Tyra Banks made her first appearance in the Sports Illustrated (SI) Swimsuit Issue 30 years ago, photographed by Walter Iooss Jr. in the Florida Keys. She then went on to land the magazine’s cover in 1996 alongside model Valeria Mazza, becoming the first Black woman to achieve this milestone for the publication.
The following year, Banks earned her first solo SI Swimsuit Issue cover and has been featured on a total of three covers throughout her career with the magazine. Despite being 49 years old at the time, Banks came out of retirement to grace the cover once again. She worked with photographer Laretta Houston in Great Exuma, Bahamas, and expressed her pride and joy in embracing and celebrating her body as it was in that moment.
Banks mentioned that for her most recent cover in 2019, she was about 25 to 30 pounds heavier compared to her previous cover 22 years earlier. Contrary to popular belief, she revealed that when you gain weight, the swimsuit actually goes smaller, challenging the notion that smaller bodies are required for swimsuit modeling.