Caitlyn Jenner’s “Sports Illustrated” Cover Is Here
Sports Illustrated Photoshops its bikini models until they look like they got a total body skin graft from Barbie, so when it was rumored that a member of the Photoshop-loving Kartrashians was going to pose in nothing but an American flag and her Olympic medal for the cover, I figured that the retouching budget would be so high that SI’s publisher would have to do a major layoff. But it looks like I figured wrong. It looks like the cost of the magazine is more than the budget for the cover photo shoot. It looks like Sports Illustrated took Caitlyn Jenner to Six Flags using some free tickets they got, and immediately went to one of those fake magazine cover kiosks, where she struck a quick awkward before they used the rest of the budget to buy everyone a funnel cake.
It’s the 40th anniversary of when Caitlyn set a world decathlon record and won the gold medal as Bruce Jenner at the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal. To celebrate that victory, Caitlyn put on her gold medal in front of public eyes for the first time since 1976 and posed for the cover of SI. In the interview, Caitlyn talked about how she hated the “Greek god kind of body” she had in the 70s and that she still loves Bruce Jenner, but she’s more comfortable than she’s ever been and feels like she’s really making a difference now. Caitlyn felt like it was important to pose with her gold medal:
If there is no medal, Jenner does not pose on the cover of this magazine, a few weeks shy of 40 years since her last Sports Illustrated cover, in which Bruce Jenner was captured crossing the finish line in Montreal, letting loose a triumphant scream. She does not put the medal around her neck, in public, for the first time since the Olympic Games. It is a startling pose that delivers two messages. The first lands softly, celebrating an aging sports hero on the anniversary of a proud moment. The second hits more forcefully, a transgender American, thanking her country for its tolerance, and asking for more. Jenner understands the power of the image. “It’s a picture that brings attention to this issue,” she says. “That’s the important thing. That’s why I wore the medal.”
If there is no medal, there is none of this. “If I had not won the Games, if I was not on the Wheaties box and I hadn’t become this, um, this . . . celebrity, would all of this have happened?” asks Jenner. She pauses. Jenner gave speeches for four decades as Bruce, and now for a year as Caitlyn. When off script, though, she speaks less decisively. “Certainly life would have been different. The gender issues, I was never getting away from. But things would have been different. I would hope I would be doing some of the things I’m doing today, but certainly not on the same scale.”
They should’ve given Caitlyn a real cover! Not this “Coldwater Creek newspaper circular” shit. It looks like even Caitlyn is thinking to herself, “You sneaky motherfuckers, I wasn’t ready yet and you better not use this pic for the cover.”
And here’s Caitlyn leaving an L.A. restaurant in her Grimace ass Porsche a couple of weeks ago:
Pics: Splash