Kathy Ireland Takes A Trip Down Memory Lane, Talks Modeling Career And Aging

Kathleen “Kathy” Ireland was one of the leading cover girls of the ‘80s and was most famous for her multiple appearances on Sports Illustrated swimsuit issues. She began her modeling career as a 16-year-old and was privileged to have the attention of SI Swimsuit’s founding editor, Julie Campbell as she came into the spotlight.

Kathy also worked with Vogue, Cosmopolitan, Harper’s Bazaar, Mademoiselle, Shape Fitness, and many more outlets. During a recent chat with PEOPLE, the now-retired beauty icon reflected on her time as a model and other areas she explored due to more opportunities presented to her. She shared the few lessons she has learned and gave her candid outlook on aging.

Kathy Ireland on her ’80s modeling career and getting older

Aside from posing for cameras and magazine covers, Kathy was also an actress with credits in movies like Melrose Place, Boy Meets World, National Lampoon’s Loaded Weapon 1, and the Once Upon A Christmas series. She currently has two running series on Fox Business and Bloomberg— Worldwide Business and Modern Living, which tell the latest stories on innovation, business, health, and related topics.

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The mother of three has also proven her entrepreneurship abilities with a Fashion 360 line for HSN, a fragrance collection, a licensing brand, and a credit card processing company named Ireland Pay. She is reportedly worth about $500 million, and her company, Kathy Ireland Worldwide, records billions of dollars in sales annually and was named among the Licensing Hall of Fame a few years ago.

Kathy Ireland shares life lessons from her career

With her wealth of experience as a 61-year-old, Kathy’s perspective of life has been refined over time since she first realized her potential to do more as a teenager. Traveling the world motivated her work ethic and birthed fresh ideas which she admitted came with its share of rejection. She emphasized the importance of learning from criticism and being “humble enough to recognize people will have good advice.”

As an extension of her kind nature, Kathy is also deeply involved in philanthropic work via charities, donations and free services to non-profits like March of Dimes, Feed the Children and City of Hope. Kathy is also easy on herself as she ages, and confesses to enjoying the “adventure” and maturity that comes with this phase. On raising young women following her trail, Kathy admits to being hesitant about encouraging modeling as a career path due to potential sexual harassment and “people of questionable character.”