Kendall Jenner Opens Up About Having Children Later Than She Thought She Would

Kendall Jenner is 28, but it’s all relative, we suppose—in her world, everyone is having or has had babies. Okay, maybe not everyone, but all of her siblings have babies (Kourtney Kardashian Barker and Kim Kardashian each have four, Khloe Kardashian and Kylie Jenner both have two, and Rob Kardashian has one), and her best friend, Hailey Bieber, announced just yesterday that she is expecting her first.

Jenner said she’s “enjoying my kidless freedom” as the cover star of Vogue’s latest issue—but does admit that she thought she’d be a parent by now: “When I was young I used to say that by 27, I’d love to have kids,” she said. “Now I’m past that, and I feel like I’m still so young.” (She will turn 29 in November.) 

Having children remains a priority for her, someday, though. She was recently linked to Bad Bunny, and eyebrows raised this week when the two—thought to be broken up—were apparently getting cozy at a Met Gala afterparty on Monday night. (Bad Bunny was one of the gala’s four co-chairs.) “Relationships mean so much to me,” she told Vogue. “And I can’t wait to have a life with someone one day, to have kids, to create a family.”

Jenner has been on hit reality television shows since she was 11 years old; her family’s first foray into the genre came in 2007, when Keeping Up with the Kardashians premiered on E!. The family has now migrated to Hulu with The Kardashians, and 17 years in, the supermodel admitted to Vogue that the show is “not my biggest cup of tea,” she said. “To be honest, I’ve never been very comfortable filming. I just feel I’m not good at it.”

Elsewhere in the candid and vulnerable interview, Jenner—who has long been open about her mental health and her struggles with anxiety—told Vogue “I remember having these meltdowns on planes,” she said. “They would come out of nowhere. I’d be like, ‘Oh my God, oh my God, something’s wrong with my heart'—palpitations, shortness of breath, dizziness, double vision, tingles. The whole thing.” She said she would call her mom, Kris Jenner, “hysterically crying” and tell her “I need them to stop the plane. I need them to turn around.” 

Jenner told Vogue that she hasn’t had a panic attack in two years, and has learned strategies to help strengthen her mental health—breathing, distraction, meditation, journaling, and periodic conversations with a spiritual healer top the list, as well as weekly sessions with a psychotherapist.

“A huge thing I work on in therapy is feeling worthy of where I’m at and knowing that I can’t let what’s being said about me on the internet, especially about my worthiness, get in my head too much,” she said, adding that Khloe in particular advised her to avoid mean comments on social media to protect her mental health. “I let it get there, and I think that’s what brings me down a lot of the time.”

Another strategy to cultivate strong mental health is getting out of bed, putting “one foot in front of the other,” and getting her “blood flowing,” she said, adding “When I say I’m struggling right now, I’m not doing those helpful things,” she said. “Choosing to sit in my bed and mope all day is setting myself up for failure.”

Jenner’s Vogue cover came out yesterday, the same day Bieber announced her first pregnancy. Bieber appears in Jenner’s cover story, saying of her best friend “Kendall is somebody who really cares about growing and knowing herself better and going deeper with herself,” Bieber said. “I really respect that about her.”