Rosie Huntington-Whiteley: ‘Living in the UK has been grounding for our family’
On the first occasion that I meet Rosie Huntington-Whiteley for this story, her famous plump pout is in photoshoot mode. It is mesmerising to watch her face in action in the studio – her lips are positively pillowy and almost fixed in position, set with thick nude gloss.
A couple of weeks later though, when we sit down in a London members’ club to talk, the pout is off-duty. She’s wearing just a smudge of clear balm and an Anastasia Beverly Hills lip liner.
Huntington-Whiteley is relaxed and happy to “go there”, she tells me, on business, her looks, motherhood, and life with ‘Jay’, the actor and producer Jason Statham to whom she has been engaged since 2016. She breaks into a warm smile.
Today’s outfit is entirely on brand. A soft beige Wardrobe NYC trench coat, spotless white Burberry heels, and a duo of trophy handbags – a mini tan Hermès Kelly and a white Saint Laurent bucket for the overflow.
Later, she will gamely tip the contents of the latter on to the table to show me the creamy items in her buff-coloured make-up pouch, which is embroidered with ‘RHW’ in a polite taupe stitch.
“It was actually after having children that I really started to wear neutrals all the time,” she says, acknowledging the irony of deciding cream is your colour when most would be reaching for the Vanish. “I think post-baby I got confused and maybe had a sort of identity crisis. With less time to get ready, the neutrals, to me, make it really easy to get dressed.”
If it was an identity crisis, it was arguably the making of Huntington-Whiteley’s image. Her purist aesthetic – launched years before ‘stealth wealth’ became a mainstream trend – has made some 20 million Instagram followers want to wipe their own messy social media feeds and start over, projecting a beautifully curated lifestyle in shades of off-white.
Huntington-Whiteley’s evolution into an entrepreneur, with a reported net worth of £20 million, was somewhat built upon this vision of expensive but relatable flawlessness; the model who realised she could have longevity if she marketed herself, and cultivated her own portfolio of chic business ventures.
“M&S told me recently that one of my bras sells every 30 seconds,” she says proudly of her 12 years with the nation’s biggest lingerie retailer. “It is satisfying. That’s something I can tell my mum and dad, and it helps them to understand what it actually is that I’m doing.”
It is perhaps understandable that Huntington-Whiteley’s parents find it hard to keep up with her day jobs. She’s the ultimate millennial worker, a multi hyphenate: a model and occasional actor, a lingerie mogul, a social-media influencer whose every post is advertising gold, and a serious investor (she was recently rumoured to be eyeing up a takeover of Raey, the highly popular Matches Fashion own-brand, after Mike Ashley shuttered the retailer).
For her next act, Huntington-Whiteley is making her debut as a womenswear designer. She has collaborated with Wardrobe NYC, the contemporary luxury label that she really does seem to wear something from every day.
The brand, founded in 2017 by the power-stylist and Vogue Australia editor-in-chief Christine Centenera and Australian designer Josh Goot, is famed for its elevated basics – pieces that you could mix into any outfit, but with subtle design twists. Huntington-Whiteley shows me the 15-piece collection that she has designed, including a perfectly proportioned maxi coat, a sculpted mini skirt and a wool jacket with a waist so precisely nipped it looks more like a piece from a Parisian atelier.
“If you ask me who my style icon is, Christine [Centenera] would be up there,” she says of her collaborator. “I think it’s really smart that she and Josh make these capsule collections, not following any seasonal or catwalk trends. It’s very much silhouette and fabric driven – you’re not going to see much colour beyond the black and white, the neutrals, but that’s what I love about it. Everything goes together, and I can mix these new pieces even with pieces I have from their first collection years ago.”
The range has been a year in the making, and Huntington-Whiteley has enjoyed every geeky moment of production. “”I’m definitely meticulous,” she acknowledges. “Those tiny details really matter, they are what sets a product apart.”
The other new venture on Huntington-Whiteley’s plate this year is investment platform The Equity Studio. Founder Anna Sweeting brought her on board in the spring, and together they aim to fund and nurture lifestyle businesses.
When Sweeting first called her, Huntington-Whiteley assumed the prolific investor had wanted to offer funding for one of her existing businesses. Then she realised it was her skills as a brand consultant and strategist that she wanted to tap.
“I’m excited, at this point in my career, to be able to use my influence behind the scenes,” she explains. “I still love being on camera, but it’s not as fulfilling as it used to be, or [rather] I know it’s not the only thing. I’ve been exposed to all different parts of the industry, from the creative side to business building. I like to have my fingers in all those pies, and I think that it’s going to be very rewarding.”
Financially rewarding, too. I ask Huntington-Whiteley whether she considers herself a ‘shark’ or a ‘dolphin’ – the investment philosophy designed to identify fierce players out for a quick profit versus those swimming in friendly waters. It’s a question to which Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, recently answered the latter. ‘Maybe somewhere in the middle,’ Huntington-Whiteley laughs. What’s that? ‘An angler fish?’
