Who Is Zulekha Haywood? Everything About Supermodel Iman’s Daughter

Zulekha Haywood is a business analyst and magazine editor who is also the daughter of the NBA Champion with LA Lakers, Spencer Haywood, and his ex-wife and the former supermodel, Iman Abdulmajid. Zulekha has often been mentioned among the general audience for her allegiance to her famous parents.

And although a child of famous celebrities, Zulekha has always remained away from the interest of the media. She has rather immersed herself in the corporate world. Despite that, her real-life routine in the past was rather struggling as it has been quite a predicament; struggle with body weight especially when her parents were always in the spotlight.

Also, there was much more involved in her weight loss journey than just diets and issues with body image. Now her frankness about her weight issues has somewhat become an inspiration to many. Her story resultantly includes triumph that resulted from good parenting and at times also accepting oneself. Read further about her; how exactly was her life as a celebrity child, how she overcame her eating disorder, how marital front, & children, among others.

Zulekha Haywood Lives In Wichita Kansas

While Haywood is a New York born & raised, she now lives in Wichita, Kansas. The only daughter of Spencer & Iman, Zulekha Haywood was born on July 5, 1978.

Zulekha, a Cancer studied at Mercy High School and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Human Resource Management from Michigan State University.

Zulekha Haywood Siblings

The now 44-year-old, Zulekha’s siblings include Alexandria Zahra Jones, Duncan Jones, Isis Haywood, Shaakira Haywood, & Courtney Nikkiah Haywood.

While Zulekha is the only child of Spencer & Iman, the New York native has several siblings from courtesy of each of her parents’ relationships.

Zulekha has three sisters, Nikiah, Isis, and Shaakira Haywood from her father’s other relationship besides Iman. The Wichita local’s mother, Iman, too, has her own sets of children from her other relationship. Maternally, Zulekha’s half-siblings include Alexandria Zahra-Jones and Duncan Jones.

Haywood Parents Iman And Spencer Were Married For 10 Years

Zulekha’s famous parents, the six-foot-eight-inches ex-power forward and the ex-Vogue model were together from the late 70s to the late 80s.

Spencer married Iman in 1977 and the couple remained married until the year 1987. When he met Iman, Spencer at the time was a LA Lakers player. On the other hand, Iman too was one of the most sought-after models.

When together they had only one child and it was Zulekha. After the couple’s divorce, Spencer and Iman involved themselves in quite a lengthy custody battle; one that ran for over six years.

Though among the two, it was the actress/entrepreneur who came victorious. After ending her marriage with Zulekha’s father, Iman went on to marry the British singer and actor and the Magic Dance singer David Bowie. She remained his wife until the rockstar’s death in Jan 2016.

Who Is Zulekha Haywood Husband?

The daughter of an NBA Champion, Zulekha has always closeted herself from her parents-Esque fame despite occasionally talking about her weight loss. Having said that not much about her personal life has been marked out.

Nonetheless, what’s pretty much out in the open is the fact that Zulekha is married to her longtime boyfriend, Jason Young, presumably a restaurant owner, according to Facebook. The 1978-born business analyst and Young apparently married each other in Nov 2016.

Haywood Has A Daughter With Her Husband

Zulekha and Young, who married in late 2016, are also parents to a daughter, Lavinia Rose Young who they welcomed in July 2017.

Both news apparently came from the Instagram posts of Zulekha’s husband, Young. The revelation also was made by both of Haywood’s parents, Iman and Spencer through each of their Instagram handle.

Zulekha, in the past, also has had a relationship with a guy named Eric. He apparently is still friends with the supermodel’s daughter.

Zulekha Has Worked At A Senior Level For Many Businesses

Unlike her parents, Zulekha Haywood is neither a star athlete nor a supermodel. While she attempted to be a power forward, she quit in the midway thinking that she wasn’t natural in it.

The New York-born is now rather a business analyst. Over the years, Zulekha has worked at several multinational corporations across several states mostly at an executive level.

