Barbara Palvin is getting praise for walking the Victoria’s Secret fashion show in lingerie six weeks postpartum, but she doesn’t want it.
In multiple interviews, the Hungarian-born model downplayed the feat, saying it’s common for new mothers in the US to be back at work within a similar timeframe.
“In the US, maternity leave is six to eight weeks. I’m six weeks tomorrow, so nothing major here. I’m just doing what every woman does in America,” the 33-year-old told USA Today backstage at the fashion show, which took place in Los Angeles on October 18.
“And I only have to walk down a runway,” Palvin told Page Six.
In 2025, the US was the only country among the 38 OECD countries, including the UK, Australia, and Japan, to have no national paid maternity leave, according to the OECD Family Database.
New mothers in the US are entitled to up to 12 weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act, but they must meet certain eligibility criteria. The new mother must have worked for their employer for at least 12 months, worked at least 1,250 hours in the previous 12 months, and their employer must have 50 or more employees within 75 miles of their job site.
Federal workers are generally entitled to 12 weeks of paid leave, but private companies are not legally required to pay employees on parental leave. Some states, including California, New York, Massachusetts, Minnesota, and Maine, have paid family leave programs, but the majority don’t.
Data released this year from the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis suggests mothers in the US took an average of 7.2 weeks off to care for a new child.
Frazer Harrison/Getty Images for Victoria’s Secret
Palvin, who has been married to actor Dylan Sprouse since July 2023, gave birth to her first child, a girl called Sylvie, on September 7.
Palvin was named a Victoria’s Secret Angel in 2019. She first walked the Victoria’s Secret fashion show in 2012. At the 2025 Victoria’s Secret fashion show, Sprouse told reporters that Palvin had broken her foot four weeks earlier and was walking the runway with a “half-healed foot.”
The first Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show took place at The Plaza Hotel in New York City in 1995. It was broadcast online for the first time in 1999, and was so popular that the host site crashed.
