No one could really replace Heidi Klum – but Gigi Hadid may be in the running to try! The former Project Runway host opened up to Us Weekly on Thursday, September 20, about her decision to leave the hit reality show and who could take her place.
“I know that Gigi’s name has come up. I think she would be amazing. She has had so much success in this industry,” Klum, 45, told Us at an event while promoting Perfectil, a triple support multivitamin for skin, hair and nails that she’s partnered with, which is launching in the United States. “I think she would be a great fit.”
Klum also revealed why she decided to leave the show, admitting that the network change had “a little bit” to do with it. Project Runway originally premiered on Bravo where it lived for five seasons. It relocated to Lifetime for the next 11 seasons but will return to Bravo in 2019.
“I’ll miss the amazing team that we had. You know, especially at Lifetime, I love them. None of these people will be doing it going forward because it’s someone new now,” she told Us. “I wasn’t sure how it was going to be there, so I think that was a good opportunity now with the switch to actually say like, ‘You know what, this baby is old enough. 16 years old. I’m ready to work on a new one.’”
She continued: “Sometimes these kind of things happen and then you look at it from all angles and you say, ‘Actually maybe now is a good time to freshen this up.’ It needs to be freshened up, so I felt like it was the right thing to do … I was ready for a change.”
Klum, who has been the host of the show since its 2004 debut, recently told Us that since Tim Gunn left the show with her, she’d love to see season 4 winner Cristian Siriano take his place as the series’ resident mentor The two announced they were leaving the show on September 7 and are working on a new show together on Amazon.
“For me, Christian Siriano has been such a success. I also feel like it’s a no brainer, in a way. He knows the business, he knows what it’s like to be on the show, to win the show and actually succeed in this industry, so I feel like he has the knowledge of all of it and wanting to be it, being it and living it,” the supermodel told Us. “I’m sure they have their ideas of who they want … I think the Project Runway fans they recognize him as the face of that show too.”
With reporting by Carly Sloane
