Dutch designer Frans Molenaar asked van den Herik to replace one of his Models at a show, where she was discovered by Eileen Ford and signed a contract with Ford Models. Afterward, van den Herik modeled in Paris, Milan, Sydney, Cape Town, Tokyo, New York, Los Angeles and Hamburg. She modeled for 15 years before wanting to settle down and start a family. In 1994, van den Herik moved to Los Angeles to start her family after meeting and marrying Mohamed Hadid.
Van den Herik's first marriage was to Mohamed Hadid, a real estate developer, from 1994 until 2000. The couple have three children together, Jelena "Gigi" (born 23 April 1995), Isabella (Bella) (born 9 October 1996), and Anwar (born 22 June 1999).
Van den Herik married musician, Composer and Producer David Foster in Beverly Hills, California on 11 November 2011, after becoming engaged on Christmas Eve, 2010.
In 2012, Foster was diagnosed with Lyme disease, as she has stated multiple times on several episodes of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. In December 2012, she reported that she was having a port implanted in her arm to help treat her chronic Lyme disease. In April 2013, she had the port removed. In January 2015, she revealed that, as a consequence of the illness, she had "lost the ability to read, write, or even watch TV".
On 1 December 2015, Foster announced she and David Foster planned to divorce. After filing for divorce, Foster changed her surname back to Hadid to match that of her children. The divorce was finalized on May 2017.
Her memoir Believe Me: My Battle with the Invisible Disability of Lyme Disease, was published in 2017. On January 11, 2018, her reality TV-show competition Making a Model with Yolanda Hadid premiered on Lifetime, which had been developed under the working title Model Moms.
