‘I cried, we all cried’: Simone Holtznagel’s revealing first interview since giving birth to baby Gia

Australian model Simone Holtznagel details the ‘overwhelming’ experience of giving birth to her first baby Gia, as the new mum and her partner, Jono Castano, pose in an adorable family shoot.

The playground taunt is as old as time: A boy and a girl, sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g.

First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes baby in the baby carriage. Wait, no. Scratch that.

Top Australian model Simone Holtznagel and her partner, personal trainer Jono Castano, have their own spin on the children’s ditty: First comes love, then comes baby, then come what may, like a marriage – maybe.

“He’s got to get divorced first,” Holtznagel, 30, tells Stellar with a cheeky smile as she nurses their newborn daughter, Gia.

“We’re basically married, now we’ve got a baby. We just cut out the expensive parts in the middle.”

Simone Holtznagel and her newborn daughter, Gia. Picture: Daniel Nadel for Stellar

Ruminating on that particular verse Castano, 33, adds, “First comes baby and marriage could be the next thing, eh? It is just one step at a time I guess. Now that the baby is here, we can focus on everything else.”

For the couple, “everything else” includes keeping busy with their day jobs. Holtznagel splits her time between modelling campaigns and television (she has competed on I’m A Celebrity … Get Me Out Of Here! and SAS Australia), while Castano runs a fitness empire that includes two Sydney gyms, a line of apparel and a wellness app.

That Castano’s business partner is his former wife, fellow trainer Amy Castano, is the reason Holtznagel teases him about any mention of “divorce”.

She and Castano – who met in 2021 and started dating after his split from Amy – are self-proclaimed besties with his ex and her partner, soccer player Aaron Evans.

Double dates are frequent, and Amy was among the first to meet baby Gia when she was born four weeks ago. “Simone and I have asked Amy to be Gia’s godmother,” Castano explains. “The way we maintain our relationship is through deep trust and communication, and we have fun along the way.”

Not as fun, admittedly, was the 14-hour labour that led to Gia’s birth on the morning of March 31. But Holtznagel can never say she wasn’t prepared: heading to a lunch with her mum and dad in Sydney’s beachside Coogee before her trip to the hospital, she had on a full face of make-up, glamorous eyelashes and a fake tan – and a strong feeling Gia was on her way, three days after her due date.

‘I’m so glad she’s here!’ Simone Holtznagel, Jono Castano and their baby girl, Gia. Picture: Daniel Nadel for Stellar

“For the past two or three weeks, I swear I was doing a full wash and blow-dry of my hair every two or three days, on top of my tanning routine,” she says. “I’d also got my nails done, so I was ready to go into spontaneous labour at any point.”

But Holtznagel wasn’t worried about how she looked to others when giving birth. “It was more to make me feel good than anything,” she says.

“Having a baby, you’re so exposed; every person that has been coming in and out of the room, you’re like splayed open, you don’t have any kind of modesty. If I was covered in blood or whatever else was going on, I at least wanted to look nice.”

Thinking back to her childhood, riding motorbikes at age seven on her family’s dairy farm in Nowra, Holtznagel says, “I’d be covered in my motorbike gear, covered in cow sh*t, but I would always have a red lipstick on. I’ve just always been like that. I like being underestimated, in the sense that people may have an idea of who I am by how I look, and I like to surprise them.”

Increasingly uncomfortable during the final two weeks of her pregnancy, Holtznagel proved she was a very determined mum-to-be. “I was just over it, so I was doing everything I could think of to bring on the birth, in terms of old wives’ tales like having sex and drinking raspberry leaf tea, which is supposed to ripen your cervix,” she explains.

Picture: Daniel Nadel for Stellar

“I drank castor oil, which as it turns out works as a laxative, so I wouldn’t recommend that. I was out walking; eating dates, spicy food. I think it was the spicy pizza over lunch with my parents and going for a walk on the beach that did it. After being admitted to the hospital, things got hot and fast extremely quickly. I was physically sick, throwing up from the pain. I’ve got the lowest pain threshold. I was trying to be calm and everything but my plan had always been to have an epidural.”

When Gia arrived, she weighed 3.93kg and measured 51cm. She also had a full head of dark brown hair, just like her dad, who was at the birth at Sydney’s Royal Hospital for Women in Randwick, as were Holtznagel’s parents, Margaret and Stephen.

“I was super stressed seeing Sim in labour,” Castano says. “I kept swearing. But once [Gia] came out, it was definitely a massive joy and even sitting here with her now, there is no stress of life. Everything else, I’m just like, ‘f*ck it’. I just want to be here with Sim and her. It’s indescribable being in this baby bubble now.”

While Holtznagel says Gia has her eyes and “Jono’s hair and everything”, her name is a nod to late supermodel Gia Carangi. Many close to Holtznagel had thought she might choose Charlotte in memory of late Australia’s Next Top Model judge Charlotte Dawson, a great friend and mentor who died in 2014.

“Lottie was on our shortlist, so if we have another baby, it could be that,” she reveals.

“After Charlotte passed away, I had a bunch of her clothes, including this Camilla kaftan. My mum’s bestie cut it up and made it into a baby blanket for me. She gave it to me at my baby shower and I bawled my eyes out, so that is super special.”

Breastfeeding and comforting a peaceful and quiet Gia throughout her Stellar interview, Holtznagel recalls the first time she held her daughter in the birthing suite.

“I cried, obviously we all cried,” she says. “I knew it was going to be hard, but it was nothing like what you could ever prepare for, or at least I felt like that.

“I’d read everything and we’d done classes together and all of that, so I felt well prepared – but then I got there and I was like, ‘sh*t’. It was just so overwhelming. It didn’t feel real, it felt like a dream. I’m just so glad she’s here. She’s so cute.”

Read the full interview with Simone and Jono in Stellar today. For more from Stellar, listen to the podcast Something To Talk About: