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Samantha Armytage: Why I did a swimsuit cover shoot with The Australian Women’s Weekly

She's the new queen of breakfast TV - but Samantha Armytage acknowledges the nation is obsessed with her body as she takes out the cover of The Australian Women's Weekly's 'body issue'.
Host of flag ship breakfast program Sunrise, Samantha Armytage

Samantha Armytage. Photography by Michelle Holden. Styling by Mattie Cronan.

So Sam is taking charge.

“If everyone wants me in a swimsuit, it might as well be on my terms,” she proclaims of her amazing shoot, in the new issue of The Australian Women’s Weekly, on sale Thursday.

“Two years ago, I’d go to the beach in my swimmers and nobody cared. They wouldn’t blink,” Sam says. “Now, I always think twice before going to Bondi. In fact, I can’t really swim there anymore.”

The Weekly called me and asked me if I would do it. I’m not vain enough to think I am Gisele [model Gisele Bündchen], but I am also not lacking in confidence to think I’m not some type of scrubber who should not wear swimmers. Plus, I’ve never done a swimsuit shoot before. They are terrifying words together.

“I don’t describe myself as curvy. I’d describe myself as quite strong and healthy, nothing terribly flash. Take me as I am.”

Samantha is happy in her own skin, and is at ease at our shoot, laughing and joking with the photographer and makeup artist.

“I’m a TV host and a journalist, so it actually bamboozles me that people would care about me. If some woman out there reads my story and says, ‘I can relate to this girl’, or ‘I’m a size 12 too and made to feel bad about myself, so everyone else can just bugger off.'”

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