Jena Sims Just Found Out She’s SI Swimsuit’s Rookie of the Year—While Owning the Red Carpet

The 2023 Swim Search co-winner rings in the 2025 issue with news she’s our 2024 Rookie of the Year.

Jena Sims / Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images/Sports Illustrated

Jena Sims has a lot to celebrate right now, and we’re so excited to have a front-row seat to this incredible moment. The 2023 Swim Search co-winner made her debut in SI Swimsuit last year with her rookie shoot in Mexico, captured by Yu Tsai. The founder and president of HBBQs, Inc. (Has Been Beauty Queens), an organization that promotes self-confidence in kids facing challenges, is now walking the red carpet for the 2025 SI Swimsuit Issue launch party—and little did she know she’d receive an amazing surprise.

Sims stepped out tonight for the SI Swimsuit launch party at the Hard Rock Hotel New York, thinking she’d just be celebrating her return to the magazine—a major feat in its own right. But she was shocked when editor in chief MJ Day appeared to announce that she had won Rookie of the Year honors for her 2024 shoot. Talk about a momentous evening!

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Sims looks positively gorgeous at the event tonight in Manhattan, N.Y., wearing a stunning sheer floor-length gown from Jason Wu with a high-slit in a sparkling champagne color—which is definitely appropriate, considering all the celebrating she’ll be doing tonight!

MJ Day and Jena Sims / John Nacion/Variety via Getty Images

“I am so surprised, like, what?” Sims said while accepting the honor, noting that she knows SI Swimsuit Rookies of the Year have gone on to do incredible things in the past.

Sims joins a long list of game-changing women who have received SI Swimsuit Rookie of the Year honors, including Nicole Williams English in 2023, Katie Austin and Christen Goff in 2022, Katrina Scott in 2021, Josephine Skriver in 2020, Jasmine Sanders in 2019, Alexis Ren in 2018 and more.

While on set for her rookie shoot, Sims reflected on her SI Swimsuit journey, which included applying for Swim Search three times before earning a spot in the magazine. “Being a rookie, it just feels right,” she stated last year. “I have worked literally my entire life [for this]. This is my biggest goal ever since I was a little kid. I was so nervous flying here, but now that I’m here, I just feel so relaxed. I feel like I’m exactly where I need to be, and I feel like this is the beginning of such a huge new chapter of my life.”

Jena Sims was photographed by Yu Tsai in Mexico. Swimsuit by Mikoh. Bracelets by JOHANNA ORTIZ VACATION. / Yu Tsai/Sports Illustrated

For the 2025 issue, Sims traveled to Bermuda, where she posed for Ben Watts’s lens, channeling a mermaidcore aesthetic we can’t get enough of. Accessorizing with seashells and pearls, she glistened in the sunlight and radiated ethereal energy.

“I look up to each of the models on the covers and in the pages, and still can’t believe I’m among them,” she wrote on Instagram to celebrate launch week on Wednesday. “I’ve never felt more happy, settled, and confident in my life- thank you @mj_day and the@si_swimsuit team.”

Congratulations on Rookie of the Year honors, Jena Sims!

The 2025 SI Swimsuit magazine is available online now and at select newsstands on May 17. Order your copy here.

Meet the models at the exclusive SI Swimsuit Social Club this weekend. Secure your spot here.

https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/v1746835821/images/voltaxMediaLibrary/mmsport/si_swimsuit/01jtvrdh3rwd1908aj9x.jpg. All 2025 Models. Jena Sims Content. Jena Sims’s 2025 Gallery. https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/v1747318689/images/voltaxMediaLibrary/mmsport/si_swimsuit/01jva4yhdwfgbmwgtt99.png. Jena Sims’s 2024 Gallery. https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/v1746147710/images/voltaxMediaLibrary/mmsport/si_swimsuit/01jt786zprd10jayv2qw.jpg