Bella Hadid Will Not Compete in Three Olympic Equestrian Events This Year

This week it was revealed that model Bella Hadid, daughter of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star Yolanda Foster, was forced to give up her dream of riding in the 2016 Olympic Games because of Lyme Disease. Shelving her Olympic dreams, Foster wrote in a recent Bravo blog post, has been the “biggest heartbreak” of Bella’s life. Due to the severity of her illness, Foster noted, Bella has been forced instead to focus on her “blossoming modeling career,” despite dealing with her symptoms every day. Just this week, the model was in Paris walking in the Chanel runway show during Haute Couture Fashion Week. Which, as fallback plans go, beats a 9-to-5 cashier’s position at the Dollar Depot.

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Hadid, who does not currently have an FEI ranking and was competing in the junior equitation divisions at shows such as HITS Thermal as recently as 2013, was widely quoted in Porter magazine in October of last year saying that she was working toward a spot on the 2016 team to compete in three events: eventing, jumping and dressage. Now it’s clear from even a cursory glimpse at her Instagram account that while horses do not appear to be a major part of Bella’s life (at least compared to most other horse girls in training for the Olympics), she’s been a rider long enough to know that such a claim is far-fetched. Three Olympic events? Really? Perhaps she meant eventing, but either way, we’d like to call Porter magazine for a quick fact check on that one.

To be sure, Lyme Disease is no laughing matter (just ask anyone who’s struggled with it), and we certainly wish Bella well with her treatment and recovery. All we’re saying is that maybe there’s a weeeee bit more involved to making the Olympic equestrian team—any Olympic equestrian team—than Bella lets on. After all, even a lifetime membership to Taylor Swift’s Girl Squad will only get you so far. (McLain? Karen O’Connor? Anybody want to back us up on this one?)

Meanwhile, in other celebrity news…