She’s been married to Kings of Leon frontman Caleb Followill for almost eight years, and the couple are the proud parents of five-year-old daughter Dixie Pearl.

And while Lily Aldridge also boasts a successful career as a model, she has admitted that she’s often targeted by cruel trolls online – and the cutting comments they’ve made about her over the years have ‘broken her heart’.

In an interview with Net-a-Porter’s weekly digital magazine PorterEdit, the 32-year-old beauty also revealed that she now has stretch marks and cellulite like so many other women – and it’s a fact that doesn’t bother her in the slightest.

The mother-of-one said: ‘People do troll me a lot. I remember the first time I was ever paparazzied, I actually couldn’t believe anyone knew who I was, and was like “Oh my God!” But then reading what people were saying about me broke my heart.

‘They were saying these horrible things; horrible, horrible things to say to a lady. I was just walking down the street! It was my first experience of that and it shifts the way you think when your pH๏τo is taken – you start to think what the pH๏τographers’ motivations are, what are people going to say…

‘So the older I get, I just try not to take it personally, but I am still working on that. I never reply but often want to so bad!’

Since becoming a mother, she has also been able to empathise that much more with other women who face pressure to shed their baby weight soon after giving birth.

‘It’s been a while now since I had that moment of having to get back in shape [after giving birth], but there should be no judgement, everybody’s journey is different,’ she said. ‘Of course, as I get older my body is changing, I’m a woman, but I love it.

‘I love working out and I love being healthy but I don’t judge myself so much; I don’t care if I have a six-pack any more. I am inspired by all these amazing women who have fuller bodies and don’t care about cellulite.

‘I have cellulite, too, and I have stretch marks. When I was younger I would be like, “Oh, my abs need to be firmer”; now I look back and I’m like, “You were crazy! Your abs were gorgeous!”‘

Of the struggle she faced in landing high fashion work early on in her career, the daughter of late British artist Alan Aldridge revealed that it was an intervention from model and musician Karen Elson that gave her profile a much-needed boost.

‘My career has been such an evolution, it felt like such slow progress,’ she told the publication. ‘In the beginning, I was sad that people in fashion didn’t think I was “cool” and that was tough.

‘We all have so many different sides to us, different dimensions, so I was typecast as ‘commercial’ and therefore not fashion or edgy.

‘For a long time, no one would book me for those jobs and I wanted it so bad, because I love fashion – I wanted to be part of those sets and where the magic happened – and Karen [Elson] really helped push me in that direction; talking about me to those influential people.’

And as she enjoys life as a doting mother, Victoria’s Secret Angel Lily has enjoyed the fact that she now belongs to a ‘community’ of model parents, including her close pals Behati Prinsloo and Candice Swanepoel.

She said: ‘We all had kids at the same time and we have this bond – it’s a really nice community of model moms. I am so proud to be a mom, it’s the greatest achievement in my life without a doubt.’

‘I definitely think the industry has become more accommodating to moms,’ the Los Angeles-born beauty added. ‘But if people in the industry didn’t accept it, I don’t care, I would be like, “See you later!”‘

Lily also touched on how the #MeToo movement, ignited amid a backlash against the rampant culture of Sєxual abuse and within the entertainment industry, saying: ‘I will always be a person that people can talk to or come to if they need help.

‘If something happened to me that was bad, I would tell everybody. I would never let that person do that to another person ever again. It’s a new day and a new age and I hope [the progress] will continue.

‘There are lots of people in the industry that are big ambᴀssadors for safer environments and not hiding things.’

To read PorterEdit on iPhone, iPad and Android, visit www.net-a-porter.com/porter or download the NET-A-PORTER app, from the App Store and Google Play.