As she’s gained experience, Huntington-Whiteley admits she has become “more shrewd” in business. “I listen to my gut,” she says. “I’ve been pitched many different things over the years. I think what you say no to in my line of work is equally as important as what you say yes to. I’m strategic in those decisions.”
Rosie Huntington-Whiteley x Wardrobe NYC wool coat, £2,450, net-a-porter.com; Burberry leather boots, £2,290, burberry.com; gold earrings, £6,700, and gold and diamond rings, from £3,400, all Tiffany & Co (tiffany.co.uk)
Stepping away from Rose Inc, the successful beauty brand that she founded in 2018, in May of this year was undoubtedly one of the more difficult choices she has had to make. Her joint venture partner, Amyris Inc, filed for bankruptcy, leaving the brand to be sold at auction.
It’s not something she has been able to discuss in detail due to the ongoing nature of the severance. “Authenticity and integrity are paramount to me in any business endeavour… and therefore, it is time for me to close this chapter,” she said in a statement at the time.
Huntington-Whiteley’s ambition stems, she tells me, from her teenage years, and her original goal to get away from rural life in Tavistock, Devon. Instead of settling for boredom in the countryside, she opened the Yellow Pages to look for some work experience.
“I had quite humble beginnings,” she explains. “I grew up on a farm, but I knew as a teen that I just loved fashion, even though I couldn’t afford it. I loved magazines and imagery.
“I got an internship at a modelling agency to get a foot in the door – I left school at 16 and had nothing else to fall back on. I remember thinking, “This is it, if I don’t make this work then I’m going to be unemployed with a lack of qualifications.”’
She may have arrived to do the photocopying, but agents soon clocked that the intern with those lips might actually have a shot at modelling herself. Huntington-Whiteley insists that she had never thought of herself as a great beauty, even though her career as a catwalk model lasted for a decade.
Silk garter top, £3,655, leather belt, £395, short tights, and suspenders, both price on reques, all Saint Laurent by Anthon Vaccarello (ysl.com)
“I didn’t grow up thinking about myself in that context,” she says. “I just knew that I wanted to get to London and to travel the world. When I ended up modelling, I thought it would be super short-lived. Agents would say, “Save your money, you won’t be working by the time you’re 25.’ Historically, that was how it worked, models were like athletes. But my modelling career surpassed everyone’s expectations – most of all mine.”
Huntington-Whiteley made her catwalk debut in 2004. She walked for Valentino and Balmain, and by 2009 she was a Victoria’s Secret ‘Angel’ in the brand’s heyday, as well as a Burberry It girl. She describes plenty of lows, as well as the highs. “[Especially] early on, it didn’t come so easy,” she says.
“There were good months and bad months. There were lots of ups and downs. I’ve done everything from teen catalogues, to bridalwear, through to wonderful luxury campaigns with top photographers. But that experience, the rejection for many years, and pounding the pavements going on castings, or travelling in economy class for years then getting to a location in the middle of nowhere where no one spoke English… those things really built a lot of resilience in me.”
A lot of today’s top models get to skip the grunt work, she says, by virtue of being a ready-made Instagram star, or descending from a famous family. But Huntington-Whiteley says she wouldn’t change her route.
“A lot of girls now have come into the industry and have had this meteoric rise and come from really privileged backgrounds,” she says. “I feel fortunate to have started from the ground up. You understand the worth of something, and it’s so much sweeter when you achieve it. My true personal growth has come from being at rock bottom, or going through really challenging periods.”
From the get-go, she knew she needed to expand her career away from fashion shoots. Elle Macpherson and Cindy Crawford inspired her; models who had moved into television presenting, acting, designing and brand ownership. “If you’d asked me what my dream was when I set out, it was to do this [mix of roles],” she says. “I feel like I’m living it. And I know that sounds cheesy.”
Stretch top, £2,600 and leather trousers, £,3850, and croc effect pumps, £1,210, Bottega Veneta (bottegaveneta.com)
Her first launch with Marks & Spencer came in 2012, and the Rosie collection now spans lingerie and nightwear, plus new contourwear this season. “We’re at the point now where it’s a proper business at M&S,” she says.
Work took her to Hollywood when she was 23, and she stayed for more than a decade. It was there that she first met Statham, 20 years her senior, yet a like-minded Brit in the middle of La-La Land. It was his drive that attracted her to him, she has said. Statham had worked as a market stall trader in Deptford, and even competed at the 1990 Commonwealth Games as a diver, before he found fame as an actor in Guy Ritchie’s Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch.
In more recent years, the motherhood/career juggle has brought fresh challenges: the couple’s son Jack was born in 2017, and daughter Isabella in 2022.
