Christy Turlington says she doesn’t “want to put myself out as the face of aging beauty.” In the interview accompanying her 14th Harper’s Bazaar magazine cover, the 55-year-old supermodel, activist, and philanthropist expressed her reluctance to have her cover story centered on her appearance, which she’s had limited control over in both traditional media and social platforms through the years.
The Calvin Klein model shields herself from unsolicited opinions about her appearance whenever possible. “I don’t have my comments on,” she told the outlet, alluding to her social media feeds. “My daughter told me to do that a couple years ago. I’m really happy that I don’t [have to see the comments]. I can’t say that I’m Teflon. I’m sure if I did read something that was pointed or mean, it would hurt me in the same way. But I also try not to give that much attention to any of it.”
However, this doesn’t mean she has any reservations about aging. “I’ll be 60 in five years, and I want to start thinking through what the next five years will be for me personally,” she told Bazaar. Looking ahead, she considers the future in which her daughter, Grace Burns, may be thinking about starting a family. Likewise, she contemplates the progress she hopes to make with Every Mother Counts, her organization with the mission to “make pregnancy and childbirth safe, equitable, and respectful for every mother, everywhere.”
Turlington Burns is eager to continue the work she and her team have done since founding Every Mother Counts in 2010, a project born out of her personal experience with postpartum hemorrhage after giving birth to her daughter. According to Harper’s Bazaar, the nonprofit has “helped to support more than 1.5 million women, families, and healthcare workers and invested more than $42 million in raising awareness and developing community-led solutions.”
And she shows no signs of slowing down. “I am motivated most days by the momentum that’s been gained in the last 14 years,” she says. “There’s more bills and legislation that maternal health is a part of. … And if things were to go the way that we don’t want them to go in terms of reproductive rights, there is opportunity. And historically, I would say a lot of energy comes to the surface in those times.”
“Early on, I said I hope that by the time she’s thinking about if and when and how and why she wants to be a mom, these issues [around maternal health] are the rare event that most people think that they are,” she told the outlet, referring to her daughter. “And we’re very far away from that right now.”
As passionate as she is about her nonprofit, she’s equally enthusiastic about what her personal life may look like with each passing year. “One of my friends is in her early 60s, and she believes that the golden age is 68,” she said. “That’s the place where you might be a grandparent, if your kids have families. You’re probably retired. You are hopefully healthy enough to enjoy your grandchildren or having more flexibility and time and freedom. And so I like that as being a farther-away number because I’m like, ‘Oh, I can build up to 68.’ ”
