Christy Turlington opens up in Harper's BAZAAR May 2024 Beauty Issue about having her nude photo weaponized against her teen son, why she doesn't want to be "the face of aging beauty," and her passion for maternal healthcare.
Christy Turlington Burns has been turning heads in five different decades now. Maybe that's why she admitted to being not all that "surprised" when a nude photo of her was weaponized against her teen son, but that "it hadn't happened sooner."
The supermodel shared the story as part of a wide-ranging interview for Harper's BAZAAR May 2024 Beauty Issue. Turlington shares two children with her husband Edward Burns: Grace, 20, and Finn, 18.
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View StoryTurlington told the magazine that her initial instinct was, "This is so rude!" She also said, "All I wanted to do was disappear," as the incident became a much "bigger thing" when the school got involved.
Ultimately, though, she said she quickly settled down and accepted the situation as just something that happened. "I don't feel embarrassed about anything," she told Harper's BAZAAR. "Regretting things is a waste of time."
The supermodel has been fortunate throughout her career, believing that her naturally quiet disposition helped her to avoid a lot of the chaos and preying on vulnerable women that plagued the industry.
"Being a person who is quiet and studies people, I think I learned how to not stand out," she explained. "My mom never said, like, 'Oh, here's how you're going to protect yourself.' I think I just really paid attention, honestly."
She also expressed that at 55 years old, and four decades into her modeling career, she has no interest in that number dictating this chapter of her life. "I don't want to put myself out as the face of aging beauty," she said.
And yet, she's coming to define that concept of aging naturally and beautifully for many, based on comments seen on clips of her various public appearances, per the magazine.
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View Story"Christy is the most classic beauty," said her friend and fellow supermodel Cindy Crawford. "She has the type of beauty that would be described as beautiful in any century."
While her self-confidence and calm demeanor are just a part of who she is, she also credits part of that to taking the advice of her daughter when it comes to social media. "I don’t have my comments on," she shared. "My daughter told me to do that a couple years ago."
Saying she's very happy not to see them, Turlington admitted, "I can't say that I’m Teflon. I'm sure if I did read something that was pointed or mean, it would hurt me in the same way. But I also try not to give that much attention to any of it."
Rather than focus on the number attached to her birthdays, Turlington is instead focusing on the passion that first drew her away from modeling regularly. After hemorrhaging in her own pregnancy, she started Every Mother Counts 14 years ago. The non-profit seeks to improve maternal health for all women, making pregnancy and birth safe for women worldwide.
To date, her organization has helped more than 1.5 million women, families, and healthcare workers, per Harper's BAZAAR. While she considers that her day job, she does not draw a paycheck, instead taking up modeling gigs "a day here and there."
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View Story"I'll be 60 in five years, and I want to start thinking through what the next five years will be for me personally," Turlington said, emphasizing that a big part of that is the fact her daughter is getting to that age.
"Early on, I said I hope that by the time she's thinking about if and when and how and why she wants to be a mom, these [maternal health] issues are the rare event that most people think that they are. And we're very far away from that right now."
In fact, as the article argues, things are moving in the opposite direction, with America seeing a doubling of its maternal mortality rate in the past 25 years. And recent legislation related to abortion and the overturning of Roe v. Wade are setting the stage for worsening statistics.
"I am motivated most days by the momentum that’s been gained in the last 14 years," Turlington told Harper's BAZAAR. "There's more bills and legislation that maternal health is a part of ... and if things were to go the way that we don't want them to go in terms of reproductive rights, there is opportunity. And historically, I would say a lot of energy comes to the surface in those times."