Tiffany Haddish is adding a major milestone to her dreams-come-true list.

The comedian and actress is one of the 2026 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit cover models, photographed by James Macari in Loreto, Baja California Sur, Mexico, and SI says the moment captures a version of Haddish who is still evolving. 

Haddish told People the shoot helped her get “in tune” with her body, saying, “my body popped into alignment and did everything it was instructed to do.” She also admitted the experience was tougher than it looked. “Modeling is a lot harder than I thought it was,” she said after scraping her knee on the lava rocks during the shoot. 

The cover also brought Haddish back to a dream she says she once let go of. She said that when she was younger, she thought her track and field success might lead her to the swimsuit cover, but later “gave up on that dream” after shifting into comedy. Still, she said the idea never fully left her mind. 

What makes the moment even more powerful is what it represents personally. In SI’s cover story, Haddish reflected on her childhood in foster care and recalled how being moved around with her belongings in trash bags made her “feel like garbage.” She said receiving a suitcase changed how she saw herself, and that she promised that if she ever got power, she would make sure no kid felt that way. That memory helped shape why she said yes to the cover in the first place. “The little girl in me is in awe,” Haddish said. “This is a brand that means something.” 

Haddish’s grandma, Alice Ray, was also a swimsuit model in the 1950s and one of the first Black women to model clothing on TV.

"I'm looking at it right now, like, 'Oh my goodness, that's me.' I was watching [the footage from the photo shoot] and just being there and just feeling like, ‘Wow, I wish my grandma was alive. I wish my grandma was seeing this,'" Haddish said.

She went on to say her grandma used to show her "how to pose and all that stuff," but Haddish "didn't grow tall enough" to become a model herself.

"She was like, 'Yeah, it's not going to work out for you. But, you know, there's other things you can do,'" Haddish added. "And so I became a comedian, but I just kept dreaming of it. Kept hoping, wishing. And then now, I'm doing it."

Haddish also said the honor fits her current mindset. “The things that made me happy last year don’t necessarily make me happy this year,” she said. “If you want to keep growing you have to constantly be asking, ‘What makes me happy now?’” For a performer who has already broken barriers, the answer this year seems to be simple: keep evolving.