Meet the Internet's latest fascination—Nara Smith, née Pellman. Smith has amassed a huge following in the past few years after going viral for everything from her marriage to beloved model Lucky Blue Smith to her children's unique names to the homemade marshmallows that she supernaturally whips up for her family on a whim.
The South African-German model, who is reportedly 22, has sparked interest in recent days as she is at the forefront of a wave of ultra-glamorous "tradwife" influencers. Although Nara Smith does not self-identify as a tradwife—a subculture that emphasizes a return to a woman's traditional role in the domestic sphere—fans have begun associating her with the subculture as her content plays into this label. If her children mention they want glazed donuts, instead of going out and picking some up quickly—she lives in LA, after all—she often makes their treats from scratch and shares her elaborate recipes.
Curious to know more about the influencer who you've been seeing all over your social media feed? Look no further, L'OFFICIEL has you covered with details on her marriage, children, and modeling career.
Nara Smith and Lucky Blue Smith
Nara Smith and her now-husband, Lucky Blue Smith, began publically dating in 2020. Like his wife, Lucky Blue is a model with IMG, and rose to fame after Hedi Slimane photographed a 12-year-old Lucky Blue Smith and his siblings for Vogue Hommes Japan. Since then, he has been featured in numerous editorial shoots for various publications and in campaigns for Tom Ford, Fendi, Chanel, and Bottega Veneta, among others. In a TikTok, Smith revealed that she met her husband shortly after she moved to Los Angeles, where the two still live, at 18 to further her modeling career.
After just six months of dating, the pair tied the knot on February 21, 2020, with a small, intimate ceremony at a California beach and posted photos and videos from the wedding on Instagram.
Who are Nara Smith's Children?
Months after the couple's wedding, Nara Smith and Lucky Blue Smith announced Nara's pregnancy in May 2020, a statement that shocked the Internet, given that at the time, the pair were 18 and 22 years old, respectively. Nara Smith's husband also has a child from a previous relationship with model Stormi Bree. Lucky Blue Smith and Stormi Bree share custody of their four-year-old daughter, Gravity Blue Smith, to whom Nara Smith is a stepmother.
Despite the couple's youth, Nara Smith has revealed that being a young mother has always been her plan. “I’ve always wanted to be a young mom because growing up my dad would always tell us that he regrets having kids later in life, so I took that advice and it’s one of the best decisions I could have made,” Smith said in a March 2024 TikTok. “I know it’s not for everyone.”
Smith and her husband announced the birth of their first daughter on October 7, 2020, via an Instagram post, which was captioned "little baby angel Rumble Honey."
Just 16 months after Rumble Honey Smith was born, the couple announced the birth of their second child, a son, who they named Slim Easy Smith.
As of March 2024, Nara Smith is pregnant with her third child and has elected not to reveal the sex or due date of her child, but has shared that she is planning for a home birth.
Originally, Smith felt content with her family and shared that she did not plan to have additional kids after her two children. Months later, the model shared in an Instagram Q and A that her plan “kind of shifted earlier this year since I felt like something was missing and kept having a feeling that our family wasn’t complete yet,” she said. “Lucky always wanted us to have a third but he respected me making my own decision on it. We decided that it was now or never since I didn’t want them to have huge age gaps and love how close Rumble and Slim are.”
Why has Nara Smith Gone Viral?
Though she seems to trend with every new TikTok video or Instagram Reel, Nara Smith's content reached beyond its usual scope in December 2023 after posting a TikTok sharing baby names that she has considered. In the video, Smith prefaces the list by saying "Our kids have pretty unique names... so these might be a little out there," before diving into the names. Among them were Pear, Dawn, Pepper, Bubble—as a middle name, of course—and Cherry, a name that Smith says her husband didn't love, which viewers went wild over in the comments. Users responded jokingly, saying "he didn't like Cherry for a middle name but was cool with Slim Easy???" and "These children WILL be legally changing their names."
Whether Smith draws inspiration for her children's names from a dictionary or an ingredients list, as the Internet has mockingly suggested, or her husband's family, who seem to have a tradition of unique names—Lucky Blue's older sisters are named Cheyenne Starlie Smith, Daisy Clementine Smith, and Pyper America Smith—it's difficult to say, but if there's one thing we know, it's that Nara Smith's third child's name is sure to follow suit in terms of individuality.
Besides her children's unique names, Nara Smith has also captured the Internet's attention with her cooking videos. Statements "Today my toddlers wanted grilled cheese" are often how Smith begins videos. First, Smith—the epitome of quiet luxury, often sports satin loungewear, delicate ruffled dresses, and cashmere sweaters in her videos—makes the dough for the sandwich from scratch. Next, she combines milk, citric acid, and rennet in a pot and begins the process of making cheese from scratch. By then, the dough has risen, so it's time to knead and bake the loaf of bread. While the bread is in the oven and the cheese is resting, Smith gathers basil, lemon, garlic, and pine nuts and quickly whips up a pesto—one of her toddlers' favourites—from scratch.
If you're sensing a theme here, you're not the only one. The internet has gone wild over Smith's cooking videos, where she regularly prepares labor-intensive meals or ingredients on a whim. Homemade versions of classic household snacks—Poptarts, Oreos, and Cheezits, to name a few—are also popular in the Smith household. Many fans are shocked at the amount of time Smith takes daily to prepare three seemingly time-consuming meals for her family, others are impressed at the difficulty of the dishes she makes, and some have voiced concerns that Smith's lifestyle and online persona promote the "tradwife" lifestyle.
The tradwife lifestyle, which has seen a resurgence on social media amongst young women in recent years, is a subculture that emphasizes a woman's role in a family as a homemaker in return to traditional values, and is often reminiscent of a 1950s-era family dynamic. Typically, the day of a tradwife, as seen through the lens of influencers within the group, involves cooking, cleaning, and taking care of children, if they have them. Many tradwife influencers self-identify as such, and although Nara Smith does not label herself as one, fans have noted similarities between her lifestyle and the typical day-in-the-life of a tradwife and expressed worries that Smith engages in the domestic sphere because of expectations that her husband may have for her.
In an interview with USA Today, author Jo Piazza broke down the tradwife lifestyle and trend. "I do like the idea that we are elevating the kinds of work that women do in the home to something that we do want to see, to something that is aspirational," Piazza said. "The dangers in that are when you say: 'This is the only thing a woman should be doing. This is the only role that a woman should be playing.'"
However, in a March 2024 TikTok, Smith clarified her relationship with her husband and shared why she cooks. “I’ve always loved cooking,” she said. “I just recently, in the past year, have gotten really passionate about it. It all started when I was dealing with really severe eczema and I had to make sure that what I put in my body would be good for my body. And that’s kind of how I got into nutrition and food and cooking.”
Smith further explained her lifestyle to fans in an Instagram story, where she said “I know that 22 is considered young nowadays, to be having kids but I love being a young mom and growing with my kids. I was always very mature and independent and did a lot of things at a very young age. So I never feel like I’m missing out on any of the partying, any of that, because I’ve done all of that.”
Nara Smith Controversy
Due to her husband's Mormon upbringing and occasional religious posts on social media, fans have criticized Smith for openly talking about her journey with her faith, saying that she is glamorizing her lifestyle and attempting to perpetuate Mormon propaganda.
Smith recently responded to this criticism in a March 2024 TikTok, saying "I'm still learning and figuring out my own faith, but I'm not in any way a hardcore Mormon or anything like that. I don't wear garments, I didn't get married in the temple, and both me and my husband are on our own journeys in figuring out how we want to raise our kids."
