Matthew Williams: You’re on the farm right now?

Bella Hadid: Yes, I’m down here on the farm with my animals. Where are you?

Matthew: I’m in Montauk, right at the tip of Long Island.

Bella: At least we both get to be in nature, because it’s definitely calming me down.

Matthew: Yeah, it’s so nice to be able to be outside and do beach walks and to just have some fresh air. But I am going back to the city today for the next couple of weeks, which will be another experience. I’ve just loaded up on groceries for two weeks and I’m going to hibernate in the house with the kids. Have you been riding your horse?

Bella: Yeah, riding every day, but the weather has been so crazy out here. Tornado warnings. Sometimes it will be crazy beautiful, blue skies and everything, and then some days you can’t even leave, like to go see my mum from my house.

Matthew: Have you seen a tornado?

Bella: My house is a little cabin that was built in the 1800s, so the stabilisation is not as good as the other houses, like my sister’s. So when anything happens
like crazy rain, the whole house shakes, and I have a lot of windows here so you can hear all the rain and hail and wind. So it feels like I’m in a wind box for six hours while these things happen. But it’s alright. Are you still working?

Matthew: Yeah, via Zoom and FaceTime, but it’s starting to slow down because most of Italy is closed. The first cases in Italy were an hour from Milan.

Bella: I remember we were all there that week and I think you stayed in Milan for an extra few days and then came back here.

Matthew: Then we saw each other in New York for a second; I have just been here since. Kind of paused. I am doing a lot of Nike stuff, working remotely on that, and that is pretty much it. What about you? Are you liking the break in travel and the rest?

Bella: It’s been really hard for me because I am such a workaholic – both of us are, I think that’s the common denominator between us, just how much we travel and how much we really enjoy working. When I’m really in it and I’m freaking out, not knowing where my head is, I feel like a chicken with my head chopped off, but I guess that is where I thrive. Over the past few weeks I’ve realized that I love it when people challenge me and pressure me, and in our job that is constant. Here, my mom will be like, ‘Go to the grocery store’, and that is my challenge for the day! I’m, like, ‘Shit, I really do miss working.’ I miss being around people. As a model there are always people around and I took that for granted because I miss people now. But I love being at home. I did really need this, and I think that my body is reacting really well to it. I’m excited to get back to work. I feel super creative and I want to go work with everybody. But definitely for my health and for my emotional stability it’s been good to just be. We needed to be able to take time and really think about the people we want to surround ourselves with, and the jobs that we really want to do and the people we want to help. It makes you put things into perspective, like who and what you want to give your energy to. When we go back, I feel like we will want to work with the people that we really want to work with. I guess only time will tell.

Matthew: Totally. I feel like I am going to need some time to get used to being around people again.

Bella: For sure, socially.

Matthew: I feel like it will be a slow ramp into normal life because it just feels so foreign, not being around people like we used to be on shoots or at a show. That whole thing.

Bella: What we know are big sets. We know how to be around a lot of people, and I think that is where it’s going to change, which in some ways will be good for us. I love having big sets; I love for there to be a lot of creative and artistic people on set. But moving forward, from a productive, creative standpoint, it might be nice to have smaller sets with people really connecting one on one with the photographers and the stylists. I think that things will possibly change for the better, eventually, from a creative standpoint, as well. Since you’ve been at home, have you been thinking about more things than usual or is your brain shutting off?

Matthew: It’s been good to have this pause, because I have been looking at things from a new perspective. I have felt rejuvenated creatively, and there wasn’t that much of a pause for the past month. We were still working on things and now it has really slowed, as of last week. It’s so amazing that we have all these tools and we can communicate and push stuff along. But I am really rejuvenated and ready to get back in the studio and start making stuff, putting out work. I hope that with all of the creative industries, like art, music, fashion, there is some kind of response to this downtime that allows for really creative work to happen. That could be a positive thing that could come out of all this.

Bella: I think people are going to come out of this so much more humbled. Just to look at the world and to recognize that this is not happening to just you, it’s happening to all of us. Everybody is getting hit; it doesn’t matter how much money you have or what you look like. And you have to be generous enough to give someone a mask or help a lady in a store – there are just little things you can do. Social media is huge right now and I feel like hopefully that is giving a lot more kids platforms to thrive because everyone is watching right now. For younger musicians, I’m really looking online to find kids putting their stuff online right now, to see if anybody wants to be heard and wants to be seen. This is a great time for people to look out for young artists and young designers. We’re all chilling, doing the same thing, but if we can pull some people along, I think that would be amazing. We all need to help each other out through this.

Matthew: This has really shown how connected the whole world is. I like what you were saying about social media because I feel like social media’s become more social…

Bella: Which is crazy.

Matthew: There’s real communication happening now, which is amazing.

Bella: I love that people are going on and being able to show their personalities. You know me, I am always super smiley and giggly, but on my Instagram, I am always so not me. But now you are getting to a point where you are like, well, I have shit else to do, I guess I’ll just make a joke.

