her life-changing year” accompanies her face on the August issue of British Vogue.

For starters, Kloss decided to convert to Judaism before marrying Kushner, a 34-year-old venture capitalist. “Changing part of who you are for someone else can be seen as weak,” she told Vogue. “But you know what? Actually, if you’ve been through what I’ve experienced, it requires you to be anything but weak. It requires me to be stronger and self-loving and resilient. I really did not take this lightly.”

But faith is far from Kushner’s only defining characteristic—hence the other major change that married life has brought for Kloss, which has gotten no shortage of media attention. Her new husband happens to be the brother of Jared Kushner, a (controversially) key member of the Trump administration. As of this past October, he’s also officially Kloss’s sibling-in-law—as is his wife, none other than Ivanka Trump.

“It’s been hard,” Kloss said of her newfound connection with the family, which stands at odds with many of her staunchly Democrat views. “But I choose to focus on the values that I share with my husband, and those are the same liberal values that I was raised with and that have guided me throughout my life.”

The full story won’t be released until the issue hits newsstands, on July 5, so it’s unclear if Kloss further elaborates on the matter. (And that definitely seems possible; Kloss shared the cover on Instagram with the caption “The story is beautiful captured by friend and colleague @ElaineWelteroth in a more raw and real way than I have ever shared before.”) Still, Kloss’s admission that “it’s been hard” is definitely the most candid she’s gotten about her relationship to the family yet—and the one with the most potential to make things awkward, given Ivanka’s insistence on reminding the world that Kloss is, as she puts it, her “sister.” (Despite previous reports, Ivanka and Jared did not attend, nor appear to have been invited to, the couple’s recent wedding celebration at a “luxury dude ranch” in Wyoming.)

In any case, this isn’t the first time that Kloss has opened up about the difficulties her marriage has presented. “Josh and I share a lot of the same liberal values that guide our lives and the things we stand for,” Kloss told Vogue last October. “At the end of the day, I’ve had to make decisions based on my own moral compass—forget what the public says, forget social media,” she continued of her decision to marry into the Kushner family. “I’ve chosen to be with the man I love despite the complications. It’s frustrating, to be honest, that the spotlight is always shifted away from my career toward my relationship. I don’t think the same happens in conversations with men.”

Related: Inside Karlie Kloss and Joshua Kushner’s Wedding Celebration at a “Luxury Dude Ranch” in Wyoming