The Stunning Transformation Of Cindy Crawford's Daughter Kaia Gerber

In 2023, Kaia Gerber was only 21 years old, but she'd been famous since she was born. Her parents are Cindy Crawford and Rande Gerber, the world-famous supermodel and businessman. As she grew up and began seeking a career of her own, Crawford spoke to People about her daughter's approach to the industry. "[S]he kind of sees how my husband and I have dealt with it throughout the years," Crawford explained. The family, she said, never tried to avoid their fame, never denied themselves a trip in case there were photographers. "Like anything," she said, "there's good and bad sides to it ... [S]he has a very good head on her shoulders."

Kaia didn't just seek a career when she became a legal adult, however. She's been working since she was a child, leading worldwide modeling campaigns since before she entered high school. That means she's very familiar with the good and bad sides of a career in the public eye, and as she's grown up, her relationship to her own fame has changed over time. Read on to learn more about the stunning transformation of Kaia Gerber.

When Kaia Gerber was only 10 years old, she landed her first big modeling campaign. That year, she led the very first Versace childrenswear line. In a Vogue article headlined "Baby Supermodel," designer Donatella Versace gushed about the budding model's natural talent. "Like her mother, Kaia has a very special gift," she said. "The camera really, really loves her. Having Cindy on set for the shoot took me back to all the amazing Avedon shoots we worked on together. It was such a special treat watching Kaia walk in her mother's footsteps!"

Cindy Crawford, too, commented to the magazine about her daughter's willingness to follow her into a modeling career ... perhaps an indication that, while they were okay with Gerber doing a photo shoot, they weren't ready to open their child up to the experience of giving interviews quite yet. "Being on set with my daughter and watching her in front of the camera was a fantastic experience," Crawford said. "I am so proud of her."

Ever since they dominated the fashion industry, celeb watchers have been interested in catching up with what the original supermodels look like today. In 2016, that meant Cindy Crawford was on the cover of Vogue Paris, an honor that also served as a proper launching pad for her daughter's modeling career. She'd been in Vogue spreads before, of course, but a cover is a big deal.

They posed together in similar leather jackets, both wearing hoop earrings, their makeup emphasizing their dark brows. Gerber posted the striking image to Instagram, gushing in the caption, "what is life?!! i honestly can't breathe right now. a million thank you's to @vogueparis & @mariotestino!!"

The cover came several months after Crawford discussed Gerber's budding career with The Edit (via People). "Kaia's blossoming into such a beautiful young woman and I really want to let her shine. I don't want her to feel in competition with me, although I'll tease her, and say, 'You have my old hair — give it back!' Or, 'Give me back my legs!'" the supermodel confessed. "But she'll be fine."

By the time 2018 rolled around, Kaia Gerber still hadn't reached adulthood, but that hadn't stopped her from reaching the pinnacle of the modeling industry. That year, she was recognized by the British Fashion Awards with their Model of the Year award.

The award was presented by Rita Ora, who has experienced a stunning transformation herself, dabbling in everything from pop stardom to hosting the one Tyra Banks-less season of "America's Got Talent." Explaining what the British Fashion Awards look for in a Model of the Year, Ora said (via YouTube), "With an influence that transcends the catwalk, this award celebrates the global impact of a model who has conquered the industry in the last 12 months."

Gerber took the stage and thanked her famous family, who showed up to support her at the show. She also shouted out the other models who were up for the honor. "To be included in such an outstanding group of women that I am so, so lucky enough to call my peers, is so humbling," she said. "You all inspire me in words that I can't describe."

When she was only 18, Kaia Gerber dated "Saturday Night Live" comedian Pete Davidson. If you're perusing our complete timeline of Davidson's relationships, Gerber fits in between Kate Beckinsale and Phoebe Dynevor, several flings on from his broken engagement to Ariana Grande. At the time, Davidson was in his mid-20s, which made their relationship hit the headlines for all the wrong reasons.

