Karlie Kloss Biography: Age, Height, Husband Joshua Kushner, Kids, Model Career, Net Worth

Karlie Kloss is a supermodel who became a media owner. She was a Victoria’s Secret Angel, has appeared on dozens of Vogue covers, founded the coding nonprofit Kode with Klossy, and bought i-D magazine in 2023. In November 2026 she returned to the tabloid cycle for a different reason: she was photographed sitting next to Taylor Swift at a Kansas City Chiefs game, ending years of speculation about a falling-out between the two former best friends.

She is 34 years old, married to investor Joshua Kushner, and the mother of three children. This biography covers Karlie Kloss’s age, height, husband, kids, family, modeling career, Victoria’s Secret years, Taylor Swift friendship, Kode with Klossy, i-D, net worth, quotes, and the controversies that come with being related to the Trump family by marriage.

Quick Facts

Readers who search for Joshua Kushner, Kode with Klossy, i-D magazine, Victoria’s Secret, Taylor Swift, Ivanka Trump, Project Runway, and Spaghetti Code often land on Kloss’s name. Her friendship with Swift and her marriage into the Kushner family are the two most common entry points.

Early Life & Education

Karlie Elizabeth Kloss was born on August 3, 1992, in Chicago, Illinois, to Tracy Kloss, a freelance art director, and Kurt Kloss, an emergency physician. She has three sisters: an older sister, Kristine, and twin younger sisters, Kimberly and Kariann. The family moved to St. Louis, Missouri, in 1994, and she grew up in the suburbs there.

She attended Webster Groves High School, where she was a cheerleader during her freshman year. She graduated in 2011, by which point she was already an international model with a runway schedule that made ordinary teenage life impossible. In 2013 the family moved to Goshen, New York, to support her career.

Kloss was discovered in 2005 at a local benefit runway show. In 2006, at 14, she posed for photographer David Leslie Anthony in a cover and editorial spread called “Almost Famous” for the June issue of Scene Magazine. Elite Model Management Chicago forwarded the tear sheets to its New York office, which signed her.

She enrolled at New York University’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study in September 2015, studying coding and the intersection of fashion and technology. She has described herself as a curious student rather than a natural academic, and the coding classes became the seed for her nonprofit.

Career Journey

Discovery and the Runway Rise

Kloss’s first big season was fall 2008. She walked 31 shows in New York, opening for Carolina Herrera and closing for Marc Jacobs, then 20 in Milan and 13 in Paris, for a total of 64 shows. She was a Calvin Klein exclusive and quickly became a fixture in the pages of Vogue, W, and Numéro.

A legal fight followed when Elite Model Management sued Next Management for allegedly stealing her away. The case settled out of court. She later moved to IMG Models, and in 2009 Vogue Paris named her one of the top 30 models of the 2000s.

By 2019 she had appeared on 40 international Vogue covers. She fronted campaigns for Dior, Donna Karan, Lacoste, Lanvin, Jean Paul Gaultier, Nike, Chanel’s Coco Noir, Coach, L’Oréal Paris, and Estée Lauder, and she designed collaborations with Frame Denim and Warby Parker.

Victoria’s Secret and the Angel Years

Kloss made her Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show debut in 2011 and became an Angel in 2013. She was one of the highest-profile faces of the brand at its commercial peak, walking alongside Adriana Lima, Candice Swanepoel, and Lily Aldridge.

She left in 2015, later citing concerns about the brand’s messaging to young women. The departure came as Victoria’s Secret was beginning to lose cultural authority, and Kloss’s explanation made her part of the first wave of Angels who publicly questioned the company rather than quietly aging out.

One earlier controversy still follows the brand: in 2012 an outfit featuring a Native American headdress was cut from the broadcast after complaints that it was offensive. Kloss was the model wearing it, though the design was not hers.

Taylor Swift, Bad Blood, and the Girl Squad

Kloss and Taylor Swift met in the early 2010s and became inseparable. She appeared in Swift’s “Bad Blood” music video in 2015 as Knockout, walked in the 1989 World Tour, and posed with Swift for a March 2015 American Vogue cover. The two were central members of the “girl squad” that defined that era of pop culture.

The friendship cooled in the late 2010s. Neither woman gave a detailed public explanation, and the silence allowed a thousand theories to grow. On November 8, 2026, Kloss was photographed sitting in Swift’s box at the Chiefs-Jets game at Arrowhead Stadium, the first time the two had been seen together in years. The reunion landed in every tabloid and entertainment outlet within hours.

