NEED TO KNOW

• Heidi Klum reflected on the challenges of being visibly pregnant on TV during her early Project Runway years

• She launched a maternity clothing line after struggling to find stylish pregnancy outfits while hosting the show

• Klum recalled losing a client who deemed her “not sexy” after becoming a mother, highlighting industry biases

Heidi Klum is reflecting on the biases she faced during her pregnancies.

The supermodel, 52, looked back on her early years as host of Project Runway and recalled the “challenge” she faced when becoming pregnant with her children.

Klum opened up to Paper for an in-depth interview on the topic while reminiscing alongside her two eldest children, daughter Leni, 21, and son Henry, 20, about her most memorable moments on the hit series from 2004 to 2017.

“I have to say, because my kids are here right now too. You didn’t see a lot of pregnant women on television. It was a big thing at the time,” she said. “I was pregnant with all my kids always on the show, and it was a challenge for me, because pregnancy clothes were really hard to find at the time.”

“So that’s why I started having a pregnancy line because of that, because it’s like, what am I gonna wear? I’m not hiding in the house pregnant,” she continued. “I’m on the stage, I’m on TV, and it’s a show about fashion, I need to have good things!”

Leni, from Klum’s previous relationship with Flavio Briatore, was followed by siblings Henry and Johan, 18, and daughter Lou, 16, from her marriage to ex-husband Seal. They also spend time with her current husband, musician Tom Kaulitz, who considers himself an “extra dad” to her children.

The mom of four looked back at herself as a pioneer in the model-turned-mom space. However, being visibly pregnant or a mom in the fashion space wasn’t always accepted in the early ’00s.

“I remember I had one client. When I was pregnant, they did not want to work with me anymore,” she recalled. “They thought that I was not sexy anymore, because I was now a mother. I was defined before children as being a sexy woman, and now with a child, as being a mom.”

“That I no longer deserved to have that… that title,” she continued. “That could also not be part of me any longer.”

Leni, who’s a model in her own right, opened up to Paper about the shift she’s noticed in the fashion world as part of the new generation of models.

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“I think there’s definitely been a major shift,” she said. “Before, with my mom’s generation, it was a stricter kind of criteria you needed to fit into, and I think a lot has changed now, and it’s given many different people an opportunity to be in the industry. So there’s definitely been a huge shift.”

Klum opened up to PEOPLE exclusively about her parenting philosophy and more in our exclusive cover interview in June 2025.

“You definitely go to the back of the line,” she said of becoming a mom. “When you have four kids, everyone always needs something, so you have to take care of everybody.”

Leni isn’t the only Klum kid in the modeling arena. Henry made his runway debut in Paris in January, followed by a modeling contract with NEXT Management, drawing praise not just for his looks, but his character.

“Sometimes someone will come to me and say, ‘I just met your son. He is the kindest, nicest young man.’ That makes me feel good,” she said of her son at the time. “Because no one has to say that.”

Read the original article on People