Throughout the years there have been a total of 152 models to grace the pages of Sports Illustrated, all of them beautiful and all of them successful in their respective careers.
We however were curious to see just which models stood the test of time the best and are the most popular of this elite bunch.
Below we have listed the top 10 most popular Sports Illustrated models of all time ranked in order by Instagram following.
Emily Ratajkowski
- Instagram following: 27.1m
English born Ratajkowski had a huge decade from 2010-2020 including being featured in blockbuster movies like Gone Girl, We Are Your Friends, and Entourage.
She also has been featured in Maxim’s hot 100 multiple times and AskMen’s hottest women alive.
Irina Shayk
- Instagram following: 14.6m
Russian born Shayk not only was on the cover of SI in 2011 and 2013 but was also the first Russian to ever be on the cover.
Shayk has also been on the cover of GQ, Glamour, Cosmopolitan, and Elle. Besides her modeling work she has dated stars Cristiano Ronaldo and Bradley Cooper.
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Alexis Ren
- Instagram following: 14m
American born Ren was named as a rookie of the year for Sports Illustrated in 2018, but she is most well known for her social media presence and Dancing With The Stars appearance where she finished 4th overall.
Heidi Klum
- Instagram following: 7.8m
German born Klum was one of the original Sports Illustrated women and she was actually the first German Victoria’s Secret model.
Klum has also had a successful career throughout Project Runway and America’s Got Talent.
Sara Sampaio
- Instagram following: 7.5m
Portuguese born Sampaio is best known for being the first ever Portuguese model to make Sports Illustrated, as well as being a Victoria’s Secret model and ambassador for Giorgio Armani.
Kate Upton
- Instagram following: 6.1m
American born Upton was the cover model for Sports Illustrated’s 2012, 2013, and 2017 issues.
Since then she’s been in movies like The Other Woman and married MLB star Justin Verlander.
Lily Aldridge
- Instagram following: 5.3m
American born Aldridge is best known for being a Victoria’s Secret model from 2010-2018, as well as being featured on the cover of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue in 2014.
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Olivia Culpo
- Instagram following: 4.7m
American born Culpo was recently named Maxim’s sexiest woman alive in 2019, but before that she won Miss Rhode Island, Miss USA, and Miss Universe.
Nina Agdal
- Instagram following: 1.6m
You probably remember danish born Agdal chomping on a burger at the beach as Carls Jr’s sexiest new commercial ambassador, but she’s also been featured in dozens of magazines including the covers of Maxim in March 2017 as well as the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue in 2014.
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Samantha Hoopes
- Instagram following: 1.2m
American born Hoopes was featured in Sports Illustrated’s swimsuit issues from 2014-2020 and was ranked 18th out of 100 for Maxim’s sexiest women in 2014.
With the explosion of social media in the last decade these women have all grown in popularity and have become influencers not only in the modeling world, but in many other areas as well.
Do you agree with this list? Think we missed someone? Please leave us a comment below.
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