Heidi Klum reveals tip she gave daughter Leni, 17, on joining family business and becoming a model

Heidi Klum has revealed the tips she gave her 17-year-old daughter Leni on joining the family business and becoming a model.

Leni, who has covered such magazines as Glamour Germany and Vogue Germany in her mother’s native land, is Heidi’s firstborn.

‘I said to her, at the end of the day you have to be happy with yourself. And don’t do anything you don’t want to do. It’s okay to say no,’ Heidi told People.

‘You don’t always have to please people. But I’m always with Leni. And she has a very good head on her shoulders,’ the Teutonic blonde elaborated. 

In fact when Leni hit the cover of Vogue Germany for its January issue this year she was accompanied by her famous mother.

Heidi said of Leni’s modeling work: ‘It’s a fun thing for her to do. She’s not afraid of cameras because she’s always come to my sets and my shows.’

In fact according to Heidi despite how new Leni is to modeling: ‘She’s quite strong in the sense where she plays with it!’

Leni just signed with CAA Fashion, according to a WWD report this week, and in her new interview Heidi talked about her own role in her daughter’s business affairs.

‘I’ve been helping her with deals and she has so many things in the pipeline. It’s really exciting. She’s doing the things I was always dreaming to do!’

Heidi and her ex-husband Seal have three children – Henry, 15, Johann, 14, and Lou, 11 – and he recently spoke candidly about co-parenting with her.

‘It can be challenging. It requires teamwork. If you are a team, if both parents are a team, then it’s really easy and that’s not a real challenge at all… But you have to be a team. And if you’re not a team, then it can all fall to pieces,’ he told Us Weekly.

Seal then explosively claimed that he and Heidi ‘never had that teamwork’ with one another when it came to bringing up their children.

Their differences hit the headlines last year when she wanted to take the children to her native country so she could film Germany’s Next Top Model there.

Seal objected on the grounds that the children might be exposed to coronavirus but  an emergency court hearing was held and Heidi prevailed.

Although she was permitted to take them to Germany he was given ‘expanded time’ with them before and after the trip. 

Meanwhile Leni resulted from Heidi’s previous relationship with Italian businessman Flavio Briatore, but in 2009 Seal legally adopted her as well. 

‘Leni is my natural daughter, but the three of us calmly agreed that it made the most sense that he adopt her, because a child needs to grow up in a family,’ Flavio told the Milan-based daily Corriere Della Sera in 2016.

Flavio, 71, whose Wonderbra model wife Elisabetta Gregoraci, 41, gave birth to their son Nathan in 2010, told the paper: ‘Leni is Seal’s family, Nathan mine.’

At the moment Heidi is married to her fellow German Tom Kaulitz who rose to fame as the guitarist for the band Tokio Hotel.