THE QUEER GIRL NEXT DOOR
If you wanted to woo supermodel STELLA MAXWELL — the Victoria’s Secret Angel who got her coveted wings in 2015 — it seems likely that taking her to an amusement park in her adopted Southern California would make a good first date. That is, after all, where she was photographed with actress Kristen Stewart on one of their earliest public dates in 2017, walking hand in hand at Knott’s Berry Farm, both sporting black jackets and looking effortlessly cool.
Two years earlier, she and girlfriend Miley Cyrus ate churros together at Disneyland, Lady and the Tramp style, though paparazzi seemed to miss the moment their lips finally met. Weeks later the duo showed up in W magazine’s vaunted September issue, at the re-creation of an ’80s party. The photoshoot starred other young Hollywood luminaries, too, including Paris Hilton, Asia Chow, and Emily Ratajkowski. In the racy shot, Cyrus is nude to the waist, adorned in glitter and tattoos, while Maxwell feeds her cake.
Fans of fashion know Maxwell as a runway dream. She’s walked for the industry’s biggest names: Jeremy Scott, Dolce & Gabbana, Marc Jacobs, Dsquared2, Chanel, Miu Miu, Mugler, Tommy Hilfiger, Versace, Moschino, Tory Burch, Giles, Manu Rios, and Fendi (and she’s posed for kingmakers Alexander McQueen and Karl Lagerfeld). She collaborated with The Kooples, a French brand, on a handbag named for her.
But queer femmes know Maxwell for something even greater than her role in the fashion industry: She’s one of us. She had a long, public relationship with Stewart, Hollywood’s alt-“it girl” if ever there were one. In addition to Cyrus, Maxwell has also been linked to a number of her friends, including Barbara Palvin (of Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue fame), actress Lily-Rose Depp (Johnny Depp’s daughter, just before she dated Timothée Chalamet), Taylor Hill (another Victoria’s Secret model), and even Bella Hadid (who made out with Maxwell in public somewhere between Hadid’s first and second breakups with The Weeknd).
Maxwell’s never shied away from the paparazzi, either. Some may see her maturing as a queer woman, coming into her own, but she can
