“Happy New Year!” wrote Kate Upton at the start of her Jan. 5 Instagram message, a rare post from the 28-year-old model. In the uploaded picture, the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue icon posed alongside husband Justin Verlander, 37, and their two-year-old daughter, Genevieve, near a pool surrounded by palm trees. Kate and her baby girl were twins since both wore sunny, yellow outfits for this gorgeous family photo in paradise.
It’s been a while since anyone heard from Kate, and the model explained that in her New Year’s message. “During 2020, I took a break from social media to focus on health, family, and reduced screen time (hello social dilemma!),” she wrote. “We made the most of our time at home as a family by spending true, quality time together… we took a few safe, socially distanced trips, and also I was able to refocus on passions like horseback riding! I’m excited to jump back in recharged and ready to share some exciting projects in the works and some of the things that we’ve been up to.”
“Of course, we are still taking the gravity of COVID extremely seriously during these recent spikes and scares,” she added, “but basically, I’m saying, here I am back on Instagram! Hello, 2021!” She wasn’t kidding. Less than twenty-four hours later, she posted a picture of her pulling a wagon full of children while tagging her sister, Christie Upton. “Been doing a different kind of sleds lately…”
While Kate took a break from Instagram in 2020, it wasn’t as if she was completely quiet last year. She posted about how she and her MLB star husband were “proud to donate to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund” amid the height of the George Floyd-related Black Lives Matter protests (“Realizing that although many hearts are pure, the lack of understanding of white privilege is what continues to perpetuate this awful cycle of systemic racism.”) She also encouraged people to vote by sharing a Sports Illustrated Swimsuit throwback picture of her rocking a bikini while holding a koala.
Kate also broke her social media silence to celebrate her daughter on International Day of the Girl. “I want my daughter to grow up in a world where girls are protected, empowered, and treated equally,” she wrote on Oct. 11, 2020. “International Day Of The Girl is meant to promote the empowerment of young girls everywhere, while also advocating for the attainment of their basic human rights, like education and bodily autonomy. We, as a global society, need to address the challenges, biases, dangers, and injustices young girls deal with all over the world – and make a change.”