She began her career by first working at her mother’s firm, Iman Cosmetics. Zulekha initially was Executive Assistant Office Manager in New York; a position which she got in 2002.

She eventually landed the role of Account Manager in 2005; Haywood handled all major accounts of her mother’s company. In 2007, Zulekha became Iman Cosmetics Planning and Procurement manager after which she gained far more high-profile connections. As a consequence, the Somalian-born model’s daughter developed alliances with some other big companies like Wal-Mart, Target, CVS, HSN, and Walgreens.

Zulekha would leave her mother’s company in 2014 and the same year she became Project Manager and Brand Analyst for Jay Manuel Beauty.

She remained there for two years after which the gold medalist’s daughter moved to another company, Portu Sunberg where she worked as an Inventory Analyst. Serving in that role, Zulekha oversaw the development of various customer programs. In addition to corporate roles, Zulekha has also worked as a content writer and editor for magazines and advertising departments of several companies.

The 44-year-old’s LinkedIn states she now works at Invista in Wichita, Kansas. There she is being employed as a Procurement, Customer Relationship Specialist, and Demand Analyst.

The True Story Of Her Struggle With Obesity; Was Over 330 Pounds

Zulekha Haywood, being an overweight kid, has been on a diet, more or less, since she was eight years old. Though the Mercy High School graduate says none of them worked.

For her over weightiness, Zulekha blames her past habit of late-night snacking, raiding the refrigerator, and cupboards after midnight. She was almost always in danger of overeating.

Her first attempt to lose weight was through the Basta (meaning enough in Italian) diet which her mother, Iman supervised for her.

The now Wichita resident’s second diet system was “Eat Like a Pig, Run Like a Horse” which she did under the supervision of her NBA legend father. It needed her to eat the food her weight and then burn it off by grinding herself for more hours on the court.

For this, the 1980 Olympian tried grooming his daughter, Zulekha as a power forward. But it turned out she wasn’t natural at it.

Zulkeha later tried tennis which did help her lose 30 pounds but she gained it back by Christmas that year on top of another 20 pounds. The daughter of a beauty icon says she never had the discipline for her father’s diet plan.

Haywood Felt Insecure With Her Body

Zulekha admits she felt insecure when she looked at her good-looking and athletic parents versus her own image. Haywood, who allegedly is five-foot-eleven-inches tall, often considered herself an outlier.

Zulekha in between did decide to ditch her diet plans and just go with the flow. The Kansas-based business analyst says after that her life was full of love, fun, and adventure but her health problems soon started reappearing as her BMI reached 46 (expected 18 to 25).

The ex-account manager revealed since she was 330 pounds she had developed heel spurs and swollen knees. These all used to make it excruciatingly painful for her to stand up after lying down for eight hours.

The content writer says she did her very best to love her super plus-size body. But, the doctors warned her about her then-morbid obesity and also cautioned her of being at risk for diabetes and heart disease.

How Zulekha Haywood Overcame Her Weight Issue? 

After being at risk for other conditions in addition to being overweight, Zulekha decided she couldn’t keep up with the pain she had endured in her 20s to her thirties as well. She ultimately settled to shed her excess weight.

By that time she already had osteoarthritis and high blood pressure.

The physical pain I’d endured in my twenties could not continue into my thirties. I had to lose weight.

said the occasional advertiser. Then at 28, she decided to go for gastric bypass; a week later, she had Roux-en-Y gastric bypass surgery.

However, after that, she would soon have complications and needed to check into ICU with a necessity of a second surgery. The surgery later eventually worked out.

Despite hurdles and health risks, Zulekha says she found happiness during her journey from 330 pounds to 168 lbs.

Zulekha Haywood Other Facts 

• While Zulekha is fairly active on Facebook mostly giving shoutouts to her father, husband, daughter, and mother as well as initiating fundraisers, the customer relationship specialist is quite a no-show on Instagram.