Karlie Kloss and husband Joshua Kushner are liberal, but she manages to get along with her ultra-conservative in-laws. It’s all about focusing on her personal ‘values,’ she says in a new interview.
Karlie Kloss and her husband, Joshua Kushner, are ardent Democrats. So how does the Project Runway host and model deal with Joshua’s brother being part of the Trump administration? Karlie explained in a new interview with British Vogue that being related to Jared Kushner, who is married to the president’s daughter, Ivanka Trump, and is a White House senior advisor, has its challenges. But she stays true to herself despite that complicated family dynamic. “It’s been hard,” she said. “But I choose to focus on the values that I share with my husband, and those are the same liberal values that I was raised with and that have guided me throughout my life.”
Karlie and Joshua started dating seven years ago, long before Donald Trump ran for president and became one of the most divisive figures in the United States’ political history. The couple married in October 2018, with an elegant wedding in upstate New York, and recently had a second bash to celebrate their nuptials, in Wyoming. Their new marriage hasn’t been without controversy, though. A tell-all book released in March 2019 called Kushner Inc.: Greed. Ambition. Corruption, from author Vicky Ward, spilled some tea about the powerful NYC family — including the fact that they reportedly don’t like Karlie. Joshua’s parents, Charlie and Seryl, allegedly refused to meet Karlie for six years because they didn’t approve of him dating a woman who wasn’t Jewish.
“For years, people told me, the whole family spoke horribly about Kloss behind her back. A family friend referred to her as ‘the lingerie model,’” Ward wrote in her book. Jared allegedly told an editor at the New York Observer, which he owned at the time, that “We’re hoping [Joshua will] move on… she’s not that smart.”
Karlie converted to Judaism of her own volition before marrying Joshua, saying in her British Vogue interview that, “Changing part of who you are for someone else can be seen as weak. But you know what? Actually, if you’ve been through what I’ve experienced, It requires you to be anything but weak. It requires me to be stronger and self-loving and resilient. I really did not take this lightly. It wasn’t enough to just love Josh and make this decision for him. This is my life and I am an independent, strong woman. It was only after many years of studying and talking with my family and friends and soul searching that I made the decision to fully embrace Judaism in my life and start planning for a future with the man I chose to marry.”
The full interview with Karlie can be seen in the August issue of British Vogue, available on newsstands and digital download on Friday, July 5.