Tiffany Haddish manifested her “Sports Illustrated Swimsuit” cover with a little help from her grandma

Key Points

• Tiffany Haddish is one of 2026’s Sports Illustrated Swimsuit cover models.

• She said she was inspired by her late grandmother, who was also a swimsuit model.

• Haddish kept telling herself she could be a SI cover star while working out.

Tiffany Haddish knows her late grandmother would’ve been so proud to see her on the cover of Sports Illustrated Swimsuit.

The comedian and actress, 46, is one of 34 women across film, sports, social media, fashion, business, and more to appear in the 2026 issue — and she’s feeling herself.

“I think it is gorgeous,” she told Today on Tuesday of her cover shoot. “I think it is everything that I’ve dreamed of since I was a little girl.”

Haddish added that the photo shoot in Loreto, Baja California Sur, Mexico, was a full-circle moment since her grandma, Alice Ray, was also a swimsuit model in the 1950s and one of the first Black women to model clothing on TV.

“I’m looking at it right now, like, ‘Oh my goodness, that’s me.’ I was watching [the footage from the photo shoot] and just being there and just feeling like, ‘Wow, I wish my grandma was alive. I wish my grandma was seeing this,'” Haddish said.

She went on to say her grandma used to show her “how to pose and all that stuff,” but Haddish “didn’t grow tall enough” to become a model herself.

“She was like, ‘Yeah, it’s not going to work out for you. But, you know, there’s other things you can do,'” Haddish added. “And so I became a comedian, but I just kept dreaming of it. Kept hoping, wishing. And then now, I’m doing it.”

Haddish also told PEOPLE that while healing and training following two meniscus tears in her knees, she began manifesting being a Sports Illustrated Swimsuit model.

“I gained all this weight [after the injuries], and I kind of almost gave up all the way until I met [Olympic gold medalist] Al Joyner,” she recalled. “He said he could help me heal my knees and get me back into shape. And as I was getting back into shape, I had put in the back of my mind that I’m a Sports Illustrated Swimsuit model.”

“Then it was like, ‘Wait a minute, I could be a Sports Illustrated Swimsuit model. I just need to put that out there,'” she added to PEOPLE. “And so, I put it out there. And ta-dah.”

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Haddish said she was very in tune with her body while getting back into shape and felt proud of the return to her track and field days. Still, in typical Tiffany Haddish fashion, she joked her whole Sports Illustrated experience wasn’t all abs and roses.

“I mean, there was a few times I scraped my knee on the lava rocks and I was bleeding. And I was like, ‘Modeling is a lot harder than I thought it was,'” she told PEOPLE.

The various swimsuits and bikinis she wore came with their own sets of struggles, too.

“There was times where there were certain swimsuits I was wearing, and I thought, ‘Now this is going to be inappropriate … Because you’re in the ocean. The ocean likes to take your clothes off,” she joked.

“Oh, you know what else like to pop out? My nipples,” Haddish added. “My nipples wanted to be in the photo shoot so bad. We were having a hard time keeping those in.”

Haddish is one of this year’s cover stars, alongside the likes of Alix Earle, Hilary Duff, Nicole Williams English, and Ilona Maher.

“Each woman brings a distinct combination of relevance, resilience and range that extends far beyond what’s expected,” Editor-in-Chief MJ Day told Today. “From Tiffany’s deeply human story rooted in joy and honesty, to Alix’s evolution of access into influence, to Nicole’s commitment to authentic growth and Hilary’s quiet reinvention marked by confidence, humor and grace. Together, they represent the power of embracing every chapter.”

Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly