How Amelia Gray Hamlin went from awkward teen to fashion superstar (2024)

As Kendall Jenner and the Hadid sisters reach a decade in the modeling industry, a new crop ofnepo babieshave emerged to take their place on the runway.

Currently leading the pack is Amelia Gray Hamlin, daughter of reality star Lisa Rinna and actor Harry Hamlin.

The 22-year-old has become a force to be reckoned with over the last 12 months, landing multiple Vogue covers and fronting campaigns for luxury fashion brands like Givenchy and Miu Miu.

Hamlin has certainly come a long way since Rinna introduced her and sister Delilah Belle to the world as two awkward teenagers on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hillsin 2014.

And like many in the modeling industry, the brunette beauty seems to have tweaked her looks over the years in order to boost her career prospects in the cutthroat industry.

During her first season of RHOBH when she was just 13, many of Hamlin's striking features had yet to fully develop.

Her face was much plumper at the time and she seemed to have a more bulbous nose.

Hamlin's signature feature, which is her sculpted, angular face, was nowhere to be seen during her early teen years.

Old photos of the fashionista from that time period show her with a much fuller face and cheeks.

Another thing that's transformed on the young model's visage is the size of her pout.

She's always had full lips, but they seemed to reach Kardashian levels of plumpness once she started dating Scott Disick in 2020.

Aesthetic physician Dr. Jennifer Armstrong, who has never treated Hamlin, believes that she's 'definitely had plastic surgery' to achieve her incredible looks.

'It’s pretty clear that she’s had a rhinoplasty and lip lift,' the Newport-based injector told Dailymail.com when asked to give her opinion on before-and-after images of the model.

'Her cheeks could be surgical or non-surgical - either cheek filler or implants. Her lower face is less heavy but wider via chin reshaping and jawline filler,' she continued.

'Then obviously lip filler. She’s a beautiful girl but she has had a few tweaks to put her on the runway.'

While Hamlin has never admitted to cosmetic surgery, she did go under the knife at 16 for a breast reduction for medical reasons after contracting strep from a nipple piercing.

'It was the worst thing I’ve ever been through,' she toldThe Skinny Confidential.

'I went to the emergency room, they told me, "You have a kidney infection." No, I didn’t have a kidney infection. I had to go to Cedars' special disease doctor and he was like, "Yeah, you have strep in your left breast."'

Hamlin was told she was '12 hours away from going into sepsis,' which is a life-threatening condition caused by the body's response to fighting off an infection.

'The nipple piercing [was] being pulled and caused a small abrasion in my body,' she said. 'I already had the strep living in my system and then it went to that part of my body because it was an open wound.'

She added: 'It made my boobs so uneven and I was like, "Oh, my god, am I really gonna have to live the rest of my life with my left boob this significantly larger than my right boob?"'

The model also suffered from an eating disorder as a teenager.

Hamlin said that she was exercising excessively and liquid fasting, which eventually became so severe it could have killed her.

She eventually got so thin that her family took her to UCLA to get her treatment.

'We show up. It's like this really scary old man's office. It could not have been a more uncomfortable vibe for me,' she told The Skinny Confidential.

'He looked at me and he was like, "So, yeah, basically, at this rate in about four months you're going to be 45 pounds and you're going to be dead."'

Amelia remembered asking herself how that is even 'humanly possible' and couldn't get the number out of her head.

'I just snapped out of it,' she said. 'I was so lucky that I was just like, yeah, I don't want to be 45 pounds.'

Since overcoming her eating disorder, Hamlin has worked hard to climb to the top of the modelling world.

She's become a fixture at Fashion Week shows across the globe, walking runways in Milan, Paris, New York and London for Chanel and Vivienne Westwood.

Hamlin earned her first Vogue cover in March of last year with Vogue Japan and has since covered Vogue Spain, Vogue Mexico, and Vogue Adria.

She's has graced campaigns for Givenchy and Jean Paul Gaultier, and in April she won Model of the Year at the Daily Front Row Fashion Awards.

'I'm not sure why I wanted to be a model,' she said during her acceptance speech.

'But I have ever since I was 8. It was something that I needed to do. I knew it was the form of art that would free me and that it would make me feel whole.

'It's a lot of gratitude, it's been a lot of pinch-me moments. This journey has not always been easy. I've almost given up a lot, but I didn't because of my beautiful support system.'

She also boosted her supermodel status by attending her first Met Gala in May as a special guest of Vogue, wearing alight-up terrarium dress by Jun Takahashi that landed her on multiple best-dressed lists.

In an interview withVogue in January, Hamlin discussed how she 'curated' her 'personal vibe' as a model when she was still just a teenager.

'As early as I can remember, I always wanted to be a fashion model. In particular, a runway model. I don’t know why. I still don’t know why but I’ve never wanted to be anything else!' she said.

'I started spending my time studying the craft, rummaging through magazine stores, tearing apart magazines taking out images that inspired me and pasted them on boards,' she continued.

'Slowly, I curated my personal vibe and I got to know myself as an artist a lot better. With that, I went to New York for Fashion Week 1 year ago and I never looked back.'