Who Is Emily Ratajkowski’s Mom, Kathleen Balgley?
Emily Ratajkowski mother, Kathleen Balgley, is an educator and author. She has taught at several major universities in California, including UCLA, UCSD, and the Grossmont School District. She has also taught at the San Diego Jewish Academy.
Kathleen and her family are Jewish, and their ancestry is from Brest, Poland. This area is now modern-day Belarus.
In August 2022, Kathleen published her memoir, “Letters to My Father.”
In Emily’s own 2021 book, “My Body,” she talks about her relationship with her mother and her upbringing. Emily writes, “My mother seems to hold the way the world affirms my beauty like a mirror. It reflects to her a measure of her worth.”
Emily also shares this story: “My mother loves to remind me of the time when I was three years old. She had been complaining about how some women treated her. I told her, ‘They’re just jealous, Mama!’ It wasn’t until I was older that I realized what had happened. How had I already learned about competition between women before I could even read? How had I understood at such a young age that my remark would make my mother feel better about the unkind treatment she received?”
Emily concludes, “My mother recites this story as a charming example of my sweet and perceptive nature at a young age.”
Who is Emily’s father, John David Ratajkowski?
While Emily’s mother, Kathleen, is a teacher, her father, John David, is an artist from Coronado, California. John Ratajkowski is a professional sculptor, painter, and printmaker. His artwork has been featured in over 25 galleries and exhibitions across the US and Europe.
In an interview with Cultured magazine, Emily had a conversation with her father. John told her: “Your mother is a writer, and I’m a visual artist. So it was an obvious step when you moved into acting. I knew whatever you did was going to be art-related. It’s just who we are.”
John continued: “My feeling about life is to make things first and talk about them later, you know? Raising you, I wanted to put everything out there – ideas, materials, questions – and leave you alone with it.”
The artist added: “Afterward, I’d tell you what I thought was good and what you could do better. You always found your way through your art and your career.”
What Is Emily’s Ethnicity?
Emily Ratajkowski ethnically identifies as Polish-Israeli. Her parents raised her in both the Jewish and Roman Catholic faiths.
Although Kathleen is from Poland originally and John David is from California, Emily herself was born in London on June 7, 1991. Her mother and father were living in England at the time.
Emily Ratajkowski Reveals Complex Relationship with Parents in Tell-All Memoir ‘My Body’
Emily’s relationship with her parents was difficult while growing up. John David and Kathleen had an on-again, off-again relationship before getting married when Kathleen became pregnant. As Emily wrote, “I understood that even before I was born, my existence was the essential glue holding their relationship together.”
Emily added: “After every argument between them, which usually ended with one leaving, the other would turn to me. They pleaded their case or aired their grievances. I would listen, doing my duty, feeling uneasy for days afterward.”
Kathleen also valued Emily more for her beauty than anything else. As Emily stated, “My mother seems to hold the way the world affirms my beauty like a mirror. It reflects to her a measure of her self-worth.”
