Hailey Baldwin says she stopped runway modelling after ‘bad experience’ with casting director

‘Why would I even put myself in a position to feel small?’

(Getty Images for The Recording A)

Hailey Baldwin has opened up about her modelling career, detailing one of the experiences that made her realise that she didn’t want to walk the runway anymore.

Throughout her career, Baldwin has walked the catwalk for a number of luxury designer brands, including Tommy Hilfiger and Dolce & Gabbana.

The 25-year-old model reflected on her experience with runway shows during a recent interview with Allure, acknowledging how when she first started doing them, it felt like a huge success.

However, according to Baldwin, after a casting director said something to her about her modelling that hurt her “confidence” and made her feel “small,” she decided to step away from runway work, and ultimately discovered how much she prefers sitting in the audience than being up on the stage.

“I had a really bad experience with a casting director who was very important,” she recalled. “He said something to my agent that just shook my confidence when it came to the runway.”

“I don’t want to feel bad about myself in this space because I feel really good about the other work that I do,” she continued. “So why would I even put myself in a position to feel small?”

This is not the first time Baldwin has reflected on her decision to stop working as a runway model. In 2019, she shared a photo of herself on a catwalk on her Instagram story, where she expressed how runway modelling wasn’t her “thing” and never would be “again”.

“What I do know is that your arm truly should never wing this high when you’re walking on a runway,” she wrote in the caption, according to Page Six. “Hence why it is not, and will never be my thing again lol.”

She also drew a circle and question mark around her arm in the photo.

During her interview with Allure, Baldwin, wife of musician Justin Bieber, acknowledged how along with modelling, she started her own YouTube channel, which now has over 1.5m subscribers, in hopes of making her own narrative.

“I understand that there’s a lot about my life that people can’t relate to and I try not to be naive about that,” she said regarding the videos she creates.

In November of last year, Baldwin also announced on her YouTube channel that she’s taken on another career as a businesswoman and planned to release her own skincare line, Rhode. Her company is expected to launch this June.

While she had her “fears” about creating her own brand, she said that she feels confident it will be “something refreshing and different”.

“I think that as a team, we are going into it knowing that people are tired of seeing brand after brand after brand from different people and faces and celebrities,” she said. “I definitely have had my fears, for sure, because the market is so busy and so saturated. And I’ve had to, obviously, have the confidence in myself and in our brand to really feel it’s going to be something refreshing and different.”