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Teyana Taylor is first black woman to be named Maxim’s ‘Sexiest Woman Alive’


June 9, 2021 | 9:46am

Teyana Taylor is the first black woman to be crowned Maxim’s “Sexiest Woman Alive,” topping the title’s “Hot 100” list for 2021.Instagram

Teyana Taylor is making history with her latest magazine cover.

On Monday, the 30-year-old entertainer was crowned Maxim’s “Sexiest Woman Alive,” topping the title’s “Hot 100” list for 2021.

Taylor covers the issue in a hacked-off Hanes tank top and vintage army pants, showing off her six-pack abs.

Inside its pages, she models more revealing looks, including vintage overalls (worn sans top) and an unbuttoned Maison Margiela shirt paired with perilously low-slung slacks.

“Somebody pinch me!!!!,” Taylor wrote on Instagram Monday, sharing a series of photos from her shoot, which she primarily styled herself.

“Stepping back in front of the lens has been a journey of self-reflection and self-confidence. Living up to name and title of this shoot wholeheartedly made me nervous,” the Harlem native continued.


“As an entrepreneur, wife, a busy mother of two & working behind the lens in my director bag I tend to hide behind my sweats & vintage tees … So as you can see I don’t have much time to be and feel sexy.”

Taylor — who shares daughters Iman “Junie” Tayla, 5, and Rue Rose, 9 months, with her NBA-star husband, Iman Shumpert — revealed that she arrived at her Maxim shoot fresh from school drop-off in sweats, a beanie and zero makeup.

So she was stunned when photographer Gilles Bensimon said he wanted to shoot her as is.


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“I say all of this to say in the true words of Audrey Hepburn… ‘The beauty of a woman is not in facial mode but the true beauty in a woman is reflected in her soul,'” Taylor continued in her caption.


“‘It is the caring that she lovingly gives the passion that she shows. The beauty of a woman grows with the passing years.’ Embrace and love yourselves for who & what you are,'” she added, in part.


Jennifer Lopez, Irina Shayk, Megan Thee Stallion, Eliza Gonzalez and Mia Kang also made Maxim’s “Hot 100” list this year.


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