Gigi Hadid Is Going on a Social Media Diet Over the Holidays: ‘I Think It’s Really Empowering’
Gigi Hadid is going through a breakup (no, not with Zayn.) The “social media” supermodel says she’s splitting from Instagram and Twitter for a month around the holidays to focus on herself and her career.
Hadid, who just nabbed the British Fashion Council’s Model of the Year Award, is planning on taking a step back from her tens of millions of followers leading up to the new year. And her “month” long breakup with social media is an exercise in restraint she urges even her fans to consider.
“It’s not only for people in the spotlight, it’s for everyone,” the 21-year-old star told PeopleStyle at Reebok’s #PerfectNever campaign launch event in N.Y.C. on Wednesday. “At the end of the day, I’m choosing what I’m showing you. A lot of the world feels so much entitlement in other people’s lives, which is so crazy and so new for human beings. We never had that.”
She added that her cleanse from the networking apps will also help her block out negativity and Internet hate.
“I’m going to take a break when I feel like it and when I come back and share it with you if you want to be supportive and still follow me I’m so grateful for that,” she said. “But if you’re going to be negative or be upset that I had to be human for a month than maybe I don’t want your follow anyway.”
Hadid finds the process of stepping away to be not only “empowering,” but also a good way for her to connect with those around her.
“I’m so grateful for social media because it’s given me so much more in my career, but I also really respect my career without the social media aspect,” she said. “And I really want to still pay most of the attention to my job as a craft and not lose the art in it and the relationships that are meaningful to me not because of the money or the contracts but because of how I inspired designers and how they inspire me. I want to go back to focusing on that kind of relationship within fashion when I go to work for the next month.”
The star led Reebok’s #PerfectNever revolution on Wednesday, sharing not only her heart with fans (as part of a panel with Aly Raisman, Ruby Rose, Lena Dunham and Zoë Kravitz), but also her boxing skills. (Catch clip below.)
And while boxing may be her exercise of choice, Hadid says she’s also been incorporating more spontaneous exercises into her routine to tone her muscles.
“For the Victoria’s Secret Fashion show this year, I didn’t want to lose any more weight. I wanted muscles in the right place, and my butt to be a little perkier,” she shared. “So I was like eating burgers and I put a sticky note in my kitchen that just said ‘squats’ and every time I walked passed the squat sticky note I had to do 15 squats. It’s a good trick because you have to have integrity with yourself. No one else is watching but you’re like, ‘Okay, I have to do this for myself,’ which is important.”
Burgers and squats? That’s a fitness plan we can all get behind.
What do you think of the star’s social media hiatus? Share below.
