Gigi And Bella Hadid Are Nearly Unrecognizable In Throwback Pics From Their Childhood

Gigi and Bella Hadid are two of the world's most in-demand models, both blessed with good genes and a privileged upbringing that helped launch their careers in the spotlight. While the sisters are internationally recognized now, we had to look twice when Bella posted an Instagram tribute to older sister Gigi on her 30th birthday in April 2025. Along with snaps of the models as they are today, the carousel of photos showed the Hadid sisters when they were just tots.

"ITS GIGI DAY EVERYONE SAY IT WITH ME HAPPPYYY 30th BIRTHDAYYYY JELENAAAA!!!" Bella captioned her post, to which Gigi replied, "We be slaying the decades away." Aside from the fact that the sisters have changed a lot over the years, the pictures made it clear that the bond between Gigi and Bella is unbreakable, with snaps across nearly three decades highlighting their sibling love. And it isn't the first time they've been open about how close they are. "I am so proud of [Bella] for getting this show because she worked so hard," Gigi said back in 2016, when the sisters both walked in the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show (via Daily Mail). "[And] for us to be able to do it together ... She's my best friend and it's so crazy to be here together."

"Well it's inevitable to fight, but it's always to know [that] you're going to come back from it," Bella revealed years later on "The Drew Barrymore Show," confirming that they're still close. "And I think that is what's so important about my sister and I is going through life like we're best friends. And regular sister stuff, like stealing clothes, getting the front seat, you know, what music we were gonna listen to." Clearly, the sisterly bond hasn't changed, even if the two supermodels were nearly unrecognizable as little ones. 

Even if they looked a long way from the supermodels we know today, Gigi and Bella Hadid still had the makings of fashion-industry icons when they were little. That partly came down to genetics — Gigi Hadid has confirmed that she hasn't had plastic surgery and those model looks are totally natural — and the connections and privileges afforded to the girls in their youth. "Technically I'm a nepotism baby," Gigi told the Sunday Times in 2023 before confirming that she still had to work hard to reach the modeling heights she's achieved. "My parents told me, 'Just because you have parents who were successful, it doesn't mean that you shouldn't walk into the job being as nice and as hard-working as you can be." 

Back in a 2013 interview with photographer Kymberly Marciano, Gigi also shared that growing up in front of the camera — she modeled for Baby Guess at 2 years old, even before these throwback photos were taken — led her to invest in important relationships. "From an early age I was always the one hanging out with the crew during lunch break ... When I find people on set that I connect with, I really try to stay in touch with them in the future," she said.

In these childhood pics, Bella looks every bit the future model that Gigi does, but the ultimate career goal was different for her in the beginning. "There wasn't really one time in my life where I was like, 'I want to be a model!' It was more Gigi's thing," she told Teen Vogue in 2014, perhaps owing to an awareness of the dark side of modeling. But while Bella might be the more shy of the two, these snaps confirm that she was still photogenic enough to make it right alongside her sister.

From the outside looking in, it's clear that both Gigi and Bella Hadid have always been gorgeous, but Bella has opened up about the insecurities she faced growing up. "I was the uglier sister. I was the brunette. I wasn't as cool as Gigi, not as outgoing," she told Vogue in 2022. "That's really what people said about me. And unfortunately when you get told things so many times, you do just believe it." 

Despite having naturally darker hair than Gigi's blond, we can see from the throwback photos that Bella's wasn't quite as dark as it is now. In her Teen Vogue interview, she confirmed that she actually darkened her hair to differentiate herself from her sister: "We're very similar ... She's beautiful, smart, and funny, and I've always been the one who kind of rebels. I just wanted to show people that we're different. I even dyed my hair brown." Interestingly, Bella Hadid's latest hair transformation brings her closer to her natural shade.

It's completely normal that the sisters now look different from how they once did, but other throwback snaps of Bella in particular led to rumors about various cosmetic procedures, which she shut down in her Vogue interview. "People think I fully f***** with my face because of one picture of me as a teenager looking puffy. I'm pretty sure you don't look the same now as you did at 13, right?" While she did admit to having a nose job, she also revealed in the interview that she regretted it: "I wish I had kept the nose of my ancestors." As an adult, Bella learned how to stop comparing herself to unrealistic beauty standards and embraced the features that made her different from her sister. And today, both Gigi and Bella shine in their own ways.