Do we like Bella Hadid?
Our score: 7 out of 10. A decent record of putting money and her platform behind others, with one contested position that has drawn accusations she has pushed back on.
Bella Hadid was born in Washington D.C. and grew up in Santa Barbara, California, riding in equestrian events. Her father came to the US as a refugee from Palestine and her mother moved over from the Netherlands as a teenager. She left Parsons School of Design to model full time, walked for Tom Ford in 2015 and went on to contracts with Bulgari, Fendi and Dior Beauty.
Her biggest stoush was in 2024, when Adidas used her in an ad for a sneaker tied to the 1972 Munich Olympics, where Palestinian militants killed 11 Israeli athletes. Israel criticised the campaign. Hadid said she hadn't known about the link and wrote that had she known, she “would never have participated”. Adidas dropped her from the ad and apologised for an “unintentional mistake”.
The longer-running fight is over her Palestine activism. After she joined a 2021 rally, Israel's official Twitter account accused her of backing the “elimination of the Jewish State”, and a petition urged brands to drop her. She told Vogue in 2022: “I truly respect Judaism, and I think it's a beautiful religion.” Earlier, after followers called a since-deleted Instagram graphic antisemitic, she wrote that hate from either side is not okay. Where you land depends on whether you read her words as criticism of a government or as something wider.
On the harm check, the record we found is mostly on the right side. In 2020 she told ELLE she hates that some of her Black friends in fashion don't feel accepted, even in the front row. In 2026 she called to “Abolish ICE” and said she stood with immigrants, per IBTimes. We found nothing from her against LGBTQ+ people, women or the planet, and no run of work with people who push harm. That's the whole list, so the record is thin on trans issues specifically.
The August 2026 pile-on is thin gruel. IBTimes says the claims about her friend's family come only from two posts on X, are unverified, and that nothing suggests Hadid shares those views. Critics said the friendship sat awkwardly with her advocacy, which is a fair talking point but not evidence of anything she's said or done.
So: a model who uses her fame for causes, and cops heat for it from both directions. If you think her Palestine activism is a bridge too far, you'll mark her down. If you read it as standing up for a people under bombs, she's a pass. On the evidence we found, she's decent to people and she puts her money where her posts are.