Why Gay Supermodel Jon Kortajarena Hid His Baby From The World
Spanish supermodel and actor Jon Kortajarena has quietly become a father for the first time at 40, with neighbours in his hometown of Bilbao spotting him pushing a pram through the streets in recent weeks. The news, confirmed by ¡Hola! magazine on 15 April 2026, marks a deeply personal moment for one of fashion’s most recognisable openly gay men.
Who is Jon Kortajarena
Don’t recognise the name? You’ve seen the face. Spotted at 18 while accompanying a friend to a Barcelona fashion show in 2003, Kortajarena went from unknown Basque teenager to the face of Just Cavalli within a year. By 2009, Forbes ranked him the eighth most successful male model in the world. His client list speaks for itself: Versace, Giorgio Armani, H&M, Zara, Guess, and Tom Ford, for whom he modelled across 12 consecutive seasons.
Ford also gave Kortajarena his first film role, in the Oscar-nominated A Single Man (2009), alongside Colin Firth and Julianne Moore. He’s since taken on roles in Netflix’s High Seas, ABC’s Quantico, Amazon’s Tales from the Loop, and Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga. Recent credits include Heart of Stone (2023) and the Spanish series Alpha Males and The Immortal.
Dodging the press since that famous Luke Evans romance
Kortajarena’s sexuality was tabloid fodder for years before he addressed it himself. His relationship with Welsh actor Luke Evans, which ran on and off from around 2014 to 2016, made the speculation hard to ignore. But it wasn’t until a 2017 interview with Shangay, Spain’s leading LGBTQIA+ magazine, that he spoke openly about being gay. He’d reportedly kept that part of his life separate from his career out of concern it could affect his work in an industry that wasn’t always welcoming.
Since coming out, he’s been matter-of-fact about his identity without turning it into a brand. He guest-judged the first season of Drag Race España in 2021, and he’s kept his romantic life firmly off-limits otherwise.
That same discretion extends to fatherhood. Journalist Marta Riesco broke the story after a tip from someone in Kortajarena’s Bilbao neighbourhood, and ¡Hola! confirmed through his inner circle that he is “very happy” and wants to handle this “with the greatest naturalness.” Some Spanish outlets report the baby is a girl born around February 2026, though Kortajarena has not confirmed the child’s gender or shared any details about how he became a parent.
He won’t be posting photos on social media. In an earlier television interview on Divinity, he’d hinted at wanting kids one day: “I don’t know when the moment will be, life will tell. I go crazy for children, I love them.”
Swapping the red carpet for a stroller in Spain
At DNA, we appreciate when a man doesn’t need a press cycle to share the biggest news of his life. No staged photo shoot, no sponsored baby reveal. Just Kortajarena, his baby, and reportedly his poodle on their daily walk around Bilbao.
Congratulations, Jon.