Matthew: I loved the TikTok that you did when your head got really big; it was so good.

Bella: It was so me, but I would never have done that three months ago. I’m so embarrassed; I can’t believe I put that online.

Matthew: Did you see the ‘Toosie Slide’ that I put up? Same – I would never have done that before.

Bella: I mean when would anyone have seen you or I doing that shit on a regular day? But we all have to bring positivity to other people. To see that video makes me smile and I hope when you saw my video it made you smile. That is literally the cycle of kindness, the cycle of positivity and happiness. Putting out stuff
that is just bragging about how many whatever the hell you have – it’s just not about that right now. I love being able to interact like this. Social media was all about the media and now it’s all about the social. About actually interacting with people.

Matthew: I really love your family’s outlook on everything. I was texting with Anwar the other day…

Bella: Oh, I miss him so much.

Matthew: Yes, I love him. I haven’t been able to connect with him enough. He is so cool and has such creative purpose and positivity about making the world a better place. What is it with your family? Everyone has these amazing positive intentions for their existence. I’m really into that.

Bella: That’s really sweet of you. I do feel like that is where we come from as a family – it’s where we ground ourselves. I think that everything that everyone sees is not us as a family, which is kind of weird to say. If you went and saw my sister in her house right now, she has literally been in her pyjamas for three weeks and is cooking up a storm and making chairs out of God knows what. She is so creative. Anwar is digging up crystals and writing mantras and poems and is just an incredible angelic force. My mom is right there on her little truck going to feed the cows. Where she grew up, in Holland, she didn’t grow up the way that we were lucky enough to grow up. We were taught that we have to work hard and be kind and that is pretty much all we can do as growing adults. That, and send out love. The hardest part of all this for me, actually, is not being able to hug people. That is something that brings me joy on a daily basis. Hugging and smiling and making other people feel happy. With the masks, I can’t even smile at people, so I’m trying to figure out a new way to express good intentions.

Matthew: It’s cool to connect with you both in a really honest way. I’m sure it’s hard being apart right now. Anwar was saying that he’s in London. Are you quarantining with any other family members or friends or anything?

Bella: My mum is here, my sister is here and our best friend Lea has been here for a month and a half because she was supposed to come for a wedding in New York that got cancelled, so she stayed. I feel like everybody just stayed wherever they were a few weeks ago. My mom’s best friend is here too, actually. But we are all on separate parts of the farm. It’s nice to connect and then disconnect and to just be, I guess.

Matthew: It’s nice to have people who aren’t your family in quarantine, too, because that adds a little bit of normality, in some ways. Like, ‘I’m gonna put pants on to have dinner.’

Bella: This is my best friend of 10 years and my Godmother, who was there when I was born, so I’m not putting pants on for anybody! We have two geese, and a big crystal under the tree outside my house – a big amethyst – and the goose laid her egg by the crystal and the big papa goose is sitting next to it, like a lookout. She is sitting on top of her egg next to the crystal and he is sitting there watching like a hawk. It’s on the way to my mom’s house, so if anyone walks by, he freaks out. You have to walk straight and not look at him. But I think we’re friends now.

Matthew: That’s going to be a special goose that gets born by a crystal.

Bella: It’s going to be so cute, like the holy goose of the farm! We’re going to have a ceremony for the birth.

Matthew: That’s so cool.

Bella: Do you miss travelling?

Matthew: It’s interesting, because, like you said, I’ve been travelling pretty constantly for the past 10 years and…

Bella: Never stopping. I’m on 5 years and you’re on 10 years. I can’t imagine how that feels.

Matthew: Maybe even a little bit more. Maybe 15 years. It’s like you get used to it, it becomes like a habit. This is the first time I have ever been in one place for six weeks other than when my kids were born and we were waiting for the births. It feels good though. It feels more natural. I would like to travel less if I could. But I think we just don’t know what things are going to look like in the future.

Bella: What trips me out is that it was so normal for us to travel every day. I was sleeping better on planes than I was in my own bed, which is, I’m sure, exactly how you feel. But now it feels normal to wake up and have coffee in the same place every day.

Matthew: I prefer this lifestyle; it’s healthier. But you know, what was kind of crazy with our group of friends was that we would see each other all over the world, in LA and then New York and then Tokyo, Paris or Milan, and now you don’t see your group of friends who work in the same industry as consistently.

Bella: Yeah, it’s crazy. That was the best part of what we get to do. I always looked forward to seeing friends during fashion weeks, casting directors and designers and our big friend link-ups every three months or whatever. That kind of shit made me so excited and now we are all so separated. Like, I have been playing Uno with… by the way you have to come into our Uno sessions, I’m going to send you the link.

Matthew: Are you doing digital Uno?

Bella: You don’t even know.

Matthew: How do you even do that?

Bella: There’s a few things… Also I’m about to be number-one gaming queen online, I’ll tell you about it later.

