Josephine Skriver Covers The Daily Summer's Body & Beauty Issue, Lensed By Gilles Bensimon

Victoria’s Secret Angel Josephine Skriver headlines The Daily Summer’s Body & Beauty Issue, issued July 18, 2019. Josephine is styled by Dania Ortiz wearing BOSS, Dion Lee, La Via Rebecca Taylor, Versace and more for images by Gilles Bensimon.

As a Danish “rainbow kid” and the child of two gay parents, Skriver is a passionate advocate for LGBTQ issues. With all the negative pressures and anti-adoption state legislation put on gay parenting, the VS Angel is a unique voice in inspiring gay people to adopt children where legally possible or have their own. In her case, Josephine was conceived as an IVF kid

In her case, Josephine was conceived as an IVF kid. In an earlier interview with i-D, she explained:

"My upbringing was a little different from other people. I have a mom who is gay and it's not as easy to all of a sudden get pregnant. But ever since she was a kid, she wanted to be a mom. So in Denmark in 1992, there was this newsletter for the whole LGBTQ community and my mom put an ad in there saying 'I want to bring a child into this world, does anyone want to be a part of that?'" She got a few replies and the first one ended up being my dad."

"My dad, at that time, was about to get married to his husband. I didn't like the term 'step mom' or 'step dad' because it always felt like something bad from the Disney movies. So we came up with our own term and called it 'Bonus Mom.'"

Josephine describes her own childhood in Copenhagen as brilliant. There was no shame, she says, and while other kids made mild attempts at bullying her, Josephine was so confident as a child that in reality, nobody really messed with her.

America and other world stops became another matter, however.

"It wasn't until I grew up and started traveling as a model that I realized how not accepting the rest of the world is. On social media, it gets really hard with the hate. It's the one place people can say whatever they want without consequences. You get so many comments like 'that's disgusting,' 'that's gross', 'I feel bad for you' and what's hard about social media is that I can't really talk back."

Skriver says by telling her story (this part she picks up for The Daily) — and being a Stonewall ambassador for the second year — she wants to give back to the community that gave her such a happy upbringing. "I feel blessed that I was brought into a family that was taught to be so open," she says. "For me, the fundamental part of every childhood should be love, and my parents had so much to give."

An engaged Skriver is traveling this summer with her boyfriend Alex De Leon, a singer-songwriter also known as Bohnes.