Hilary Duff Makes SI Swimsuit Cover Debut at 38

Hilary Duff has officially arrived — and she brought the beach with her. The former Disney Channel star and pop singer has landed her first-ever Sports Illustrated Swimsuit cover, joining Alix Earle, Tiffany Haddish, and Nicole Williams English as the four faces of the 2026 issue, revealed Tuesday, May 12.

Photographed by Kat Irlin in the crystal-clear waters of South Caicos, Turks and Caicos, Duff, 38, stunned in a cream OYE Swimwear one-piece with a plunging neckline, halter straps, and a cheeky back — her blonde hair styled in loose, tousled waves, skin bronzed and glowing with Charlotte Tilbury makeup. The image is effortlessly coastal and completely striking.

And getting there wasn’t without nerves. “I’m a mom of four, and I’m not a spring chicken,” Duff told Sports Illustrated. “I don’t typically frolic around in a bathing suit, so it was a little scary. But it was also incredibly empowering. It was a mostly female crew on set, and it really felt like a celebration of women.”

She shares son Luca, 14, with ex-husband Mike Comrie, and three daughters — Banks, 7, Mae, 5, and Townes, 2 — with husband Matthew Koma, who also produced her new album. Four kids. One cover. And a whole lot of hard-won perspective.

“The amount of pressure I put on myself to look like other people was a lot,” she said. “I can look at my body now and appreciate all the things it has done for me. I no longer find that I am constantly comparing myself — and that is a better place to exist.”

It’s a sentiment that’s been years in the making. Back in 2017, Duff famously clapped back at body-shaming tabloids with an Instagram post: “I am posting this on behalf of young girls, women, and mothers of all ages. My body has given me the greatest gift of my life: Luca. Ladies, let’s be proud of what we’ve got and stop wasting precious time in the day wishing we were different, better, and unflawed.” And in 2022, she stripped down for the cover of Women’s Health, telling the magazine, “I’m proud of my body. I’m proud that it’s produced three children for me.” The SI cover feels like the natural next chapter of that story.

At the Time100 Gala earlier this year, she put it even more plainly: “I obviously grew up during that time when all of us were trying to disappear and be waifs, and that’s not natural for my body. Stronger, not smaller is a huge, impactful statement that resonates with me. I am strong, and I have muscles, and I’ve always been a gymnast. I used to be embarrassed of my strength and I just don’t need to be anymore.”

The Full Shoot: Every Look from South Caicos

The full editorial is a masterclass in understated beach glamour. Beyond the cover’s cream one-piece, Duff layered a fully sheer white SKIMS ribbed top over a barely-there brown Riot Swim bikini — posing barefoot on sunlit stone floors and near open windows in what she described on Instagram as “a make believe day with fairytale people.” The natural light did everything.

She also turned up in a red Vitamin A one-piece with a square neckline and spaghetti straps slipped off one shoulder, a black OYE Swimwear suit with sculptural crisscross cutouts at the chest, a black Vitamin A triangle bikini with an abs cutout, and a white OYE crop top with high-waisted bottoms. Loose, wet-look waves. Bronzed skin. Smoky-neutral eyes. Every look felt like her.

The reaction from the industry was immediate. SI model Brooks Nader dropped an “OMGGGG” in the comments. Brittany Mahomes sent a string of fire emojis. Hunter McGrady wrote, “THIS IS WHAT DREAMS ARE MADE OF!!!!!!!”

The Comeback That Made This Moment

The cover doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It’s the latest milestone in what has been a genuinely remarkable few months for Duff. Her sixth studio album, luck… or something — her first in over a decade, produced by husband Matthew Koma — dropped in February and debuted at No. 3 on the Billboard 200. “I had my husband as producer and I made the music I wanted to make,” she told SI. “It represents who I am now, which is complicated and mature, but dressed in sequins.”

She also admitted that for a long time, she genuinely didn’t know if she’d ever record again. “People asked me for years when I’d make another album, and I always skirted around that question,” she said. “The truth is I didn’t really know if I ever would because I had never gotten to make an album the way I wanted to.”

Now she has. And the tour is next: three shows at The Voltaire in Las Vegas starting May 22, the official Lucky Me Tour launch on June 22 in West Palm Beach, and two sold-out nights at Madison Square Garden on August 5 and 6. The Lizzie McGuire era feels like a very long time ago.

The Other Cover Stars

Duff’s co-covers are just as compelling. Alix Earle, 25 — the New Jersey TikTok phenomenon with 1.6 billion likes on the platform — was shot by Ruven Afanador in Botswana’s Okavango Delta, wearing a gold string bikini by Andi Bagus. She found out she was getting a cover right after the January shoot wrapped, and managed to keep it secret for months. “I was determined to keep this a secret, just because me and all my friends have pretty big mouths,” she said on the Today Show. “Today, we finally get to tell everyone. I got to see it for the first time downstairs. I’m still in a state of shock right now.”

On the deeper meaning of the cover, Earle was characteristically honest: “I often feel like I am a big sister to my audience. I’m being honest and hopefully showing that it is OK to embrace exactly who you are. And that’s exactly what SI Swim does. It’s not about presenting this perfect picture. It celebrates women, not because they are flawless, but because they are fully themselves — the good, the bad, everything.”

Tiffany Haddish, 46, posed in a two-tone orange string bikini on a beach in Loreto, Baja California Sur, Mexico, photographed by James Macari. Her reaction to landing the cover was pure Haddish: “The first thing I thought was, I have to make sure my cuckoo doesn’t come out. Those bathing suits were itty bitty and I just was thinking, My booty is going to eat this up. I wanted to keep it classy.” But the moment carried real weight for the Emmy winner, who revealed that her grandmother was a swimsuit model and one of the first Black women to model clothing on television. “This little girl from south central L.A. is now a swimsuit model,” she said on Today. “I think it is gorgeous. I think it is everything that I’ve dreamed of since I was a little girl. I just wish my grandma was alive to see this.”

Nicole Williams English, 41, rounded out the covers, shot by Ben Watts in Montauk, New York. The Canadian model and TV personality has been chasing this particular dream for a long time. “For me, this is about more than being in a magazine,” she said. “I look back at my journey and I gave up time away from my family, I did schoolwork in hotel rooms, I worked nonstop. I believed in myself. I bet on myself — and that dream became a reality.”

The full 2026 issue features 34 women spanning sports, entertainment, and digital media — Olympic gold medalists, WNBA champions, and content creators among them. Ilona Maher, Olivia Dunne, Bethenny Frankel, Remi Bader, Napheesa Collier, Brooks Nader, and Jasmine Sanders are among those appearing inside.

SI Swimsuit editor-in-chief MJ Day framed the four cover stars as a statement about what the franchise has become. “Sports Illustrated Swimsuit is no longer just a single publication. It is a movement that celebrates self-acceptance, personal evolution and the boundless definition of beauty,” she wrote in her Editor’s Letter. “These women possess relevance, resilience and range that extend far beyond what the world expects of them. There is no expiration date. No rulebook. That evolution looks different for everyone, and that’s exactly what makes it powerful.”

The issue is available on swimsuit.si.com now, hits select newsstands May 14, and goes national May 26.