After they broke up, both Gerber and Davidson addressed what a bad idea it had been for them to be together. In early 2020, the "King of Staten Island" star sat for an interview with Charlamagne Tha God (via YouTube). He was asked to address comments from Gerber that the relationship had gotten overwhelming. "She's very young," Davidson said. "I'm f***ing going through a lot ... she should be having fun ... She shouldn't have to worry about, like, some dude that just has issues and s***."

For her part, Gerber reflected on the relationship several years later. Without naming names, she spoke with Vogue about realizing she didn't have the maturity to handle certain relationships. "I was doing fashion month, but I was so young I had kissed, like, only one person," she said. "I tended to date older people because those were the people I was around. And I got put in situations where one day I'd wake up and be like, 'How did I get here?'"

Just when it seemed like Kaia Gerber's career was really about to kick into overdrive, the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and Gerber was left without work for the first time since she'd been a preteen. She told Vogue that quarantine became a time of self-reflection, forcing her to confront things about herself that she'd been ignoring. "I was forced to go internal," she said. "Work was always a really easy excuse not to do that."

By the end of March 2020, mere weeks into the pandemic, Gerber seemed to have found her niche. "i know we are all feeling isolated right now, so I was trying to think of easy ways we can stay connected (beyond just scrolling) and decided i'm gonna start a book club," she wrote on Instagram, kicking things off with Sally Rooney's "Normal People." Hulu's "Normal People" adaptation premiered a month later, so Gerber really caught the wave, and she rode it right to book club glory.

The book club was still going strong years later, leading to a series of Instagram Live interviews with writers and other celebs about books. She talked to W Magazine about it, revealing, "When someone comes up to me to talk about my book club, I will talk to them all day ... It's my favorite thing, to actually hear that people read along and listen to the conversations."

Coming out of the pandemic, Kaia Gerber got into a relationship with Jacob Elordi, whose rise to fame happened over roughly the same time period as Gerber's. They stepped out together on numerous red carpets, leading to a significant amount of media attention.

While she might have shied away from such things after her bad experience dating Pete Davidson, Gerber told Vogue that it was fine because this one was love, not lust. "Being able to be with someone I trust, where we don't want anything from each other, having a safe, steady relationship like that," she said, "has really opened my eyes to the possibilities of love and what it feels like to love without conditions."

They ultimately went their separate ways, and Elordi later told Men's Health that he'd learned something from Gerber about how to navigate that public/private divide. "She handles herself wonderfully publicly, and I've learned so much from her about how to handle it, how to deal with it and just kind of be whatever about it," he said. "You know?"

By 2023, Kaia Gerber was firmly part of a new class of stars who came of age during the COVID-19 pandemic. Many of them, it turned out, had famous parents. Even though (or perhaps, because) plenty of nepo babies quietly changed their name before finding fame, social media became very interested in finding out who came from an easy upbringing, and many nepo babies were asked about the term in interviews.

Gerber faced the music in an Elle interview, and she owned up to her status in life. "I won't deny the privilege that I have," she said. "Even if it's just the fact that I have a really great source of information and someone to give me great advice, that alone I feel very fortunate for."

Still, she pointed out that she was moving into acting, and she didn't think the same nepotism rules applied in that sphere as they did in modeling. "No artist is going to sacrifice their vision for someone's kid. That just isn't how art is made, and what I'm interested in is art," she said, pointing out that she also got jobs because she was a good person who was polite to be around. "Yes, nepotism is prevalent," she said, "but I think if it actually was what people make it out to be, we'd see even more of it."

In 2023, Kaia Gerber had a prominent role in the hit comedy "Bottoms." She played a cheerleader named Brittany, the super-popular object of affection for Rachel Sennott's character. Brittany isn't just a cheerleader, though; she's also a fierce feminist, excited by the chance to sign up for a fight club meant to help girls at school learn to defend themselves.

The movie is a surrealist comedy that escalates to some all-out insane set pieces, but Gerber told W Magazine that she related to her character anyway, even though she wasn't personally a cheerleader. "I'm more annoyed that everyone knows me for being beautiful and popular, and no one knows that I'm actually smart and super driven," the character says, and the book club maven who played her knew a thing or two about that.

Emma Seligman, who directed the film, told W that she, too, saw the similarity between Gerber and her character. The "Shiva Baby" director insisted, "She's one of the most brilliant, well-read actors I've ever worked with."

After her very public relationships with Pete Davidson and Jacob Elordi, Kaia Gerber kept her next high-profile beau more of a secret from her fans. Sure, the paparazzi caught the "Saturday Night" star stepping out with Austin Butler on a few occasions, and they went to a few red-carpet events together, but Gerber didn't discuss the relationship much in the press the way her fans might've expected.

The privacy might've been a result of fans putting together that Gerber attended an event for "High School Musical 2" when she was a child, where she met Vanessa Hudgens ... who was later in a long-term relationship with Butler. "We still should be weirded out by that," a fan wrote on TikTok (via Yahoo).

During one of her only interviews about Butler — whom she ultimately parted ways with in 2024 — she told WSJ Magazine that their love was just for her. Revealing that she didn't even have social media apps on her phone, Gerber mused, "Honestly, I feel like so few things in my life are private, and that [relationship] is one of the things that I try to keep as sacred as possible."

Kaia Gerber and her mom Cindy Crawford have been through a lot together. Gerber told WSJ Magazine that she often went to Crawford for advice, explaining, "I can actually ask my parents [for] advice on career things, on business things. That's very rare, to have parents who are in the same industry or career as you, whose advice you actually can trust."

Gerber must've leaned on Crawford when they went through a scary incident in 2025, when they were both harassed by the same stalker. According to the Daily Mail (via Blast), a man named Daniel Lee Schoonover began sending them messages that escalated in nature. "[They were] threatening, sexually graphic, and extremely concerning," court filings revealed. He showed up at an event and asked Gerber to participate in a seance, and he even appeared outside their California home asking for access to the model. Crawford wrote in court documents, "I am even more disturbed that Schoonover has threatened to murder me and my husband, particularly [now] that he knows where I live."

Thankfully, Gerber and Crawford were both granted protective orders by the courts.

Now that Kaia Gerber is a firmly established celebrity who has picked up high-profile acting credits, fashion campaigns, and social media followers, she's opened up more about what it was like to grow up as Cindy Crawford's daughter. Speaking to WSJ Magazine in 2023, she confessed that she grew up knowing Crawford had been famous but didn't really grasp it until she was older. After watching the docuseries "The Super Models," things became clearer. "I was like, 'I didn't realize,'" Gerber recalled telling her mother. "I knew you were iconic, but ... "

Even though fans love to compare Gerber's looks with her mother's, she often turns down comparisons along those lines. In a 2026 interview with Yahoo, for example, she laughed, "I wish I did [look like her]. I'm not even close."

She went into more detail in a September Issue cover story for Vogue, explaining that the constant comparisons led to some unhealthy ways of thinking about her own body. Even though she was reading comments about her body online, she wasn't ready to comment herself, and that disparity led to disordered eating. "People are like, 'You look terrible,'" Gerber said, "and it doesn't exactly make you go, 'Oh, good. Let me get over this mental illness then!'" After all, that's a classic example of what not to say to someone who has an eating disorder.

In 2026, Kaia Gerber's next high-profile acting role debuted on Hulu. The "Babylon" actor started on Ryan Murphy's adaptation of "The Shards," based on the book by Bret Easton Ellis. She plays Susan Reynolds, a beautiful, popular student who is also smart ... which means we may someday expect Gerber to be one of those celebs who open up about typecasting.

In a joint interview for Interview Magazine, Gerber and co-star Hayes Warner spoke about what it was like to become friends on the set of the show, which is a steamy thriller set in a version of Los Angeles from the early 1980s. "Friendship dates can be awkward, but we sat down and immediately I was like, 'Oh, we're going to be best friends,'" Gerber said.

She also said filming the show helped her reconnect with LA, which she'd moved away from for a while. After filming, Warner and other actors would go over to Gerber's house, and they'd go driving through the streets of Tinseltown, just as their characters do on the show. "It was so meta in that way," Gerber reflected, "but it made me fall in love with LA all over again."