Heidi Klum’s eldest child, daughter Leni, has reunited with her biological father.
On Aug. 11, TMZ reported that Leni, 14, and Italian businessman Flavio Briatore, 68, met up in Italy in late July. The site published photos of Leni and Flavio embracing at the Cala di Volpe hotel in Porto Cervo.
According to TMZ, Heidi, 45, was there too, as were her three kids with ex-husband Seal — who raised Leni as his own — as well as the German model-mogul’s parents. “Everyone was happy and having fun,” the site writes, adding that Flavio joined the family for a meal. It’s unclear if this was a one-off or if he will be seeing Leni more regularly.
Heidi and Flavio started dating in early 2003 and that December, she announced she was pregnant. But she and the former Benetton Formula One racing boss split before their daughter, whose birth name was Helene Klum, was born, reportedly because the model discovered that her boyfriend had been unfaithful. Heidi started dating Seal while she was pregnant. They married in 2005, had three kids together and split in 2012.
“Leni is my natural daughter, but the three of us happily agreed that it made more sense if Seal adopted her, because a child needs to grow up in a family,” Flavio told Italy’s Il Corriere della Sera in 2016, as reported by MailOnline. “Heidi, Seal and I have built an amazing relationship.”
“Heidi was living in Los Angeles and I was in London, the distance between us was unbridgeable,” Flavio explained. When she was small, Leni would speak to her biological father — who went on to have a son, Nathan, with model Elisabetta Gregoraci after marrying her in 2008 — on the phone for “two hours a day,” he said, but according to him, “it wasn’t enough. She needed to stay with her mum.”
Flavio also said at the time that he’d made his peace with the situation. “It’s hard to miss a baby that you never see. But I know that Leni is not an abandoned child. Leni is part of Seal’s family and Nathan is part of mine.”
In early July, Heidi spoke to HELLO! about Leni, revealing that the teenager loves dancing. “She dances three times a week, 15 hours a week,” Heidi said.
Asked if she sees her kids following in her footsteps, Heidi demurred, “[Leni] wants to dance right now. I’m letting her do what she wants to do. I’m not putting any seeds in my kids’ heads of what they should do. I want them to come up with their own things.”
Though Leni is a beautiful girl, so far, she’s not interested in modeling like her mom. “If they ask me one day, and they want to pursue it, I’m going to look into a modeling agency for them, but no one is asking,” Heidi explained.
