Kim Petras has been breaking barriers since releasing her first single, “I Don’t Want It at All,” in 2017. Earlier this year, the German-born pop star made history as the first transgender woman to win a Grammy Award for Best Pop Duo/Group Performance, for her track “Unholy” with Sam Smith. Petras calls the “insane life moment” both “so unexpected” and “completely incredible.” The 30-year-old is now adding another magnificent life moment to her growing list of accomplishments with her 2023 SI Swimsuit Issue cover.
“I was so excited when I got the call to be in Sports Illustrated,” Petras says. “It’s very iconic, and a lot of very iconic people have done it before, so [it was a] big dream come true for me.”
View Kim Petras’s full 2023 SI Swimsuit gallery here.
The pop star’s cover feature was photographed by SI Swimsuit staple Yu Tsai in Los Angeles earlier this spring. Petras posed poolside in an incredible bright-pink Barbiecore-inspired swimsuit, a vibrant blue one-piece and an elegant black long-sleeved number with gold beads and a chest cut-out. She admits she was initially nervous on set, but the “Heart to Break” singer was thrilled with the images that resulted from her photo shoot.
While Petras says she occasionally feels pressure to represent the transgender community, she’s proud that fellow trans people are inspired by her and the work she does.
“I think what you do is the most important thing, not what your gender is,” Petras says. “No matter what your gender or sexuality or any of that stuff is, it’s about what you make of life and it’s about what’s inside of you and all of that, so I hope that can be inspiring to people.”
“The Grammy-winning pop star, a beacon of inspiration for the LGBTQ+ community, has blazed her own path to superstardom, but it has been anything but a straight line,” says editor in chief MJ Day says.
This year, Petras joins three other women—actress Megan Fox, legendary lifestyle guru Martha Stewart and five-time SI Swimsuit model Brooks Nader—who were each honored with their own 2023 SI Swimsuit Issue covers.
Yu Tsai/Sports Illustrated
