Naomi Campbell announced yesterday that she is the mother to a baby girl by releasing a picture on social media.
The British supermodel, 50, is living in New York and is understood to have a new boyfriend with whom she will raise the child.
Friends yesterday said they believe that Miss Campbell – who never knew her father and was raised largely by her grandmother – used a surrogate.
She wrote: ‘A beautiful little blessing has chosen me to be her mother.
‘So honoured to have this gentle soul in my life there are no words to describe the lifelong bond that I now share with you, my angel. There is no greater love.’
Naomi Campbell, 50, announced yesterday that she is the mother to a baby girl by releasing a picture on social media
The British supermodel, 50, wrote: ‘A beautiful little blessing has chosen me to be her mother’
Congratulations poured in from friends including British Vogue editor Edward Enninful and fashion designer Marc Jacobs, who wrote: ‘How lucky she is and how lucky you are! What a wonderful mother you will be.’
Valerie Morris-Campbell, who was 19 when she gave birth to Miss Campbell, wrote: ‘Congratulations to my daughter Naomi on the birth of her daughter, I’m beyond thrilled as I’ve waited a long time to be grandmother.’
The model has more than a dozen godchildren, to whom she is close.
One is the son of Kweku Mandela, Nelson Mandela’s grandson.
In March last year, she shared pictures of herself bottle feeding him and taking him for a walk in New York.
She was devastated by the drug-related death of her godson Harry Brant in January – he was the son of model Stephanie Seymour. A friend said: ‘I know that she was very deeply in grief for him earlier this year.’
She also calls other youngsters whom she mentors her ‘children’, referring to them as her ‘chosen family’.
They include actress Ryan Destiny, whom she calls her daughter, and model Adut Akech, who calls her ‘Mama’.
In 2019, she posted a picture of herself cradling a newborn at an orphanage in Lagos and her publicists had to explain that she had not adopted the infant.
Miss Campbell has undertaken charitable work in orphanages for more than a decade and was very keen to have children with her long-term boyfriend, Russian businessman Vladislav Doronin, whom she dated from 2008 to 2013, but Doronin was married.
A friend said: ‘She was devastated not to have a baby with Doronin and he was her great love, but he didn’t want to commit, so in a way this is no surprise.
‘She has talked a lot about having children, and feeling very maternal, but did say that it just was not going to happen for her.’
The friend added: ‘She has always been very maternal and always cries when she visits orphanages. She has close ties to one in Kenya, where they called a baby Naomi after her.
Miss Campbell posted a picture of herself cradling a newborn at an orphanage in Lagos in 2019
Friends yesterday said they believe that Miss Campbell – who never knew her father and was raised largely by her grandmother – used a surrogate
‘But she said at the time, ‘I will be in this child’s life for ever but I am not going to adopt her’.
‘She is a religious person and always said that it wasn’t God’s will for her and that she accepted that a baby was not in her path. Obviously she has changed her mind.’
Miss Campbell hinted at the joy to come in an interview with i-D magazine this spring. She said: ‘2021 is going to be a great year, we’ve just got a few more bumps to get through first. I believe that this is going to be an amazing year. Actually, I don’t just believe it will be – I feel it will be.’
Recently she dated rapper Skepta and had a fling with former One Direction star Liam Payne in 2019.
In 2017 she told ES magazine: ‘I think about having children all the time. But now with the way science is I think I can do it when I want.’
Asked if she would have the child herself rather than adopt, she replied, ‘Maybe’, but she went on to add: ‘I do want a father figure. I think it’s important.’
In 2018, she said: ‘I’d love to have kids. I don’t discount anything in life. I love kids and always will.
‘When I’m around children, I become a child myself. That’s the little girl I don’t ever want to lose.’
Miss Campbell wept as she told Oprah Winfrey in a 2010 television interview that she had felt ‘abandoned’ by her mother, who worked as a dancer when she was a child.
Her mother apologised to her, saying: ‘I just wanted to give her the best life. I wanted the best for her as she is my princess. I do feel that I abandoned her.’
They are good friends now and Miss Campbell says she has found peace at last after drug addiction and convictions for assault.
She was accused of beating her assistant Georgina Galanis in a fit of rage while they were in Toronto to shoot the film Prisoner Of Love in 1998.
A Canadian judge discharged her without a criminal record for the offence, saying she had ‘learned her lesson and demonstrated her remorse’.
She went to rehab in 1999 and later explained: ‘I took on my s*** and learned from it. I try to move on, but there are certain times when people try to use your past to blackmail you, to benefit them. That s*** I’m not going to allow.’
Another personal assistant, Vanessa Frisbee, came forward in 2000, accusing Miss Campbell of assault, saying she was attacked during an argument. It never came to court.
In 2006, housekeeper Ana Scolavino needed four stitches after being hit in the head by a BlackBerry phone.
Miss Campbell pleaded guilty to assault and was ordered to complete community service and anger management classes.
In 2008, she was ejected from a BA flight following a dispute over baggage.
She pleaded guilty to assaulting a police officer, disorderly conduct and using threatening words or behaviour.