Kode with Klossy and the Business of Coding

In April 2015 Kloss launched Kode with Klossy, a nonprofit that teaches girls and non-binary teens to code. She partnered with the Flatiron School and Code.org, started with a free two-week summer camp, and built a curriculum around Ruby, JavaScript, and Swift.

By 2025 the organization had reached almost 11,000 young people in more than 100 countries. In December 2025 she announced her debut picture book, Spaghetti Code: A Story About Problem-Solving, Pasta, and the Power of Big Ideas, inspired by the program.

Her own coding education began at the Flatiron School in 2014, where she studied Ruby on Rails. She has narrated a “Coding” episode of Netflix’s Explained and has become one of the few fashion figures who can talk about software without sounding like a brand ambassador.

i-D, Life, and Media Ownership

Kloss led a group of investors who purchased W magazine in 2020 and became a trustee of Barnard College the same year. In November 2023 she acquired British fashion magazine i-D from Vice Media Group and became its chief executive officer.

In March 2024 she and her husband revived Life magazine in print and digital through Bedford Media, in partnership with Dotdash Meredith. The move made her a media owner twice over, with a fashion title and a historic American photo magazine under the same roof.

Project Runway and Television

From 2019 to 2020 Kloss hosted and executive produced Project Runway, taking over from Heidi Klum. She was the face of a reboot that struggled to recapture the original’s cultural footprint, but the job introduced her to a television audience that knew her name without knowing her runway work.

She has also appeared as herself on Gossip Girl, co-hosted MTV’s House of Style, and produced Movie Night with Karlie Kloss for Freeform.

Career Stats

• 2005: Discovered at a local benefit runway show
• 2008: Walks 64 shows in one season
• 2011: Debuts in the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show
• 2013: Becomes a Victoria’s Secret Angel
• 2015: Launches Kode with Klossy; appears in “Bad Blood”
• 2019: Becomes host of Project Runway
• 2023: Acquires i-D and becomes its CEO
• 2026: Reunites with Taylor Swift at a Chiefs game

Personal Life

Kloss began dating businessman and investor Joshua Kushner in 2012. They became engaged in July 2018, a month after she converted to Judaism, and married on October 18, 2018, in upstate New York. A second celebration followed in Wyoming in June 2019.

The couple has three children: a son born in March 2021, a second son born in July 2023, and a daughter born in September 2025. They own homes in Miami, Manhattan’s Puck Building, and Malibu, where they bought the Wave House for $29.5 million in 2024.

Kushner is the brother of Jared Kushner, which makes Kloss related by marriage to Ivanka Trump. She has called the connection “frustrating” because it shifts attention away from her career, and she has been careful not to turn the relationship into a political brand.

She supported Hillary Clinton in 2016, Joe Biden in 2020, and Kamala Harris in 2024, and she attended the March for Our Lives rally in Washington in 2018. She describes herself as a feminist and has said her decision to leave Victoria’s Secret was partly motivated by feminist beliefs.

Dating History and Affairs

Kloss’s public dating history begins and ends with Kushner. They met through mutual friends in 2012, when she was 20 and he was 27, and have been together ever since. There are no confirmed celebrity exes, no cheating scandals, and no breakup rumors that survived a news cycle.

The only sustained speculation concerned her friendship with Taylor Swift, which tabloids treated as a romantic falling-out for years. Both women have refused to narrate it, and the 2026 Chiefs game did more to settle the question than any interview could.

Controversies

The Vogue geisha shoot. In 2017 Kloss appeared in a Vogue editorial styled as a geisha and was criticized for cultural appropriation. She posted a public apology, writing that she was sorry for participating in a shoot that reduced another culture to a costume.

The Victoria’s Secret headdress. In 2012 she wore a Native American headdress in the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show. The segment was cut from the broadcast after complaints, and the incident became a case study in the brand’s tone-deaf use of other cultures.

The Kushner-Trump connection. Her marriage placed her inside a family that includes Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump, both of whom served in the first Trump administration. Kloss has said the association is frustrating, and she has kept her own politics explicitly Democratic, which creates an awkward split-screen whenever the families are mentioned together.

