Kate Upton has landed the cover of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue for the third time.
The cover reveal (there are three covers featuring the model) was made on Tuesday night’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live.”
Kate said she first learned she was landing the cover on Monday.
Kate Upton on the cover of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue 2017 (photo by Yu Tsai/Sports Illustrated) The issue is on sale now. (Yu Tsai/SPORTS ILLUSTRATED)
“They’re very difficult to read,” she said of the SI team, when Jimmy asked when she was told she’d be on the cover. “They just completely ghost you. They just don’t ever talk to you at all. You’re texting — you’re like, ‘Hey what’s going on? Is there [an] SI launch? Are we going to announce anything?’ And then they finally gave me a call [on Monday].”
Jimmy shared several fake covers – Kate hiding behind a mound of sand, Kate standing behind a shirtless Guillermo, Kate in a shirt with a bikini on it – before cutting to the New York City, where one of the model’s three covers was projected on the side of the Empire State Building. Jimmy then revealed the three covers on his show.
Kate reacted to the news on her Instagram too.
“Wow, I feel so honored and excited to be back with Sports Illustrated!! Thank you @si_swimsuit and@mj_day for inviting me to be part of an issue that features and celebrates beauty and confidence in every shape,” she wrote.
According to Sports Illustrated’s website, the covers were shot in Fiji by Yu Tsai.
The mag didn’t originally plan to have three covers, but the shoot went so well, it turned out that way.
“We didn’t start off with the idea of three covers, regardless of who was on the cover,” SI Swimsuit editor MJ Day said, per SI.com. “But when Kate was actually shooting, we were trying so many different looks on her and each photo was coming back just as great as the next.”
The Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue is on sale now.
— Jolie Lash