Sports Illustrated Swimsuit cover star Camille Kostek on dealing with hate

Sports Illustrated Swimsuit cover star Camille Kostek has spoken out about what it is like to deal with daily hatred from online trolls, admitting that she has allowed herself to go into a ‘black hole spiral’ while listening to their cruel comments. 

The 27-year-old, who is one of three cover stars for this year’s issue of the publication, which was released this week, told DailyMail.com that while she has learned to rise above the hated that she faces, their words still ‘hurt’. 

‘I deal with trolls every day, there’s always something whether it’s an email, or a direct message, or a photo comment, it’s something, [and] I got into a black hole spiral listening to that,’ she said.         

‘I’ve dealt with it for years. And people say stick and stones will break my bones and words will never hurt, but words hurt. Words hurt a lot of people in detrimental ways, turning to eating disorders, self-harm, suicides.’

The model and dancer, who is dating former NFL star Rob Gronkowski, explained that she has had to teach herself to be ‘untouchable’, but noted that it has taken a lot of work to get to a place where she is able to ignore other people’s comments.  

However, there are occasions when the model speaks out against her haters – as she did in March, when body-shamers called her ‘gross’ and told her she ‘needed the gym’ after she posted an image of herself wearing a high-cut bikini. 

‘I can’t begin to explain how many rude comments I got after I posted this photo about my body. But for the women who I was able to help love who they are more from it, I post without hesitation for myself and for YOU,’ she wrote.

In a series of videos, Camille then opened up about how her bikini photo ‘sparked an uproar of opinions’ about her body — both good and bad.

‘I’ve been sitting on this for a few days, deciding if I was going to share this, and I decided that I’m going to share a little bit of the things that I had seen,’ she said, before posting screengrabs of some of the nasty comments she received on social media. 

Speaking to DailyMail.com about her decision to take a public stand against the trolls who attacked the image, Camille explained that she wanted to ‘bring to light’ the fact that so many people – no matter who they are or what they look like – face this kind of vitriol online every day.  

‘I felt like I needed to speak up to let these girls know that this happens, she said. ‘Not just to you, to everybody. Because you have to start to teach your mind to get to this point where you become untouchable and it’s hard to get there. But it’s kind of a reminder of we all get it.’ 

Camille did not allow that hatred to stop her from landing the coveted honor of posing for Sports Illustrated Swimsuit – and being chosen as one of the three cover stars of the 2019 issue.   

The blonde beauty, who was guaranteed a spot in the issue as a member of the 2019 rookie class after winning last year’s model search, shares the spotlight with Sports Illustrated icon Tyra Banks, 45, and soccer star Alex Morgan, 29.    

While Tyra was enjoying her return to modeling after coming out of retirement for the swimsuit shoot, Camille admitted that she was stunned when she learned she had gone from rookie to cover star.    

She told DailyMail.com that she never thought she would be able to model – let alone land the cover of such a big publication – because for years, she believed her freckly skin would hold her back from working in the industry.  

‘Modeling was not something I aspired to do, not because I didn’t love it or I didn’t admire it – I admired it from afar – but I never thought it was something I could attain because I didn’t see women who had skin with freckles advertised until I was 15 years old,’ she said.     

Camille appeared on Good Morning America on Wednesday with Tyra, who was celebrating her third cover 22 years after she made history as the first black model to cover the iconic issue alone in 1997. 

During the segment, they showed a video of the emotional moment Sports Illustrated editor MJ Day revealed she was on the cover. 

‘I haven’t seen this yet. I kind of blacked out in that moment,’ she admitted. 

In the clip, which was also shared on the SI Swimsuit Instagram, Camille is watching footage of herself posing on Kangaroo Island in South Australia, during her shoot with photographer Josie Clough.

The video ends with a photo of Camille’s cover, leaving the model temporarily speechless and pointing at the screen.

‘Oh my God!’ she says, throwing her hands over her mouth in shock. 

When Day walks into the room, a crying Camille gives her a big hug before letting out a shriek of excitement. 

The model joked that she is ‘ugly crying’ in the clip, and Tyra assured her that she did the same thing when she got her first cover. 

Camille’s boyfriend Rob was watching her on GMA at home, and he proudly took to Instagram to share a video of her on his TV screen. 

‘Congrats baby on the cover!!’ he captioned the cute clip. 

Camille, who was born and raised in Killingworth, Connecticut, started out as a New England Patriots cheerleader, but she was clearly meant to be a model. 

A year after she made the squad as a college student, she landed the cover of the New England Patriots Cheerleaders 2014 swimsuit calendar shoot. 

After resigning from the New England Patriots Cheerleaders, she signed with her first modeling agency in Boston in 2015, the same year she started dating Rob. 

A few years later, she was modeling for Reebok and Jessie James Decker’s fashion line Kittenish, but when she moved to Los Angeles to find an agent in 2017, she was told she wasn’t tall or thin enough to book work.    

Speaking about the choice of Camille and Alex as Tyra’s co-cover stars, Day noted that each woman represents something incredibly different, yet they all demonstrate qualities that the publication hopes to emulate through its pages and its models. 

‘Alex Morgan stands for feminine strength and power — using her voice to fight for gender discrimination and equal pay. And Camille Kostek, only a year after we discovered her in our annual Model Search casting, marks the launch of a career swimming in potential. 

‘These women emulate determination to own who they are and demonstrate how limitless they can be.

‘Between these three women and the 31 additional that grace SI Swimsuit 2019, the message is clear. Beauty is synonymous with a lot more than just a pretty face.’ 

It is undoubtedly the most diverse year yet for the magazine’s iconic Swimsuit Issue, which was once filled only with women of a certain size, age, shape, and look — an old stereotype that Day is trying to fight with each new issue.  

The latest publication not only sees Tyra returning to the cover, but the magazine also tapped her fellow supermodel and Swimsuit Issue veteran Paulina Porizkova, 54, to appear in its pages as well as pen the back page column of the magazine, in which she discusses ageism.  

Somali-American model Halima Aden also made history earlier this month when it was revealed that she would be the first Sports Illustrated Swimsuit star to pose in the magazine while wearing a burkini.  

Halima lived at the Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya before moving to the United States at the age of seven, and she couldn’t help but reflect on her amazing journey during her shoot.

‘I keep thinking [back] to six-year-old me who, in this same country, was in a refugee camp,’ she told Sports Illustrated.

‘So to grow up to live the American dream [and] to come back to Kenya and shoot for SI in the most beautiful parts of Kenya — I don’t think that’s a story that anybody could make up.’