Chrissy Teigen is the latest celebrity to pose for the cover of People’s “Beautiful” issue.
The cookbook author, who shares daughter Luna, 4, and son Miles, 2, with husband John Legend, talks about her love for her family in the accompanying interview, saying she’s teaching her kids to be whoever they want to be.
“I’m an open, free spirit and I love kids to be kids. For us, kindness is such a big thing. When you meet our kids, they’re very warm and friendly. You instil those things in them, but for the most part let them be creative and wondrous and spirited and curious beings.”
Teigen, who was born in Utah and raised in Snohomish, Washington, and Huntington Beach, California, says her Thai mom Vilailuck “Pepper” Teigen also encouraged her to discover life for herself.
The star explains, “My mom was never once like, ‘You probably shouldn’t use Sharpie on your eyebrows.’ She just let me do it — and I learned! With kids, you let them figure out what they love. John and I are both very relaxed and willing to learn together.”
Teigen reveals how she’s spent a lot of time counting calories and sticking to various diets especially during her modelling days, but now, “it’s more important for me to enjoy things as they come. I put my mind and spirit over body.”
“If it’s going to make me happy and make me feel good, then I indulge in it. I’ve spent too many years counting calories and scheduling way too many workouts and trying to figure out what my term for wellness was for myself. Now I know it’s on the ground playing with my kids or going to a park or an aquarium.”
Teigen also talks about growing old with Legend.
“I can’t wait to see salt-and-pepper John and me next to him with my silver hair. I really look forward to our children being hopefully the type of kids that come over every weekend for Sunday dinner,” she says. “That would be incredibly meaningful to me. I will be so happy seeing my family all around the same table.”
She then shares of learning “how strong physically and mentally a body can be” after she and Legend lost their son, Jack, at 20 weeks of pregnancy last year: “I’ve learned how strong I am. This year has been a roller-coaster for everybody in the world, including our little family.
“Seeing people rally around us has been really beautiful. There have been things in the past year that I never thought John would have to see, but it’s also been so wonderful that we have prevailed and still see each other with so much more love than we could have ever, ever imagined ever in our lives,” adds Teigen. “Whatever love we put out into the world 10 years ago, we’re getting it back tenfold. I feel every piece of love from everybody around the world.”
