Katherine Elizabeth "Kate" Upton is an American model and actress, known for her appearances
in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue. Upton was named Rookie of the Year following
her first SI appearance in 2011 and was the cover model for the 2012 and 2013 issues.
She was also the subject of the 100th Anniversary Vanity Fair cover.
Early life Upton was born in St. Joseph, Michigan, and
raised in Melbourne, Florida. She is the daughter of Shelley, a former Texas state tennis champion,
and Jeff Upton, a high school athletics director. Her uncle is U.S. Representative Fred Upton.
Upton's great-grandfather, Frederick Upton, was co-founder of appliance manufacturer and
marketer Whirlpool Corporation. Upton attended Holy Trinity Episcopal Academy.
As a young equestrian, she showed at the American Paint Horse Association and competed at a
national level. With her horse Roanie Pony, she won three APHA Reserve World Championships —
13 and Under Western Riding, 13 and Under Horsemanship, and 14–18 Western Riding.
She was named the 13 and Under Reserve All-Around Champion, giving her a total of four reserve
championships. In addition, Upton ended up third overall on the APHA youth Top Twenty.
With a second horse, Zipped, she won 14–18 Western Riding and was included in the top
5 in 14–18 Horsemanship and 14–18 Western Pleasure in 2009.
Career Upton attended a casting call in Miami for
Elite Model Management in 2008 and was signed by them the same day, and she eventually moved
to New York City, where she then signed with IMG Models.
Upton first modeled clothing for Garage and Dooney & Bourke. She was the 2010–11 face
of Guess. In 2011, Upton appeared in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue. She was featured
in the body paint section and named Rookie of the Year for that issue. She has since
modeled for Beach Bunny Swimwear, and has appeared in Complex and Esquire as "The Woman
of the Summer". Upton wore one of the Beach Bunny suits in the 2014 Sports Illustrated
Swimsuit Issue. In April 2011, an Internet video of her doing
the dougie hip-hop dance at a Los Angeles Clippers game went viral and served to increase
her popularity. Guy Trebay of The New York Times observed that this served to illustrate
the power of social media to bestow stardom upon a model, which had previously been the
domain of top designer runway shows. In April 2012, Upton appeared in a video of herself
performing the Cat Daddy dance to the song of the same name by The Rej3ctz, which also
went viral. Upton made an appearance in a June 2011 episode
of Tosh.0 and participated in the 2011 Taco Bell All-Star Legends & Celebrity Softball
Game at Chase Field in Phoenix, Arizona, in July 2011.
Upton's acting debut was in the film, Tower Heist, as Mr. Hightower’s Mistress. It
was released in November 2011. She also appeared in The Three Stooges as Sister Bernice.
Upton appeared on the cover of the 2012 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, released in February
2012. As of that month, her Twitter account had a following of 170,000 people. Upton has
also recounted the negative aftereffects of the 2012 Sports Illustrated cover, saying,
"I felt terrible about myself for a solid month. Every single guy I met was either married
or about to be married, and I felt like I was their bachelor present or something."
Upton has appeared on the covers of Vogue Italia, British Vogue, CR Fashion Book, Cosmopolitan,
French ELLE, GQ, Italian GQ, German GQ, Jalouse, Sunday Times Style, Esquire, The Daily, and
Muse Magazine. In 2012, she was ranked the fifth sexiest
model by MODELS's. She ranked #3 on the American publication of AskMen's Top 99 Women for 2013.
In 2012, she was listed on Maxim's HOT 100 list, citing her photo shoots with Sports
Illustrated. Upton was the cover model for the 2013 Sports
Illustrated Swimsuit Issue for the second consecutive year. Parts of her 2013 Sports
Illustrated pictorial were filmed in Antarctica and Upton suffered from failing hearing and
eyesight due to the extreme cold. After getting the November 2012 Vogue Italia
cover photographed by Steven Meisel and the January 2013 Vogue UK cover, Upton landed
the June 2013 Vogue cover by Mario Testino. She was then photographed by Annie Leibovitz
for the October 2013 100th anniversary cover of Vanity Fair.
In September 2013, Upton was named Model of the Year at the 10th annual Style Awards at
the Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week in New York. Upton appeared on the flip-side cover of the
2014 50th anniversary Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, the first time that type of cover was
used by that magazine. Part of her shoot took place at Cape Canaveral, capturing her in
zero gravity. In April 2014, she appeared with Cameron Diaz,
Leslie Mann and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau in the comedy The Other Woman as Amber, one of Coster-Waldau
character's mistresses. Personal life
Upton has expressed that her belief in God is important to her. During a photo shoot,
someone joked about a cross necklace she wore, "Why are you wearing a cross? Like you would
be religious," then took the necklace from her to do the shoot. Upton stated about the
incident: "I was really affected by that. The whole thing made me realize that I do
want a cross with me, at all times." As a result, Upton had a cross tattooed on the
inside of her finger. Filmography
References
External links Official website
Kate Upton on Twitter Kate Upton at the Fashion Model Directory
Kate Upton at Models.com Kate Upton at the Internet Movie Database
The Kate Upton Effect: America's Favorite Bombshell, vogue.com