MJ Day Reveals SI Swimsuit Cover She’s Most Proud of on ‘House of Maher’ Podcast

Yesterday, Ilona Maher and her sisters, Olivia and Adrianna, welcomed SI Swimsuit editor in chief MJ Day as a special guest on their podcast, House of Maher.

Throughout the candid discussion, Day, who joined the SI Swimsuit team in 1999 as an editorial assistant before earning her current title in 2014, opened up about everything from what goes into planning a brand photo shoot to tips for taking better pics and more. She also revealed which SI Swimsuit shoot to date she’s most proud of: Ashley Graham’s 2016 cover girl moment.

When Graham landed the cover of that year’s magazine as a rookie, she became the first plus-size model in the brand’s history to do so. At the time, the now 38-year-old called her cover feature a major stepping stone for women of all shapes and sizes—because as a size 14 model, she was often told she’d never be an editorial model or make it into the pages of the SI Swimsuit Issue.

“The Ashley Graham cover was like, pivotal in the brand’s evolution,” Day explained in the March 10 podcast episode. “Absolutely pivotal. And, you know, I love the fact that now we can talk about it and people will be like, ‘What’s the big deal?’ because we’ve kind of made progress, that’s the norm. Back then, it unfortunately was not the norm, and it was met with a lot of vitriol and a lot of hesitancy. People were nervous about that because it was different.”

Other highlights Day mentioned throughout her career included Kate Upton’s 2013 cover feature in Antarctica, the brand legend’s 2014 photo shoot in zero gravity and Leya Bloom’s history-making cover feature in 2021.

“I just remember feeling nervous but, like, committed and feeling very much like, this is what needs to be done and if they don’t like it, we don’t want them here,” Day added of Graham’s cover girl moment with the brand. “ ... So that was a liberating moment, but [I’m] very proud of that because we were breaking an antiquated perspective, we were breaking a very antiquated infrastructure that existed in the print media at that time.”

In honor of Day’s fond reflection upon Graham’s history-making rookie cover shoot, we’re throwing it back to a few of our favorite snapshots from the model’s feature in Turks and Caicos, captured by photographer James Macari.

Ashley Graham was photographed by James Macari in Turks and Caicos. | James Macari/Sports Illustrated