Lizzo manifested this one.
The singer, 38, is the July 2026 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit digital cover model — an outcome she and her Yitty brand’s team spoke into existence years ago while designing the swimwear line.
“Every time I do Yitty Swim, I always feel like it’s Sports Illustrated level,” she told Paper magazine editorial director Mickey Boardman in her cover story. “When I believe what I dream, it comes true.”
The cover suit is her own design: a black bikini from Yitty Swim, part of the size-inclusive label she launched in 2022, styled with a custom sheer black sarong and Ralph Lauren earrings. Her honey-colored curls are loose as she poses against a wall of palm trees.
Growing up, she never anticipated a version of the franchise that would have room for her.
“When I was younger, I saw it and never imagined somebody with my body type would be on the cover,” she said. “It’s just incredible to see how we’ve redefined sexy, redefined confidence and redefined what a swimsuit body is since I was a kid.”
She anticipates the backlash and has already filed her response.
“Seeing this cover of me all sexy and fat and fabulous in my Yitty Swim may trigger some people,” she said. “But, you know … Stay triggered.”
Elsewhere in the shoot, she models a gold Yitty one-piece with Chloé shell earrings, plus shell-trimmed string bikinis by Oisri.
In another frame, she soaks up the sun on a dock in a chartreuse Sienna Swim bikini layered under a green striped Faithful the Brand sarong, with a Simero gold chain, Morning Joy bracelets and anklets and Roxanne Assoulin earrings.
The two-day shoot moved between a Spanish-style South Florida mansion and a Residence Yacht Club charter on the bay.
The “Truth Hurts” hitmaker also discussed the 20 pounds she deliberately put back on over the past year, after telling the Guardian this month that a “system of oppression” keeps women in the spotlight under constant scrutiny.
“I wanted to get thicker. I wanted to get juicier and thicker, and I did,” she said, noting that commenters tend to assume otherwise. “Little do they know it was intentional.”
Her response to anyone bothered by the cover: “Stay triggered.”
The night before the cover shoot, she headlined the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit runway show at Miami Swim Week in an electric blue Yitty one-piece emblazoned with “Bitch,” the title of the album she released in May.
A surprise rainstorm left the catwalk slick and sent several models sprawling, she later told Page Six Radio — but she stayed upright.
She rolled into E11even Miami around 2:30 a.m. with a dozen friends for the Swim Week closing party alongside Shay Mitchell and former Sports Illustrated Swimsuit digital cover star Alix Earle.
Up next: a Sister Rosetta Tharpe biopic she’ll star in, currently in development, and her first children’s book, “Lil Lizzo Meets Sasha B. Flootin’,” out this fall.
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