Camille Kostek’s Self-Love Journey Is Never-Ending

The SI Swimsuit model’s rough patch in 2017 was a turning point in her life and career.

Camille Kostek is at the top of her professional game, but to get to this place in her career, it took determination and believing in herself. “Self-doubt would creep in and low self-esteem moments and things, especially since it’s an industry driven by your body image and the way that you look and present yourself,” the five-time Sports Illustrated Swimsuit model explains to Nick Viall on his The Viall Files podcast. “I have not and will never be that tall Amazon woman.”

Camille Kostek attends the Boohoo X Kourtney Kardashian fashion show during New York Fashion Week: The Shows on the High Line on September 13, 2022 in New York City. 

Gotham/WireImage

The 30-year-old is so much more with a smile that can light up a room and a personality that is warm and inviting, but it took her years before it all clicked. Kostek notes that 2017 was a turning point. On a break from longtime beau Rob Gronkowski, she picked up and moved to Los Angeles with no plan, just faith. She had been struggling with low self-esteem and body image issues but worked through it. “How you feel on the inside is what you start to attract on the outside in all aspects of life,” she adds. “Self-love is a journey for a reason because it never stops.”

She took it upon herself to move and think differently as well as do things for herself, which certainly paid off. From booking her first SI Swim shoot without an agent to landing the cover in 2019, the reasoning for all this success is due to her newfound approach to life. “It’s going to sound really cliché… I just believed in myself,” she says. “If you don’t truly to your core believe that it is what you want to do… everything is energy.”

It is also knowing the why behind the passion. “What is the purpose behind it? My why is I want to do it all,” she shares. “My why is when I looked at the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit magazine when I was 15 years old. When I see these women on the pages, it did something for me like, Oh, they're raw and they’re real. It was the first time that I saw hips and thighs in a magazine. Then I saw freckles. I didn’t see all the Photoshop and everything has to be just so and just right and high and tight. It was real to me and that spoke to me at such a young age."

Now, the Dancing with Myself host is the one girls everywhere are seeing in the pages. "To be that woman among the [magazine’s] pages that someone can relate to and be like, ‘I feel comfortable in a swimsuit now, I can buy a bikini or I can wear that bikini on the beach or I feel this certain way,’ ” she says. “Just being able to see an image and feel like you could be celebrated is a win for me.”