The abortion activism. She founded the Gateway Coalition in 2022 to support abortion clinics in the Midwest, worked to pass Missouri’s Amendment 3 in 2024, and wrote op-eds in The Washington Post and the Miami Herald. The activism is mainstream in fashion but has made her a target for conservative commentators.

The model-as-founder question. Some fashion critics have asked whether Kode with Klossy and i-D are genuine institutions or extensions of her personal brand. Her answer is the numbers: nearly 11,000 students, a functioning magazine, and a staff that runs the day-to-day.

Awards & Achievements

• Victoria’s Secret Angel, 2013–2015
• 40 international Vogue covers by 2019
• Named one of the top 30 models of the 2000s by Vogue Paris
• Diane von Furstenberg Inspiration Award, 2017
• Founder of Kode with Klossy, which has reached almost 11,000 students in more than 100 countries
• CEO and owner of i-D magazine since 2023
• Trustee of Barnard College
• Co-owner of Life magazine through Bedford Media

Physical Statistics

• Height: 6 ft 2 in (188 cm)
• Weight: Not publicly disclosed
• Hair Color: Brown
• Eye Color: Hazel
• Build: Tall and athletic, with the long limbs that made her a runway fixture
• Style: Tailored suits and column dresses on red carpets; jeans, blazers, and sneakers off duty

Quotes

“Our world and our lives are being transformed by technology.”

Karlie Kloss, Town & Country, 2018

“I wanted to understand this skill-set that coders have, where they can build something that can affect billions of lives.”

Karlie Kloss, Town & Country, 2018

“I could not be more excited to host and produce a series that provides a platform to aspiring American designers as they pursue their creative and entrepreneurial dreams.”

Karlie Kloss, on hosting Project Runway, 2018

Favorites

• Favorite subject: Coding, which she studied at the Flatiron School and now teaches through Kode with Klossy
• Favorite city: New York, where she studied, married, and built her media business
• Favorite design era: The late 1990s and early 2000s, the reference point for most of her runway work
• Favorite hobby: Baking, which she has turned into collaborations and charity projects
• Favorite part of modeling: The runway, because it is live and cannot be edited
• Favorite cause: Girls in STEM and reproductive rights

Earnings

Kloss’s net worth has been reported at around $40 million, though neither she nor her representatives confirm the figure. Her income comes from modeling contracts, brand campaigns, television, book deals, and her ownership stakes in i-D and Bedford Media.

Her marriage to Joshua Kushner, whose family wealth is estimated in the billions, complicates any personal net worth calculation. She has been careful to describe her business ventures as her own, and she runs Kode with Klossy as a nonprofit rather than a personal profit center.

The i-D acquisition and the Life revival are long-term bets on media rather than quick paydays. Fashion magazines are not high-margin businesses in 2026, and her returns will depend on whether she can make print and digital coexist.

Interesting Facts

• She was discovered at a local benefit runway show in 2005.
• She has twin younger sisters, Kimberly and Kariann.
• She walked 64 shows in a single season in 2008.
• She appeared in Taylor Swift’s “Bad Blood” video as Knockout.
• She converted to Judaism before marrying Joshua Kushner.
• She has three children, including a daughter born in September 2025.
• She wrote a children’s book called Spaghetti Code.
• She is related to Ivanka Trump by marriage.

Did You Know Already?

• Kode with Klossy has reached almost 11,000 young people in more than 100 countries.
• She studied Ruby on Rails at the Flatiron School.
• She bought i-D magazine from Vice Media in 2023.
• She and her husband revived Life magazine in 2024.
• She hosted Project Runway for two seasons.
• She was photographed with Taylor Swift at a Chiefs game in November 2026.

Social Media Links

• Instagram: @karliekloss
• X (Twitter): @karliekloss
• YouTube: Klossy on YouTube
• IMDb: Karlie Kloss on IMDb

Note: Kloss’s accounts are verified. We list only official profiles and leave out fan and parody accounts.

Frequently Asked Questions

Conclusion

Karlie Kloss built a modeling career at an age when most people are still figuring out what they want to do, then spent the next decade proving she was more than a runway face. Kode with Klossy, i-D, Life, and her abortion-rights work are not side projects; they are the second act of a woman who understood early that a model’s career is short and a media owner’s is not.

The 2026 reunion with Taylor Swift added a sentimental chapter to a story that had been defined by silence. At 34, with three children, two magazines, and a nonprofit that has reached thousands of students, she is no longer the girl in the “Bad Blood” video. She is the one signing the checks.

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