Naomi Campbell has announced the birth of her second child and the internet is clamboring for details. “How?” people are asking. Over and over… and over.
Let’s rewind for a second. London-born supermodel Naomi had her first child, a daughter, at 50. This was a couple of years ago, and the only detail she shared at the time, in an interview with British Vogue, was that she had not adopted and the baby was biologically hers. No further information on how she’d become a mother was offered, and in addition to that, two years later she’s kept her name private and has shared only a handful of photos, all of which obscure or cover her daughter’s face.
What we’re meant to glean from this is clear: Naomi doesn’t want this part of her life to be fodder for public consumption, to be gossiped about and picked over.
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This week, she has announced on Instagram the birth of a second child, sharing that he is a boy and adding “It’s never too late to become a mother”. The speculation has begun again. “Did she disguise a pregnancy? Did she use IVF? Did she hire a surrogate? Was the surrogate from the UK or the US? Does she realise she’s 53!?”, were all questions that flew in thick and fast on social media.
The answers to the questions, and these details, are none of our business. It might be a popular opinion that becoming famous means you have automatically signed up to invasive judgements for life, but it doesn’t mean it’s the right one. There are few things, if any, more intimate than conceiving, bearing or welcoming children. Naomi made it clear with her first child that she doesn’t want the public in this part of her life. Pre-empting their thirst for information, she gave out the bits she could bear. Then she put down unambiguous barriers, stuck to them, and asked us to back off. How disrespectful to disregard these all over again. She might be a celebrity, she might be rich, but with or without these facets, she is also a woman.
How she had her children isn’t for us to speculate over, and neither is her age. She is clearly aware of the aspersions cast on her, given the phrasing of her most recent announcement, and in what she told French magazine Madame Figaro last year: “I am aware of the looks, sometimes hostile, that people have on me. But I don’t care. I wanted to be a mother.”