EXCLUSIVE: Carol Alt, 62 – best known for her sexy Sports Illustrated swimsuit covers in the ’80s

Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition cover veteran Carol Alt joined OnlyFans on Friday.

The 62-year-old model and actress talked exclusively to DailyMail.com about her choice to follow in the footsteps of Denise Richards and Donna D’Errico by showing more skin on a pay site.

‘Life is about being a maverick,’ the New Yorker shared with DailyMail.com.

‘Life experience is a powerful tool if channeled properly,’ added the leggy model who was the first brunette to land on the cover of Vogue then went on to act in films like A Merry Little Christmas.

‘Only Fans is the next generation of content producing revenue. It’s important to own your own content. Platforms like this are the future. Always move with the times,’ added the star.

‘I am taking risks, exploring new ways to connect with the audience and fans.’

She also said that women should do what they want and not apologize for it. And don’t give up.

‘I have been turned down many times. And found other avenues to take to reach my goals. People always say no first… You can’t let that slow you down,’ she shared.

‘The Kardashians built a global empire chartering new terrain. The only limitations you have are the limitations you put on yourself. Age is not a limitation. It’s only a limitation if you see it that way,’ she added.

‘The key to life is to always live your life exploring the new and the uncharted. It keeps you young, and it keeps you relevant.

‘Take the time each day to try something new – something different and without apology or self judgement. We Judge ourselves too much.’

Alt wanted to remind fans that you only have one life so never allow the opinions of others block you from achieving your highest potential.

‘After Covid the world changed but the most important lesson I personally learned is to live every day to the fullest without apology or seeking approval from others,’ she noted.

‘Time to charter new terrain while paying close attention to our friends and neighbors

‘Sometimes people experience anxiety – depression and general apathy because they do not see a path way forward to living a different life away from what society deems successful or normal – this is the reason I am donating a portion of my earnings from this project to mental health causes.’     

In April Carol made quite the impression when at the Cannes Film Festival in France.

The leggy model, who came to fame on the pages of Vogue magazine in the 1980s, proved she is still in top shape. 

She hit several events to support her new series with Denise Richards and Robert Davi titled Paper Empire about a financial scheme.

The beauty told DailyMail.com in the past that she stays so youthful looking because she sticks to a diet of raw food.

And the best-selling author of books like A Healthy You who hails from New York also commits to consistent workout routines. 

Carol has talked about her diet on her website.

‘It’s amazing to me after so many years of lecturing about raw food, and teaching about nutrition, that people still are confused about what to eat. 

‘Let’s start with the basics: if you give the body what it needs – the building blocks, clean building blocks – it can do almost anything. 

‘It can prevent disease, it can relieve disease, it can anti-age; it can also self-sufficiently prevent flu, colds, sinus infections, and headaches. All this I know from first-hand knowledge,’ she said,

‘People always say that as you get older, physical things get worse: that the body starts to break down. Well for me, 17 years ago I was worse than today. I was dealing with so many petty little health issues: constant sinus infections, constant sore throat, bloat, brittle hair and nails, terrible indigestion (acid reflux). And today I have none of these issues,’ added the Versace and Valentino model.

’17 years ago I lived on Afrin, Tums, and Tylenol, to name a few of the over-the-counter drugs that I wouldn’t leave home without. Today I take none. 

‘When people ask me how I did it, all I say is that a I changed my diet. When I say I went raw, that’s where I lose them. They get all flustered and frustrated and tell me they can’t be as disciplined as I am,’ noted Carol.

‘The amazing thing about my change of diet to raw was that I was able to eat more, I was never hungry, I was never feeling bad, and I always had energy. And today raw is everywhere! Once you know what to look for, you will be shocked at how readily available, delicious, and healing it is.

‘Many people are raw vegan (they eat no animal products at all – that includes fish, honey, dairy products etc.). I am not a vegan raw foodist. I eat fish, i.e. tartare and carpaccio. I eat meat, i.e. carpaccio and tartare. I also eat seared food – cooked on the outside but raw on the inside. Because I preach eating 75 to 95% raw.’ 

Two years ago health expert Alt talked for the first time about her experience with sexual harassment as she sat down for a chat with the Accutron Show podcast with Bill McCuddy.

The bombshell revealed that she experienced plenty of harassment in the Eighties. She was hit on by old men wanting to lure her to photo shoots. And she had to take minders to hotel meetings with movie producers.

