Elsa Benítez Yáñez (; born December 8, 1977) is a Mexican model and television presenter, perhaps best known for her appearances in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, including her appearance on the cover in 2001.
Career
Benítez became a model after winning a modeling contest in Costa Rica in 1995.
After being hired by Elite agency, she began appearing on the cover of many magazines like Vogue, Elle, Glamour, Mademoiselle, Harper's Bazaar and Marie Claire. After appearing on the cover of Vogue from various countries such as Mexico, Greece, Germany, and Marie Claire in several numbers, Benítez received the offer that would launch success and worldwide recognition to any model: US magazine Sports Illustrated.
She also paraded on runways and/or campaigns for Chanel, Valentino, Christian Lacroix, Versace, Fendi, Christian Dior, Pierre Balmain, Karl Lagerfeld, John Galliano, Gianfranco Ferré, MaxMara, Salvatore Ferragamo, Chloé, Escada, Emanuel Ungaro, Massimo Dutti and in the U.S. for Carolina Herrera and Oscar de la Renta, Anna Sui, and CoverGirl.
She has worked for the houses Macy's, Episode, INC, J.Crew, Rena Lange, Nine West and Jones New York.
Benítez appeared in the 1999 Pirelli calendar showing women through the decades. She was photographed as representative of the "groovy" in the 1970s. In 2002, she appeared in the music video for "Love to See You Cry" by Enrique Iglesias.
Personal life
In 1999, Benítez married former basketball player Rony Seikaly. In 2003, they had a daughter named Mila. She later had a romantic relationship for several months with Mexican businessman Roberto Slim. In February 2007, Benítez started dating producer, Valerio Morabito. Benítez currently resides in Santa Monica, California.
In the 2004 swimsuit issue of Sports Illustrated magazine, Elsa Benítez spoke about nearly boarding doomed TWA Flight 800 on July 17, 1996: "I was scheduled to be on TWA Flight 800. I got to the airport and I just had a bad feeling. I started crying, and I couldn't stop. I called my husband and said, "I feel something is going to happen on the flight." He said, "Don't worry." I said, "No, something is going to happen." He told me to wait 10 minutes and if I still had the same feeling, I should change the ticket. I couldn't stop crying, so I bought a ticket for another flight and took off 10 minutes after that flight did. It made me appreciate so much that just being alive is a gift."