Brianna LaPaglia's Exclusive SI Swimsuit Cover Interview

The January digital cover model gets honest about her life ovre the past year and plans for the future.

SI Swimsuit sat down with Brianna LaPaglia during her January cover shoot to talk about everything from the impact of the shoot on her confidence, her healing journey over the past year and her plans for this next era of her life.

TRANSCRIPT

I wish a lot of things could have just been kept private, but they weren't.

Hey, it's Bri. I'm here on set with Sports Illustrated Swimsuit. Being a podcaster, being an influencer completely has changed my life and shaped the woman that I am today. This year, I was kind of forced to be 100% honest, open - share things that I maybe didn't want to share. It kind of gave me a backbone that I didn't know I had.

It was really cool to be vulnerable online and it proved a lot to myself, like who I am behind closed doors, I can also be it online and share it with everyone, even when it's hard. 

Last May, I was asked to host the red carpet by you guys and so excited we had a bunch of calls about it.I had told my ex about the opportunity. In the beginning it was like, “oh, that's really cool, but isn't Sports Illustrated trashy? And then aren't they going to ask you to walk in a bikini?” He made me feel like it was trashy, below me, and that if I did it, he would look at me differently. I had to cancel and, told you guys that. And then you guys were like, well, let's make you the digital cover. And I was like, so excited. 

The last year of my life, I was made to hate a lot of things that I loved about myself by this guy. I think one - being outspoken. I used to walk into a room and, like, I knew exactly who I was. I could talk to anyone. I could, I just had my own energy. I didn't, like, try to fit in, and throughout that, I would always get, you know, looks from him or comments from him. “Why are you talking to this person? Why are you saying that in front of this person? Why are you are you being so much?” 

And I love being - I loved being that person. I loved having energy. And then I started to think, this is awful. I'm, I'm annoying. I'm too much. Maybe people don't want to talk to me. Maybe I should just speak when spoken to.

So I went from being the one talking to everyone to waiting for someone to talk to me instead of just being myself. And that really sucks because that was like, that's who you are to your core is your energy and how you express yourself. And I lost that completely, which in reaction to that just made me lose everything about myself.

When I first came forward, I knew that there was a potential for people to flip on you or for people to not believe you, not hear you, not understand you. And, I think helping people with my message outweighs people who don't believe me or outweighs - even if it is louder, or there's more that don't, or more that think it's stupid or that I'm lying, that doesn't matter, because it's not for them, and I'm not doing it for a headline. I'm not doing it for attention. I'm doing it because I have thousands of women and men in my DMs coming forward that my message about me sharing my story changed their life, made them leave an abusive relationship, actually took them out of a hold that they thought they were never going to get out of. So a mean comment or a person online being like, “I don't care. Wrong side,” I don't care. I'm in my own lane and I'm doing things that those people would never have the courage to do. 

Of course, there are moments where I just want to throw my phone at a wall and never talk online again, because sometimes it feels like everything you say or do is the wrong thing. Even if you have the most positive message, you're still going to get a negative headline. There could be 10 billion people in the world trying to tear me down, and I'm still going to be here. I'm going through real life emotions in front of everyone. But you can't, like, put a genie back in a bottle. So I wish a lot of things could have just been kept private, but they weren't.

Healing out loud, hearing stories from other women that went through this helped me in ways, and I say it every time I talk about it. I'm helping people a lot, but they're helping me just as much. It's validating. It just feels like such a strong bond that I have with people that I don't even know, and without those people, I don't think I would be doing a Sports Illustrated [Swimsuit] cover. I would still be in bed. I would still be on the ground, like I would still be confused. So without healing out loud and getting to talk to people that have gone through it and like being heard, I would probably be in a hole somewhere.

From day one, any woman in my like sphere or in my close proximity online - If we were to make similar content or vice versa, like I would always be pitted against them when I was a fan of them, or they were a fan of me, or I like, consumed all their content. It's so devastating and I don't know why we keep doing it because it's almost like us women online are feeding into what we hate and what men do to us every single day.

It's like we're adding to it. We're making it worse when we should be lifting each other up and trying to understand each other, rather than just cause this havoc. It's like, guys don't even need to do it to us anymore, we're doing it to ourselves. 

Coming out of such an abusive relationship, I think people are forgetting that I'm still trying to learn how to take care of myself after that. The main message to people who are going through something similar is if you start putting yourself on the backburner consistently, it's never going to end well. And there are times where you have to put yourself first, even in hard situations. People think love means you stay even when you shouldn’t. I thought that. It comes to a point where if that's killing you, you gotta go and you'll be better off for it. And so will they. 

This shoot means so much more to me than, like, feeling sexy and being in a cool location.  Over the past year and just being in an abusive relationship, I lost a lot of weight. I've always been insecure about how thin I was. This is like me reclaiming my body, myself, me just as a woman.

I'm allowed to do what I want to do. I'm allowed to do it in any fashion, in any amount of clothes, in front of whoever I want. And no one has the control over you to tell you what you can and cannot do. And for so long I let someone else have that control. So this, to me, isn't just like, check it off the bucket list - that was really cool. This is like reclaiming myself, and that's what this all means to me. And I think to a lot of women who do these shoots, it's kind of something along the same lines.

This next new era is really confusing and scary for me. BFFs is turning into a whole new show. We have such good guests coming on. It's going to be less drama based, more real life based, giving people platform based and more so really involved in me and Josh's friendship and our real lives. It's going to have a really different feel, and I think in some way it's going to feel more even like BFFs, because it's going to get to showcase Josh and I’s friendship, a lot closer and personally. It's going to be a big win for my friends and family to, like, get me back to a place where I feel like I'm me again. 

I think I'm pivoting now because I went through so much. I've been working on a book. I've always wanted to be a writer. I think writing it all will really define my story and like, really get people to understand and also help others. I love writing fiction. That's what I've always done, but I think my nonfiction right now will be a lot more helpful, impactful and also therapeutic for me to write about. I think there will be a lot more said if I'm able to put pen to paper and get it out there, because it's really hard for me to even say things out loud, that happened to me because it makes them real again, and it's like reliving it.

So yeah, there will be a lot of a lot of things in the book. This is like a success thing for me in my personal journey of just getting back to who I was and who I am. And I think me just being me and doing that and sharing it with everyone is going to be a big win for everyone that's been through the same thing. So I'm really excited for the personal healing journey, to be honest.