Gayle King graces the 60th anniversary issue of Sports Illustrated’s swimsuit edition. The 69-year-old daytime TV host is photographed wearing a striped one-piece bathing suit in Mexico.
In a post on Instagram, King admitted she “couldn’t believe” she had been asked to grace the iconic swimsuit cover.
“I’m floating. I can’t believe it,” she told Drew Barrymore on Tuesday’s episode of CBS This Morning.
“Never. I never thought I had a shot in anything like this,” she added.
King said her grandmother once remarked that she was a homely looking child.
“My grandmother said to me [when I was little], ‘Mother nature was not as kind to you as she was to other little girls. Maybe you need to start wearing makeup.’ I just never saw myself this way.”
“I know what I look like before I go into hair and makeup, so it’s hard for me to go from that to [the cover]. That’s something I have to process myself.”
King praised the magazine for featuring women of different “races and ages,” as well as with various “body types.”
King told the editors that she didn’t want any retouching. She wanted SI fans to see her signs of aging gracefully.
“They said, ‘what about retouching?’ I said, ‘I don’t really want retouching.’ I don’t mind if you take out a couple of dimples in the thighs however, but I really didn’t want it.”
Additionally, King said she “didn’t starve” herself, or do anything she doesn’t normally do to prepare for the shoot.
Also gracing their own covers are SI veterans Kate Upton, Chrissy Teigen, and plus-size model Hunter McGrady. In addition to Chanel Iman, Christen Harper, TV host Kamie Crawford, Katie Austin, Lori Harvey, LSU gymnastics star Olivia “Livvy” Dunne and more.
SI Swimsuit editor in chief MJ Day explained on CBS Mornings, “Listen, there’s a lot of swimsuit photos in this issue. We’re not short on swimsuits but I like the idea of having all these women come together in a way that was different for us.”
“I want the world to realize that Sports illustrated has evolved into such a far more wide-reaching powerful vehicle of change,” she added.
The 60th anniversary edition of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition is on newsstands on May 17.