Huntington-Whiteley says the expectations on mothers are “not straightforward. Women have a ton of pressure from society and expectations from our family and our other halves.”
Non-negotiables for her include “putting the children to bed, being there at breakfast, being there for school drop-off.”. She and Statham are sometimes able to arrange their schedules to ensure that they are not away at the same time – a position she knows the couple are lucky to be in.
“It can be hard, but I know when it feels good and when it doesn’t,” she explains. “This month I have four days off and a couple of weekends. I’ve prepped the family, everything is organised. But I can’t imagine not working. It brings me so much joy.”
She hopes to set an example, particularly for her daughter, that she should have the choice to be a working mother if she wants to. “I want her to feel a sense of purpose and to be happy,” she says. “I look at my life and I kind of think I’m there. I hope, as she grows up, that I can be a role model for her achieving whatever it is that she may want to.”
Sequinned dress, price on request, Burberry (burberry.com)
“Being a mum, there’s no [formula] – if you do this many days at work and this many days at home, your children will turn out to love you,” she continues. “I like the idea of being a good enough mother. It’s not about being the best. Your relationship with your children ebbs and flows. I can remember in my own childhood, there were periods where I really just didn’t like my mum. Sometimes my son says to me, ‘I really don’t like you.’ I’m like, ‘That’s OK. I’m your mum, you don’t have to like me all the time.’”
Huntington-Whiteley and Statham made the decision to move back to the UK in August 2020 to raise their family. Theirs is an idyllic set-up – she speaks of family mealtimes and kitchen discos dancing to Madness or ‘hardcore techno’ (Statham sets that playlist, needless to say).
She shows me pictures of Jack on his first day back at school: he’s a mini Statham but with thick hair, in a skew-whiff school tie that’s too long for him. Meanwhile, Isabella, all bouncy blonde curls heading to nursery, is her mother’s double. Huntington-Whiteley seems genuinely content.
“Living back in the UK has been a really grounding experience for us,” she says. “The fact that we can walk out of our front door and go and get a coffee and a loaf of bread [without paparazzi intrusion]. We’d leave our home in LA and there’d be five cars following us down the block to the gym. Both Jason and I felt like it was really important for our children to not be impacted by our line of work.
“We wanted our kids to have a childhood away from cameras as much as we could. We made a rule that we wouldn’t share their faces on social media, and we’re not going to walk down the red carpet with them.”
She pauses. “Because I’ve seen that. I’ve seen children of celebrities whose parents didn’t give them that choice. It’s Jack’s choice and it’s Bella’s choice, whether they live in the public eye. If they want to, that won’t be a problem. But I just always feared my son turning round to me one day and saying, “You and Daddy didn’t protect me, I don’t want this.”’
The couple have what she describes as a “very tight set of friends”, with whom “deep and meaningfuls are absolutely necessary. Between my friends, it’s all out on the table,” she says. “You learn who those people are, and then you have friendly acquaintances in different ways.”
Rosie Huntington-Whiteley x Wardrobe NYC wool blazer dress, £1,600, net-a-porter.com
They don’t get out much any more, she admits, so when there is a chance to get dressed up, Huntington-Whiteley goes all in. “I usually start by looking on Vogue Runway at all the new collections, to see what I like,” she says. She works with the stylist Dani Michelle, who also dresses Kendall Jenner and Hailey Bieber, for big events, but says her day-to-day look is all her own.
“For the red carpet, I set the tone and then put the hard work on [my] stylist,” she admits. “It usually gets political – you don’t always get to cherry-pick whatever dress you want to wear. There are so many events, and so many people [who want to borrow the same designer sample]. I think that’s part of the fun though, I love the chase, the thrill.”
Body and beauty maintenance are factored into her daily routine. She’s currently installing an ice bath and sauna in the garden so that she and Statham can use them when they’ve put the children to bed. If it was up to her, she says, she would be in the gym for strength-training, weights and Pilates “five or six days a week. But these days taking yourself off for an hour can feel really indulgent.”
She and Jason eat early with the kids – for family time, but also because she’s a ‘big advocate for intermittent fasting. I usually finish my eating by six, and then probably won’t break my fast until lunch time [the following day].’
I ask whether, when image is her currency, ageing is something she fears or embraces. She tilts her head to consider. “As things go south and they change – which they have – I remind myself that getting old is a real privilege. Moving into my late 30s, I actually feel better than ever. I don’t know whether I look better than ever. But I also don’t care as much. I feel like I’ve learned what it truly is to feel beautiful; laughing with my family at the kitchen table.” She pauses. “Of course, a great photoshoot does help. That’s always a nice boost to the old ego.”
Huntington-Whiteley’s lips purse once again before she throws her hair back and laughs.
Styling: Tona Stell
Hair: Halley Brisker at The Wall Group
Make-up: Brooke Turnbull
Stylist’s assistant: Katie Selby-Green
Bookings editor: George Raymond Stead