Matthew: You, a gaming queen?!

Bella: I am literally going to start an account where I just play games online, on video. I’m going to be a key girl, what do you think?

Matthew: I like it. [Laughs]

Bella: I have a lot of new endeavours I am looking into, such as gaming. What was I saying…? I love Uno, but I am also really good at Uno, so if you come, you
have to be very serious about it. I think we should also be using this time for a lot of other things, other than creative stuff. What are you doing for yourself?

Matthew: I do meditation twice a day. I have been doing that for a few years now and that has been good to have a kind of routine and…

Bella: …ground yourself.

Matthew: Yeah. And I have been doing online yoga which has been nice.

Bella: I’m going to start doing that.

Matthew: I’ve been trying not to read the news so much. I listened to this talk that Nike did with Deepak Chopra for Nike’s design community and he was talking about how sometimes reading the news is an additional stress, and we control whether we add that to our lives or not. So I am trying to balance it. I read the news a few times a week, but it is so easy right now to just sit on your phone and get engulfed in it. I want to try to be as present as possible. And just be OK with what today is and not think about potential versions of the future and how things could end up. For sure, anything that I’m thinking of, it won’t actually be like that.

Bella: Like the worst-case scenario?

Matthew: Or even the best-case scenario. It’s so easy when you’re still not to be in the present and just be thinking about the past or the future. I try not to look at my phone for the first hour when I wake.

Bella: I have always been on that. First hour, you shouldn’t look at your phone. That just brings in so much of other people’s energies to your own field. I really
think that an hour helps. An hour after you wake, just don’t even look at it.

Matthew: Yeah, it definitely helps. And just accepting what is happening. What about you, what are you doing that is healthy for you, for your mental or physical health?

Bella: I genuinely like to watch the news. We’re in this bubble of safeness and sometimes you forget what’s really going on in the world and the planet, not only with Covid-19, but also with poverty and deaths that are not even linked to this. There is still so much going on, so for me to be able to educate myself is the best thing I can do for me. Right now, I am really working on what I can do to help. That has been keeping me super calm. My mom would always tell me these stories about how we would be walking down the street and I would just hug anybody who was sitting there, whether they were homeless or not. I just loved being with people and around people and making people happy. Right now I am trying to see what I can do from here to bring that effect, which is making me feel almost
useless, which then makes me want to work even harder. I am a really creative person, but right now that aspect is shut off while I am in quarantine, because I am thinking about people. I tie-dyed this Chrome Hearts shirt last week.

Matthew: I love your Chrome Hearts collections; they are my favourite.

Bella: Oh my God, thank you. The thing is, there are so many things that Laurie [Lynn Stark, co-founder of Chrome Hearts] and I have had conversations about, so I think I’m going to start tie-dyeing Chrome Hearts shirts and then auction them off for charity and maybe get some more masks or get more food sent off to people. I’ve been donating to Feeding America and a bunch of little charities in New York, just to send food out. I don’t know exactly what I can do right now to help. I get super emotional thinking about the people who on an everyday basis work their asses off, on the lines and at restaurants and drive-throughs and hospitals. They are still exposing themselves. A lot of the time they have big families and don’t have a lot of help, so if we can do anything it is to give back to them and make sure their kids have food on the table. I hate feeling that these kids won’t have games to play with or food to eat while their parents are working. I don’t want the
parents to ever feel they are not doing enough. It’s a hard job being a mother or father, and to work like that while your kids are home 24 hours a day. That’s crazy. We’ve never had to deal with this before. There’s not really a manual of how to work through this, especially if you don’t have the basics. There is a lot of struggle out there and I am just sitting on my bed and wishing I could do more.

Matthew: Well that is one of your best traits, how empathetic you are.

Bella: I think something that we are all going to learn from this is that we can’t be selfish. I have been thinking about my friends who are alone in London. At least I have my mom and my sister on this farm, and I am still around human life. People are literally just alone and have been alone for four weeks. We need to check up on those friends and do what we can to help.

Matthew: So what are you going to do for the rest of the day?

Bella: I am going to take pictures of the shirt I tie-dyed. I don’t know where to sell it; I don’t know how to do an auction space.

Matthew: I did a sale of my archive on Grailed and all the proceeds went to an orphanage I work with in Kenya, in Lamu. Grailed get the money into their account and then they donate it for you.

Bella: Amazing, that is exactly what I am going to do. That’s perfect; you’re a genius.

Matthew: It’s good because they do a timeline and storytelling around the product and the cause that you are donating to, so people are shopping, but they can also learn about the cause you want to contribute to.

Bella: I love that. I think that everybody should be going through their archives, seeing what stuff brought them joy at one point, if it could now bring joy to someone else, and if they might be able to help our world right now. Just don’t think about yourself today! We’re going to be able to get through this together. Right?

Matthew: Well, I love you so much. Bye, Bella.

Bella: I love you, too. Bye. See you soon.