Tess Holliday, the
size-22 model who landed the June 1 cover of People, said she shed tears of joy when she first saw herself on the front of the magazine.
"It's crazy,"
Holliday, 29, said Thursday on NBC's "Today" show. "I've been reading it since I was a kid so to be on the cover is surreal."
Holliday has become an Internet celebrity in the fashion world and is now the first size-22 model ever to be signed by a major agency, MiLK Model Management.
"It's all about accepting yourself the way you are now and loving who you are today," she told "Today." "If you want to work towards a better you . . . do it, but you're OK just the way you are today."
Holliday was at an airport the first time she spotted a woman putting out her People cover.
"I asked her to dig it out for me and then I cried," she said. "I wanted it to happen for a long time. This was definitely a wildest dreams moment for me."
Responding to critics who claim her size-22 body is conveying the wrong message about wellbeing and health, Holliday had this to say: “Health is so personal for everybody. It’s really my business.”
Twitter users applauded Holliday for her historic magazine cover:
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