Jena Sims deserves congratulations!
The 34-year-old actress and model, who is wed to professional golfer Brooks Koepka, was chosen on Friday as one of the rookies for the 2024 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit edition after successfully completing the demanding audition procedure for the highly sought-after position.
Sims shared the news with her 282,000 followers on Instagram, writing that she “can’t stop smiling” since learning the news.
Thank you for your votes, comments, shares, and even hate. Everything mattered, Sims wrote in the description of her Instagram image. “WE ACHIEVED IT, baby! I feel incredibly proud to join my fellow Swim Search winners as one of the first rookies for the @si_swimsuit 60th-anniversary issue.
The model was shown trying on several bikinis in the video Sims created for the occasion before finally donning her official “ROOKIE” one-piece.
In the first few seconds of the video, she wrote, “A pair of heels altered Cinderella’s life… Sims added, “This swimsuit changed mine,” over the clip that shifted to display her SI swimsuit.
SI claims that out of the thousands of entries received from hopeful models, the casting team chooses 12 finalists to go to the next phase.
Out of those 12, seven finalists were chosen to participate in the brand’s yearly Swim Week runway show in July, which Sims performed while she was eight months along in the pregnancy with her and Koepka’s first child, Crew.
The seven models that participated in the exhibition were introduced as SI’s 2024 rookie class on Thursday. Along with Sims, rookies Penny Lane, Brittney Nicole, Berkleigh Wright, Achieng Agutu, Nina Cash, and Sharina Gutierrez were also chosen.
Koepka and Sims got engaged in June 2022 after meeting at the 2015 Masters. On July 27, 2023, they welcomed a boy, Crew Sims Koepka.
On the professional golfer’s 33rd birthday in May 2023, Koepka and Sims revealed their pregnancy on Instagram. On Mother’s Day, around two weeks later, they made their baby’s sex public.
Along with pictures of the couple devouring blue icing-covered donuts, the philanthropist wrote on Instagram, “I cannot wait to become a boy mom.”
The model claimed in a May 2019 interview with Golf Digest that she and Koepka “almost never talk about golf,” despite their love story starting at a golf tournament.
The former Miss Teen USA does, however, attend the majority of her husband’s golf outings.
“I love being able to support Brooks & watch him since he’s so talented,” she stated. He keeps telling me, ‘It must be so dull standing in the crowd watching me play,'” I recall. And I think, “No way.” Actually, I really like it.