If you don’t know who Alexis Ren is by now, you’re about to be pleasantly surprised.
The Santa Monica native who first started modeling for surfing brands at the age of 13 has skyrocketed to fame over the past few years thanks to social media. And now the 20-year-old beauty will grace the cover of Maxim magazine.
Ren is the definition of a social media sensation with nearly 10 million followers on Instagram. Each and every photo and video she shares with her fans racks up hundreds of thousands and sometimes millions of likes. (SLIDESHOW: Alexis Ren Just Might Be The Hottest Model On Instagram)
Ren is nothing less than up-front about the attention she’s attracting.
“Confidence is what people tend to gravitate toward, and also, obviously, sex,” she tells Maxim. “I don’t consider that a bad thing, though. If a woman likes to post about her body, that doesn’t make her a slut, desperate, or dumb. It still blows my mind we are stuck in that perception of womanhood. It’s 2017. Come on, people!”
The frequency of her social media posts might convince fans that they know her personally, but she wants everyone to know there’s a lot more to her than her smile and jaw-dropping bikini body.
“People think I don’t have substance and I’m just another pretty face,” Ren admits. “I have been through a lot of life experience for a 20-year-old. People tend to judge a book by its cover. I love being unexpected and gaining respect for who I am and not how I look.”
Maxim magazine’s August issue, featuring Alexis in all her glory, goes on sale July 18.