Carol also lost out on starring on an Aaron Spelling TV show – he made Beverly Hills 90210 and Melrose Place – because the casting director dumped her for a woman he fell for.

Alt was candid during her sit down where she unleashed her past. ‘There were a lot of not nice people,’ said the former Lancome model.

‘I had been stopped on the street many times, I was 18, and they would say OH MY GOD you look like a model, and offer me shoots, they asked me to come with them right then to their studio,’ she said, knowing even as a teen the men were most likely trapping her with bad intentions.

‘The best advice my agency ever gave me was have the person call us. If they are legit they will call and you get the job. If they are not legit, they will never call.’

When asked about the Hollywood casting couch the actress – who worked on dozens of movies including Howard Stern’s Private Parts –  said, ‘I was always smart because if the agency sent you on an early morning to meet a producer, I always brought a girlfriend to stand outside the door.

‘Funny enough I auditioned for Steven Spielberg in a hotel room, but there people there and I knew it was legitimate.

‘You have to protect yourself and kind of let them know, and says, my friend is outside, can they come in, you do it innocently.

‘I lost jobs because they knew I wasn’t that type,’ she said who shot a movie with Eric Roberts last week. She shot it in a building in NYC with mask on the crew.

She said she built a reputation for being a smart cookie. ‘I think you get back what you put out.’

Then there was that time she lost out on a big TV show because the casting director dropped her for a woman he wanted to bed. 

‘I was hired for an Aaron Spelling show and my manager called me and said do you know this guy? It was a casting person and I was like yeah it’s my friend, and they said he took the job away from me.

‘And I know why he took it away. He said the girl he hired for the show, he was dating her.’

But here was not a happy ending for the casting director. 

‘Sometimes the table are turned,’ she said. ‘She got the job and dumped the guy.’

But she also reminded listeners that Me Too is very serioys.

‘It’s a very touchy – I don’t mean to make light of it – a woman being seriously attacked, it’s nothing to laugh at. I don’t know what I would do if that happened to me and I marvel at the strength of some of these women who pick themselves up and go on and have a voice.

‘I just find every single movement has gray areas too, the white, the black the gray – we all live within one of these areas.’ 

When asked where the next supermodel will come from, she said she didn’t know

‘It’s gone from blonde to Kardashian and ever shade in between, which is spectacular, now so many women are included,’ she said sounding pleased.

‘Every girl is so much more beautiful and they know at a younger age how to put themselves together.

‘There always seem to be the name girls of every generation. Every generation had the top two or three girls that were the people of the day.

‘The last real known models are the Gisele’s and Kate Mosses and then it becomes very obscure and there’s no one you could really name now because they’re all influencers,’ she says, not acknowledging Kendall Jenner and the Hadid sisters.

She was discovered while waitressing in Long Island. ‘I was modeling during the day and making it home at night to waitress.’

Then ‘this guy walked into the restaurant and told me I should model, I was 18, and I was tired of not getting tips as a hostess so I started to waitress, it was a big deal for me.

‘I said no thank you and my boyfriend broke up with me and I didn’t want to be the little girl he left behind in Long Island. So I looked into modeling. This guy Burt Rockfield gave me the names of the agencies like Elite.’ 

She called around and landed an agent. 

‘I made $200 my first day of modeling, I was like OK this is way better,’ she said. ‘I was waiting for a military scholarship and basically I worked during the summer…. after I was on the cover of Vogue and the owners of the restaurant told me that I should give up my waitressing job.

‘But I was worried because I modeling comes and goes.’

‘I got the scholarship and then John Casablanca said if you can’t BUY a university by the time I make you famous then I will pay for your scholarship!’

At 18, she became the youngest model for Lancome.  

The star said she became famous when Sports Illustrated put her name on the cover of the magazine. Cover Girl picked her up and used her name as well. 

Alt also talked about keeping a raw diet; she started in 1996.

‘Let me put the myths to bed, I am going to steal the Victoria’s Secret slogan, “I’m no angel!”… many people think I eat raw all the time, I don’t, there are moments when like at a hockey game that I eat popcorn. You gotta live to and shock the system.’

When she is told she looks amazing she said, ‘It works.’

She said lots of people exercise but they still age and get gray hair because they are not eating right. One of her pals went from gray to brown because of their food choices.