Martha Stewart has worn many hats over the decades, home decorator, writer, cook, publisher, TV star, and all-around business mogul, and now, at 81, she is adding Sports Illustrated Swimsuit model to the list. In fact, she is now the oldest woman to appear on the SI swimsuit edition’s cover.
Stewart has announced that she will grace the cover of the swimsuit edition soon to go on sale, and now takes her place as the oldest model on a cover ahead of Elon Musk’s 74-year-old mother, Maye, who appeared on the magazine’s 2022 cover.
“Usually, I’m motivated by pay. But this time I was motivated by showing people that a woman my age could still look good, feel good, be good,” Stewart says in the pages of Sports Illustrated Swimsuit. “I thought that this is kind of historic and that I better look really good.”
Martha Stewart bares all on Sports Illustrated’s Swimsuit Issue: ‘I met the challenge’ https://t.co/gfhAMrQ7Aq pic.twitter.com/Hz52ifPKdt
— New York Post (@nypost) May 15, 2023
In an appearance on Today, Stewart said that she was approached to do the cover last year and added that it was a “challenge” at her age.
“To be on the cover at my age was a challenge. And I think I met the challenge,” she said on Monday morning, according to the New York Post.
“I didn’t starve myself, but I didn’t eat any bread or pasta for a couple of months,” she said of her pre-photo session preparations.
“I went to Pilates every other day and that was great; I’m still going to Pilates every other day ’cause it’s so great. And I just, I live a clean life anyway — good diet and good exercise and healthy skin care and all of that stuff,” Stewart added.
EXCLUSIVE: @MarthaStewart is one of the Sports Illustrated @SInow’s 2023 swimsuit cover models! pic.twitter.com/sXP05DsmJA
— TODAY (@TODAYshow) May 15, 2023
“When I heard that I was going to be on the cover of Sports Illustrated Swimsuit, I thought, ‘Oh, that’s pretty good, I’m going to be the oldest person I think ever on a cover of Sports Illustrated,'” she says in the magazine “And I don’t think about age very much, but I thought that this is kind of historic.”
“Age is not the determining factor in terms of friendship or in terms of success, but what people do, how people think, how people act, that’s what’s important and not your age,” she exclaimed.
Sports Illustrated has been pushing the envelope for its swimsuit covers for several years.
As noted, the first senior citizen on the cover was Elon Musk’s mother.
12. Maye Musk
📊 Detailed Stats: https://t.co/GA9I1VMTvg
📰 News Related:
CNN: Maye Musk becomes oldest Sports Illustrated Swimsuit cover modelhttps://t.co/Oor2hJHzNA— 🇺🇲 USA Google Trends (@24TrendsUSA) May 17, 2022
But the magazine has also featured a transgender model:
Leyna Bloom is Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue's first transgender cover star https://t.co/y0T24wgVRg pic.twitter.com/RMAY9AMpEh
— Page Six (@PageSix) July 19, 2021
An overweight plus-sized model and later even a morbidly obese model:
Ashley Graham is the first plus-size model to grace the Sports Illustrated swimsuit cover: https://t.co/myKjmadvJW pic.twitter.com/3K7vdXl2Vg
— Mashable (@mashable) February 15, 2016
Yumi Nu (@_yumi_nu) is on the cover of #SISwim22 after making her debut in the magazine last year.
We can’t wait to see what’s next! https://t.co/tXpz3N3IO8 pic.twitter.com/UGFtKUjK6l
— Sports Illustrated Swimsuit (@SI_Swimsuit) May 16, 2022
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