Ashley Callingbull Makes History As First-Ever Indigenous Model Featured in Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition

In this year's Swim Search, 14 finalists will be flown to the Dominican Republic for a photoshoot with photographer Yu Tsai, where they will compete for a spot in this year’s issue.

Credit: Instagram / ashleycallingbull
Credit: Instagram / ashleycallingbull

Sports Illustrated, a publication known for its highly celebrated annual swimsuit issue, is set to feature its first-ever Indigenous model, Ashley Callingbull, for its 2022 Swim Search, an annual casting call which provides opportunities for both aspiring and established models to be featured in the publication.

For this year’s Swim Search, 14 finalists will be flown to the Dominican Republic for a photoshoot with photographer Yu Tsai, where they will compete for a spot in this year’s competition. Among them is Callingbull, the first-ever Indigenous Enoch Cree model to compete as a finalist.

Callingbull, who is a Cree First Nations woman from the Enoch Cree Nation in Alberta, joyfully celebrated the news on Instagram.

“I feel blessed to be able to break barriers and be in spaces where others have told me I don’t belong,” she wrote.

Callingbull previously expressed her views on the need for more inclusivity and representation within the modeling and acting industries in an exclusive E! news interview, stating, “For a lot of my life, a lot of the things that I’ve had to chase, they weren’t open to me because I’m an Indigenous woman, whether that be acting or modeling. And I’ve been told that, you know, (that) Indigenous people aren’t relatable, so we’re not going to cast you, which is such a crazy thing to hear. Now, times are changing and things are becoming more inclusive, it’s been too long to get to this point.”

Outside of modeling, Callingbull has been active within the social justice sphere. After learning of her mother and grandmother’s cancer diagnoses, Callingbull became an advocate for cancer awareness and an inspiration to many as a motivational speaker and astrophysicist.