Cheryl Tiegs Calls Her Iconic Sports Illustrated White Fishnet Swimsuit Photo a 'Throwaway Shot': 'Not My Favorite'

Two of Cheryl Tiegs' most memorable photos to appear in Sports Illustrated's Swimsuit Issue came about spontaneously.

The supermodel reveals in the new documentary Beyond the Gaze: Jule Campbell's Swimsuit Issue what went into the 1978 photo shoot that produced the now-iconic SI shot of her wearing a white fishnet swimsuit.

The upcoming documentary, premiering Nov. 17 at the DOC NYC film festival, details the progression of Sports Illustrated’s Swimsuit Issue, which launched in 1964, and the late editor behind the brand’s signature tentpole, Jule Campbell, who died in 2022.

Tiegs, now 77, says in the doc that the photo of her walking on a beach in Brazil wearing the eye-catching one-piece that exposed her nipples wasn't planned.

“The white fishnet was a throwaway shot,” Tiegs says of the shot that ignited public protest.

Photographer Walter Iooss Jr. adds that it was “a picture you wouldn't want to show anyone. It was taken on a miserable afternoon in the middle of nowhere in the Amazon.” 

“It was awful light,” Campbell says in a voiceover. “I went up to Cheryl, and because the light was bad, I said, ‘Would you please get wet?’ Because I thought if her skin glistened, we'd get some highlights.”

“It wasn't 'I'll see more if the suit's wet,'" she adds.

“Getting the suit wet was what made it so see-through,” Tiegs says. “Before, it was just a bunch of cotton.”

"The simplicity I think of just a girl walking on the beach in a bathing suit like that was intriguing. I don't know. I don't know," she adds. "It's not my favorite shot."

Tiegs, Campbell and Iooss didn't anticipate that the photo would propel Tiegs to superstardom. "It wasn't just that there was a beautiful woman with visible breasts in the pages of Sports Illustrated. It was a beautiful woman that Sports Illustrated readers felt like they knew," Iooss says in the doc. "It was Cheryl freaking Tiegs."

Tiegs also talks about her first cover for the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, noting that the photo was not a part of the official photoshoot. Tiegs first graced the cover of the special issue in 1970, when she was 22. 

The crew was on a boat heading home, and Campbell offered Tiegs a long-sleeve bathing suit when the model said she was cold.

“I put my sunglasses on. Jay Maisel was taking pictures. He said, ‘Take your sunglasses off. Take your sunglasses off.’ I said, ‘No, I'm tired. I don't want my picture taken,' " Tiegs recalls.

But he still photographed the young model relaxing in her sunglasses and long-sleeved swimsuit. “And they put that on the cover,” Tiegs says. “That was me, a real person. I wasn't a model at that moment."

“I felt very comfortable that it was a female [in charge] because it is a very vulnerable situation,” she says of Campbell. “I had the confidence and the security to do what I had to do.”

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Tiegs appeared in the issue nine times and on the cover a total of three times, first in 1970, and then in 1975 and 1983. The issue with her "nude" white fishnet swimsuit also featured her memorable "pink bikini."

Beyond the Gaze: Jule Campbell's Swimsuit Issue is screening at DOC NYC Nov. 17 at 4:15 p.m. and Nov. 18 at 12:30 p.m. at Village East by Angelika and will be available to stream online Nov. 18 to Dec. 1. Tickets can be purchased here.