The Heidi Chronicles

There’s no stopping—or censoring—Heidi Klum. Lauren Bans takes a ride in the hectic life of the model-turned-mogul.

- Lauren Bans

Heidi Klum is jumping like a maniac. Not little bunny hops, either. She’s getting air, maybe two to three feet of it, with every single leap—all while maintaining the cheeriness of a toddler in a bouncy castle who doesn’t get that jumping is just exercise in disguise. It’s worth mentioning that Klum is doing this while wearing heels the approximate size of an ice cream cone. And she’s not just going straight up and down. Her feet fly back to meet her butt, then swing out for a split; her heels click together like she’s in a production of Newsies. Rankin, the British fashion photographer and her longtime collaborator (he did both of her photo books), lies on the floor in a draw-me-like-one-of-your-French-girls pose, clicking his camera each time Klum reaches her maximum height. After maybe 20 leaps, Klum suddenly stops, I assume to catch her breath, as she just did a workout most people would pay upwards of a hundred bucks to have a trainer force them to do. But no, she has an idea. “Ooh! I think we should listen to ‘Elevation,’ by U2!” she exclaims in her perfect German lilt to a guy on a laptop. “This will be good, ja?” she adds, noting the song’s very literal tie-in to her current activity. She starts leaping again.