The “CBS Mornings” anchor Gayle King had just started a live interview with two cover stars of the 2024 Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue on Tuesday when she received a bombshell on air: The new swimsuit issue, which marks the publication’s 60th anniversary, has a cover with Ms. King posing in a bathing suit, too.
“It’s not a dummy cover? This is going to be on the newsstands? Oh my God! Oh my God!” a beaming Miss King said after the model Kate Upton, her fellow cover star, handed her a copy of the magazine showing Ms. King posing in a colorful printed Evarae one-piece and matching cover-up beneath the Sports Illustrated logo.
King wore nine stunning one-piece swimsuits during her photo shoot, including a white halter neck-style that was paired with heeled platform sandals.
Ms. King, 69, whose solo cover portrait was photographed in Cancún, Mexico, in December, explained during the TV segment that she had thought the picture would appear on inside pages.
The 69-year-old journalist was elated to join a lineup of legendary models featured in the magazine’s 60th anniversary edition. When she learned she was chosen for the cover, she was completely blown away.
On Tuesday, King’s CBS Co-anchors surprised her with the news, live, on-air. “Ahhh! I’m on the cover!” she screamed upon seeing the magazine. “They told me I was just going to be on the inside! It’s not a dummy cover? This is going to be on the newsstands? Oh my God! Oh my God!”
Though Ms. King and several other women were also photographed in evening wear for a group cover of this year’s swimsuit issue, getting her own cover along with models like Ms. Upton, Chrissy Teigen and Hunter McGrady came as a shock — especially considering that Ms. King had thought “somebody was playing a joke” when she was initially approached to appear in the publication, she said in an interview on Wednesday.
While being on the coveted cover wasn’t exactly something the 69-year-old “dreamed about” throughout her career, she said ,it was “one of the highlights of all the things [she’s] done.” Although she didn’t have any major specifications when picking out her suits, she did explain, “I wanted tasteful cleavage, and they delivered on all of that.”
In her interview that accompanied the shoot, King made sure to drive home an important message: “I think it’s important to celebrate women of all ages, all colors, all sizes,” she said. “So the fact that they’re saying, ‘Yes, you deserve to be celebrated just for being yourself.’ That’s what touches me the most about being included.”
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