Cara Delevingne has revealed the message she would give her younger self.
The 29-year-old model and actor, who is currently appearing alongside Selena Gomez in the comedy series Only Murders in the Building, has emphasised the importance of self-love in a new interview.
“If I could give my younger self a message, it would be to love yourself,” she told Vogue.
“It sounds so cliché, but I would also say accept yourself, be yourself. No matter what that means, good or bad. Just to take yourself as you are. And to lift your head up high.”
She added: “That doesn’t mean to not speak up, not say the truth. But that means to be proud. Be proud of who you are, no matter what that means.”
The west London native also opened up about her coming-out story.
“It’s hard to call it a coming-out story, because I never really came out,” she said.
“It was more that I just decided to put my cards on the table and say look, I’m in love, I’m in love with who I’m in love with. It didn’t feel like I was making, you know, a conscious decision to be out.”
She added that she was “done” being in the closet.
“I was done with being ashamed for who I loved and who I was. So for me it was more just being like, love is love, and we should be able to love who we want.”
Delevingne is one of 12 stars appearing on the cover of British Vogue’s August 2022 edition, which celebrates Pride and the LGBT+ community.
Actor, singer and producer Cynthia Erivo; the Oscar-winning actor, singer and dancer Ariana DeBose; and model and activists Munroe Bergdorf also feature, alongside model Jordan Barrett, model and activist Sheerah Ravindren; actor and artist Cameron Lee Phan; models Aweng Chuol, Nathan Westling and Valentina Sampaio; drag artist Gottmik; and poet, model and trans visibility activist Kai-Isaiah Jamal.
In a letter introducing the issue, Vogue editor Edward Enninful lamented the “uptick in transphobia” and rise in homophobic attacks that many LGBT+ people are subject to.
He added: “Let me be clear: at Vogue we want to celebrate this community, to thank them and to listen to them.”
