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Brittany Mahomes, Megan Fox & More Celebrity Moms in the ‘Sports Illustrated Swimsuit’ Issue Through the Years

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What began in the 1960s as an appeal to the male gaze has transformed into something much more uplifting, empowering, and women-focused in the six decades since. The annual Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue (and the publication as a whole) is no longer about simply providing men with pretty women to look at — it’s about celebrating women of all walks of life, and the idea that they can pursue and achieve anything they desire while looking phenomenal, mothers included.

The 2024 “rookies” were announced earlier this month and the cover stars will be announced in May. In 2023, the cover stars were Martha Stewart, Megan Fox, Kim Petras, and Brooks Nader — among 24 additional models making appearances across the issue’s pages. Sports Illustrated Swimsuit editor-in-chief M.J. Day explained at the time, “There is no theme — rather, there is a vision, a sentiment, a hope that women can live in a world where they feel no limitations, internally or externally.” She added, “But the absence of a theme is not to say that [these women] don’t share certain common traits. They’re constantly evolving.”

Stewart, for her part, blew up any idea that women can’t look or feel good once they reach a certain age with her jaw-droppingly gorgeous cover photos. The 81-year-old lifestyle maven told the magazine, “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.’ And I don’t think about age very much, but I thought that this is kind of historic,” she shared. Historic, badass, completely amazing — yes indeed.

And Stewart isn’t the only SI model making history. Nicole Williams English is one of 28 models for the 2023 issue, and she just happened to be 7 months pregnant at the time of her photoshoot — making her only the second woman to shoot for SI while carrying a child, after Katrina Scott made history as the first to do so in 2022.

Williams English told the magazine, “The fact that I’m actually a rookie and shooting while pregnant, it’s just really cool to know that my baby girl is going through this with me and that one day she’s gonna look back and see all these photos and know that she was shooting for SI with mama.”

To see which celebrity mamas have graced the illustrious pages of Sports Illustrated Swimwear, scroll on.

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