Surprise! Kate Upton lands Sports Illustrated Swimsuit flip cover

Remember how Kate Upton didn’t make the front cover of 2014’s Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue? Well, it turns out she’s on the back cover instead.

The curvy supermodel clinched the backside bonus flip cover of the mag’s 50th anniversary edition, an issue that sees the backsides of models Nina Agdal, Lily Aldridge and Chrissy Teigen outfront. That makes Upton a three-time SI swimsuit cover girl.

“OMG! So happy for @LilyAldridge @chrissyteigen and @NinaAgdal!!” Upton tweeted when her colleagues made their cover debut. “What a gorgeous cover!! Loving the booty for vday!”

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The issue, which hit newsstands Tuesday, boasts an image of the 21-year-old fan favorite sitting in the shallow water of a Cook Islands beach wearing a pink bikini by Beach Bunny Swimwear. The bonus cover also teases to the “Five Decades of Sexy” fashion retrospective. How’s that for an anniversary special?

The model landed the front cover for the previous two years: In 2013 she accentuated her curves by posing in an open parka and bikini bottoms in frigid Antarctica. The year before, she posed in a skimpy red-hued two-piece and, inside the mag, her assets were concealed under a “bikini” comprised of body paint.

“The Other Woman” star still got high billing on the front cover, teasing to a “Kate Upton in space” feature, which sees the blond bombshell taking flight in a zero gravity chamber as she floats about in a golden Target bikini and Manolo Blahnik heels. And, yes, her curves are indeed defying gravity...

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“It was so much fun, completely weightless, floating around, twirling. I was upside down and I couldn’t even tell. It was one of my favorite experiences so far in my life,” she said (via E! News Now). “You have no control over your limbs and you’re twirling you don’t know what’s the ceiling and what’s the floor and it’s a really cool feeling.”

Click here for a behind-the-scenes look of the somewhat chaotic shoot in the Zero G aircraft.

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