Ashley Graham is No. 1 on the list of "World's Sexiest Women," according to Maxim magazine, the cover of which she graces for the May/June 2023 "Hot 100" edition.
It isn't the first time that the 35-year-old has appeared on the publication's cover: Her debut with the brand was back in April 2016, when she posed with a white button-down shirt covering her otherwise nude body. As a second-time Maxim cover girl, however, she's celebrating recent accomplishments, including becoming a mother of three.
"Having children has given me more of a drive," she told the magazine, referring to her 3-year-old son and 1-year-old twin boys Roman and Malachi, all shared with husband Justin Ervin. "The first time I was on the cover of Maxim I did not have three kids, and this time I have three little babies. It makes you remember that 'hotness' is in so many scenarios, and comes in all shapes and sizes. I’ve always preached that, but after I saw my body change so much after having three kids back-to-back, it’s hard to wrap my head around accepting my body and where I am, and how new and different it looks. So, thanks, Maxim!"
The journey of body acceptance is one that Graham has spearheaded throughout her career as a model, although she admitted that she didn't know being in front of the camera was her destiny when she was scouted at a mall in Nebraska as a tween. "At 12 years old, do you really know who you want to be?" she said. "But I would say, I don’t know how else I would be able to have this platform if it weren’t for modeling—so God bless you, modeling."
Graham reflected on some of the biggest accomplishments of her career, including giving a TED Talk, getting her Sports Illustrated Swimsuit cover in 2016 and the creation of a Barbie made in her likeness. Many of these moments were "in the early days," she noted, which contributed to "the impact that they made" to the growing body positivity movement.
"We can look at everybody’s shapes and sizes, gender, ethnicity, and age as part of who they are; it doesn’t have to be a negative or a positive," she said. "It should be something that’s easily embraced, and we don’t need to be having these conversations all the time. Our bodies are always changing, and they’re always evolving. I’ve been using my own body as a tool to be able to talk about these feelings."
While this is the crux of Graham's career at this point, she still considers it "an honor" to use her story and her platform to make change in the fashion industry.
"[It] also comes with a lot of responsibility—responsibility I don’t take lightly," she continued. "It reminds me that if someone like me can be part of something that’s changing globally, we can all do it. In a lot of ways I look at myself as just a normal girl from Nebraska who just has a lot of drive and ambition, so why don’t we change the world together?"