How Naomi Campbell went from rehab and chucking phones to supermum – and why she still refuses to name her baby daddy
STARING defiantly into the lens and clutching her naked baby to her chest, Naomi Campbell is quite literally the model mum.
And the role suits her — the supermodel looks better than ever and, just three months from turning 52, could easily pass for decades younger.
Yesterday, Vogue magazine unveiled its magnificent cover shot of Naomi with her nine-month-old daughter, whose name has not yet been revealed.
Naomi has lived a life of jet-setting wealth and glamour — but reckons a baby beats it all.
She says: “I always knew that one day I would be a mother, but it’s the biggest joy I could ever imagine. I’m lucky to have her and I know that.”
Such a picture of domesticity is a far cry from the wild partying, the run-ins with the law and unsuitable boyfriends that once dogged one of the world’s most famous divas.
Having spent time in rehab for drug addiction in 1999, Naomi carried out five days’ community service in 2007 after throwing her jewel-encrusted Blackberry phone at her housekeeper Ana Scolavino.
There was also the incident at Heathrow airport in 2008, when she was thrown off a flight in a row over lost luggage and admitted assaulting a police officer, disorderly conduct and using threatening words or behaviour. She was told to do 200 hours’ community service and fined.
And in August 2009, she was convicted of assault by a Sicilian court for hitting a paparazzo with her handbag, which scratched his eye, and landed her a six-month suspended jail term.
‘Over the moon’
For the last few years, Naomi has changed her ways and now, finally, found the happiness she has been searching for.
She recently revealed she had quit smoking and taken up swimming in the ocean for “an hour or two a day”.
On her YouTube series No Filter, she told how she had become a fan of the graceful Chinese exercise Tai Chi, adding: “It’s got to be slow-moving, but I loved it — mentally, I loved it.”
When lockdown happened, like many people, it seemed Naomi realised what was important in her life.
In October 2020, she buried her beloved gran, Ruby, who died aged 94, and revealed she had lost a friend to suicide during the pandemic.
A source told The Sun last year: “Naomi has really mellowed in the past year and is in a wonderful place in life.
“She has been living in America with her boyfriend and is really happy. It finally felt like the perfect time to become a mother and she is over the moon.
“The first lockdown allowed her to stop and take stock of the important things and she decided now was the time to properly look into starting a family.”
And Naomi may have finally found steady love — judging by the giant diamond on her engagement ring in the cover shot — after some seriously questionable flings.
Surprisingly, she dated One Direction singer Liam Payne, who is 23 years her junior, for four months in 2018, but found him “a bit too clingy” according to a source at the time.
Before him, there was another rumoured toyboy, grime artist Skepta, who is 12 years younger than Naomi, as well as a brief relationship with rapper P Diddy in 2002.
Otherwise, she has dated tycoons and high flyers, including Egyptian tobacco boss Louis C. Camilleri, Toyota heir Hassan Jameel, Benetton clothing company director Flavio Briatore, U2 bassist Adam Clayton and actors Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio.
Her romance with Russian businessman Vladislav Doronin, from 2008 to 2013, saw her reportedly wanting to start a family with him.
One friend said: “She was devastated not to have a baby with Doronin and he was her great love, but he didn’t want to commit.
“She has talked a lot about having children and feeling very maternal.”
Perhaps her yearning for a family came from her own rather unusual childhood. She never met her father, and her mum, Valerie Morris- Campbell, was often absent as she worked as a dancer all over the world.
When Valerie was away, Naomi’s aunts, Yvonne and Jane, stepped in to ferry the teenage model — who had been scouted aged just 15 by a model agency boss — to jobs in the fashion capitals of Europe.
While back at home in Streatham, South London, Jamaican gran Ruby taught her how to fend for herself.
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Having never met her own father, the famous supermodel didn’t see a partner as a necessity.
She said in 2014, when she was 43: “I do want to have children, whether I have a man or not. I will have it on my own” pointing out that “science” could help her do so at any age.
Now, she is said to be bringing up her daughter with her unnamed multi-millionaire boyfriend in New York.
When she shocked the world last May by announcing a “beautiful little blessing has chosen me to be her mother” many questioned whether she had used a surrogate.
All she will say on that matter is that the baby wasn’t adopted — and that she enjoys singing nursery rhymes and playing with dolls with her daughter.
She also admits she’s been encouraging her older friends to follow her lead and have babies themselves.
For more than a decade, Naomi has visited orphanages in places such as Nigeria, Jamaica and Kenya.
In another YouTube film called Meet My Chosen Family, she revealed her maternal side with children at the Rising Sun orphanage in Kenya, many of whom she had known since they were babies.
She said: “I love taking them to the beach and dancing with them.
The first lockdown allowed her to stop and take stock of the important things and she decided now was the time to properly look into starting a family.
“I have pure unconditional love for them.”
And she has been mentoring young models, who affectionately call her “aunty”.
One, Adut Akech, has even dubbed her “Mama”, and says: “Naomi is my family and always will be.”
Naomi said of her role: “I’m bossy and motherly. And I don’t want to see my babies go in the wrong direction.”
And last July, she was announced as a Platinum Jubilee Global Ambassador for the Queen’s Commonwealth Trust, which invests in young leaders across the nations. Naomi said it was “an honour for me to take this very grown-up role”.
Some might marvel at Naomi’s decision to become a mum in middle age, others might criticise it.
But she has gained greater confidence in her 50s.
Hectic schedule
Previously describing herself as a “work in progress”, in October 2020, she said: “If it feels like something is right, and if I fit it as a 50-year-old woman, then sign me up!”
While many things have changed for the South London-born star, it’s reassuring to read that Naomi — who is renowned for being fashionably late — was also behind schedule for her interview with Vogue.
Their original meeting was set for 34 days earlier, but it was delayed and eventually held on a video call during a flight between the UK and Qatar because of Naomi’s incredibly hectic schedule.
No doubt she is discovering the joys of being a working mum (albeit one with a nanny).
She’s been on the catwalks in London, Milan and Paris this season, strutting her stuff alongside 18-year-olds, as well as working on an upcoming Apple docu-series, The Supermodels.
Luckily, her daughter — who is happy to travel all over the world with Naomi — sounds like an angel.
Naomi said: “She’s a good girl: she sleeps very well, she hardly ever cries.”
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So far, no teething troubles either — and clearly, that goes for the new mum too.
- The full interview is available in the March edition of British Vogue from February 22.
What a first baby debut!
By Clemmie Moodie
IN an age of social media, when every spit, cough and toilet break is documented, it takes a lot to genuinely shock in the world of celebrity.
With her latest Vogue cover, Naomi Campbell did just that.
Aged 51, the supermodel debuted her firstborn daughter, confirming the nine-month-old was biologically hers. And what a debut.
Much has already been opined about whether Naomi was selfish to have a child so (relatively) late in life.
This is 2022, not 1922; 50 is barely middle-aged.
Naomi has the physique of a racing snake. She is supremely fit and, with millions of pounds at her disposal, clearly looks after herself. Her child will want for nothing.
Or, as jet-setting Naomi breezily explained in her accompanying interview – at 40,000ft, flying to Qatar – “I’m lucky my little one loves to travel like me – no whimpering taking off or landing”.
That’ll be first class for you, Naomi.
At some point we all have to grow up.
Naomi – who spat at police officers on a 2008 flight, getting sentenced to 200 hours’ community service – has finally done just that.
Good luck to her.
