Lourdes Leon revealed that despite her mom Madonna’s edgy public persona, she’s a strict parent.
In a profile published by Interview magazine on Thursday, the model confided to her pop star parent’s best friend, Debi Mazar, that Madonna “is such a control freak, and she has controlled me my whole life.” She added, “I needed to be completely independent from her as soon as I graduated high school.” Leon explained that one of the ways she managed to establish herself is by not taking any of her mom’s money and paying for her college tuition and New York City apartment with the money made from her modeling gigs. “We don’t get any handouts in my family,” she said. Although, “Obviously, I grew up with extreme privilege. There’s no denying that. But I think my mom saw all these other kids of famous people, and she was like, ‘My kids are not going to be like this.’ Also, I feel like if your parents pay for things, then it gives them leverage over you.”
But Leon says that her mom has also always encouraged her to look at the big picture and think really seriously about what she wants to do with her life. She added, “My mom is very insistent on making me think about what I want to be known for beyond my looks. That’s not what I want people to remember me by. It’s not real.” But for now while she still has her youth and good looks, “Financially, modeling is a smart decision. I enjoy being very hands on with the campaigns I do, so that I’m not just modeling, per se,” she explained. “I dance, I have a very specific sense of style, and I’m interested in aesthetics, so I like to incorporate all those parts of myself into my projects. I don’t know how I feel about acting yet.” One of the reasons she’s not so sure about acting she tells Mazar—an actress—is that “actors really annoy me and I can’t be around them.” She added, “As for music, I can sing. I just don’t care about it. Maybe it’s too close to home.”
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