ROSIE HUNTINGTON-WHITELEY KNOWS PEOPLE MIGHT
HATE HER ON INSTAGRAM. “The problem with social media
is so much of it is not real, but look, I find myself having
a little unfollow of people, too,” says Huntington-Whiteley with a
laugh down the line from the Los Angeles home she shares
with British actor Jason Statham and their 19-month-old son, Jack.
“It’s funny because a lot of people I’ve met, their online presence
is very different to who they are in reality – in good and bad
ways – but it does make me think about my own presence online
and what it means. I want to talk to more women about it, and
understand how I can do things better.”
With a particular knack for a selfie, pervy on-set snippets and
the occasional family snap, the model-turned-entrepreneur’s
Instagram has amassed almost nine million followers, but she says
her awareness of how she presents online really kicked in when
she was percolating ideas for her online beauty forum, Rose Inc.
“I wanted people to come away from the site feeling good
and empowered,” she says. “So I thought, how can I build
something beyond my social media and how can I capture an
audience and how can I speak to them directly?”
There was also a much more personal reason for kicking
off the business – which launched in May 2018 – when she did.
Huntington-Whiteley and Statham had become parents to son,
Jack, in June of 2017, and she wanted a business that allowed her
to work at home and not be “on a plane every second week”.
“I needed to be with my family. And it’s the same with Jason;
there’s a lot more communication about where we’re going to be
and how we’re going to make things work. Both of us can’t just
take off like we have in the past.”
Indeed, when ELLE speaks to Huntington-Whiteley, she’s just
returned from a “brilliant” three-month stint back home in London
where Statham had been filming a spin-off toThe Fast And The
Furiousfranchise. After years of being based in Los Angeles, the
couple relished the opportunity to spend an extended period of
time back on home soil. “It’s just so nice to be there and be able to
have people drop through for dinner or pop round for a cup of tea
- all of those sorts of things that you kind of take for granted. When
you’ve lived abroad for such a long time, those are the things that
you really miss. It’s the small things that matter.”
The couple, who have been together for nine years, manage
to keep things pretty low-key, preferring the regular Sunday roasts
they host at their Los Angeles home for other British expats to glitzy
red-carpet events. “We just kind of get on with things. We’re pretty
normal – we’re not leaving restaurants separately,” she
chortles. “People want to live on camera 24/7 but that’s not us.”
Huntington-Whiteley says she and Statham share a very British
sense of humour (“we laugh a lot”) and thatthere’s a huge positive
in being in a relationship with someone who understands the very
public nature of the job. “I just feel lucky that I’m with somebody
who is equally as passionate about his own career as he is about
mine and he’s really supportive of everything I do. He’s involved in
a sense that he wants to know and he’s excited for me.”>
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