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Camille Kostek is gracing the pages (and cover!) of Sports Illustrated Swimsuit again!
“Extra’s” Mona Kosar Abdi spoke with Camille about being part of the SI Swimsuit 60th anniversary issue, her boyfriend Rob Gronkowski, and Tom Brady’s Netflix roast.
Camille joked she was nervous watching the roast, saying, “You know that they have their own behind-the-scenes in the locker room, so having it broadcast live to millions of people watching at home… I just knew they were going to just let these jokes rip and that they were going to go off script a little bit.”
She that Rob definitely went off script! She shared, “I heard him practicing and there was a lot of things where I was like, ‘That wasn’t in it,’ and then you hear him say right after he said that joke, ‘I just came up with that one right now.’”
Despite getting some jabs directed at him, Gronk had no hard feelings. Camille stressed that it was one of Rob’s dreams to “go hang out with his boys and just make fun of each other for everyone to laugh.”
She added, “He’ll randomly call me or I’ll call him and he’ll answer the phone within this last week, and he’s just laughing already. I’m like, ‘What’s so funny? Who are you with? What’s going on?’ And he’s like, ‘No, Camille, I’m still laughing about, like, reliving jokes that people had.”
Laughs aside, Kostek was “so thrilled” to be called back again for her the 60th anniversary issue of Sports Illustrated Swimsuit, which was her seventh consecutive year shooting for the magazine.
It was “emotional” for Camille to be included in the new Legends class with women she idolized like Paulina Porizkova and Tyra Banks. She said, “I called my mom and she couldn’t believe it. She was just as in awe as I was and we were both just very emotional, and I immediately had reminded her and reflected on the moment where she sat me down to watch and stay up with her to watch the TV special for the 50th anniversary with the Legends class.”
She reflected, “This is a very full-circle moment.”
As for the shoot itself, Camille shared, “Watching these women work before my eyes, it’s beyond just being in awe. You can feel their presence. Like, you can feel their energy.”
Camille shared that she actually got emotional watching Paulina! She recalled, “I started crying because her essence and the way she moves is just so powerful and so beautiful, and it reminded me that was the feeling I got when I opened the magazine at 15 years old.”
Camille also revealed how Gronk reacted to her latest cover and opened up about their relationship and what has brought them even closer.
Camille said she laid out the magazine for Rob to see when he got home. She joked, “Each year, I think he’s getting like less excited because he’s like, ‘I know you’re in the magazine and there’s pictures of you. I see them all the time.'”
She continued, “But he was like, ‘That’s a good one, Camille.’ We shot it at night, it’s like a high-flash shot by a pool. He was like, ‘This is something like you’ve never done before,’ and I was like, ‘You pay attention.’ He was like, ‘These are really cool that you didn’t shoot on a beach this year.’”
Kostek revealed that Gronkowski is going to great lengths to make it for the big launch party, saying, “He has an event that ends right at 7 in Atlanta and he was like, ‘I’m going to get in a chopper, I’m going to land, and I’m going to run to your event.’”
She gushed, “He knows the games that I have flown in on and rushed to the stadium to make. I love that he shows that same hustle for the things that are important to me.”
Camille recently opened up about their ups and downs, which have made them closer. She stressed, “Communication is so key and that’s something I’ve learned through the years… There’s a way to be very forward in a polite way or in a way that someone will listen and you could have a conversation and then you feel so much better.”
Along with working on not internalizing things, Kostek noted, “I’ve just been open with Rob about, like, things, just anything, just working through things if someone’s frustrated. Don’t keep it in — let it out, and that, I feel like, has just brought us so much closer together.”