The Complete Evolution Of Molly Sims

Model, actor, TV host, podcaster, business owner — is there anything Molly Sims can't do? Sims started modeling in college and quickly climbed the ranks of the industry, appearing in Vogue, Glamour, Shape, Elle, Marie Claire, and other magazines. Most famously, she became a regular feature in the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issues in the early 2000s. Sims also found fame in Hollywood around that same time.

These days, Sims is still just as busy as ever. In addition to her many career ventures, she also has three children with her husband Scott Stuber. "I've had 29 lives," Sims once said to Hamptons. However, she's as humble as ever. As she told New Beauty in 2020, "My motto is 'Be a nice human today.' ... Embrace what you have, be thankful and be grateful. Be funny. Be kind. With everything that's going on right now, why wouldn't you be?"

Let's find out a little more about Sims' dramatic evolution from Southern girl to L.A. actor, model, and mogul.

Molly Sims was born on May 25, 1973. She spent her childhood in the small town of Murray, Kentucky, with her parents and older brother, Todd. Sims had a typical Southern upbringing, and she made sure to heed the advice of her grandmother since she was young. "I do love what my grandmother always said to me: 'If you look good, you feel good. And if you feel good, you look good.' And that has been my motto," Sims told Hamptons.

Sims left Kentucky after she began modeling — but what she learned there has always stuck with her. "I'll never lose my roots," she wrote on her blog in 2016. "I love the gentleness of people; I love the openness. The hospitality — and of course, the food." In fact, as the model-turned-entrepreneur once told The Daily Beast, Southern food was a huge part of her childhood.

"My mom was a working mom, but she always had my aunts and uncles and cousins over for potlucks, dinner parties, whatever you want to call it," Sims said. "They made biscuits, they made cobblers. It was about having family and friends around, and we were always eating." Clearly, you can take the girl out of Kentucky, but you can't take the Kentucky out of the girl.

After graduating from high school, Molly Sims enrolled in a pre-law course at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. One of the first things she did was to join a sorority. "I grew up in the South ... and being in a sorority was a way of life," she wrote on her blog. "We get two questions our senior year in high school: 'What school are you attending?' and 'What house are you rushing?' It's like clockwork."

Sims ultimately decided on Delta Delta Delta. And, despite the stereotypes, Sims found her experience there to be invaluable. "As much as sororities are about going to events and fraternity parties, they've also made a huge impact on my relationships with women throughout my life. ... The connections, the lifelong friendships, and the memories are something I will treasure forever," she wrote.

Even though Sims didn't end up pursuing a career in law, she still thinks she would have been great at it. If not for modeling, Sims told Yahoo! Finance, "I would be a lawyer. I went to university to be a lawyer." She went on to confess her love of true crime shows like "Dateline," adding, "I love anything criminal, or solving a problem. I think I'm a bit of a problem solver." Sims may have left Vanderbilt in her sophomore year, but it's clear that her time there was extremely formative.

After just two years at Vanderbilt, Molly Sims' life changed dramatically. "A girlfriend who had done some modeling suggested I take pictures with a fashion photographer she'd worked with in Memphis," Sims explained on her blog. "It wasn't something I'd considered before; but the second she said it, I knew it was something I wanted to try."

After she took some photos with the photographer, things started moving quickly. Before she knew it, she was heading to meet modeling agents in New York City and Faith Kates, an agent at Next Model Management, ended up signing Sims. "She saw something in me they didn't see," Sims reflected. "If it wasn't for Faith's faith in me, I would not have a career."

For Sims, breaking into the modeling industry was a dream come true. "My Bible was Seventeen and YM and Sassy Magazine and Vogue," she told BUILD Series. After she signed with an agency in '93, she moved into a tiny New York City apartment with two other girls. Life moved fast from then on. "From that moment on — from that summer of 1993... I went from there to Germany, and then from Germany, I went to London and then to Paris and then to Milan. And I lived in Europe for almost six years," Sims revealed.

After spending years jet-setting across the world as a model, Molly Sims made her first leap into the world of TV with a hosting gig on MTV's "House of Style." The show ran in the '90s and early 2000s and featured glimpses into the fashion industry. Previous hosts of the series include Cindy Crawford and Rebecca Romijn.

"'House of Style' changed my life," she later reflected to Marie Claire. "I literally had no experience in front of a TV camera before, and there I was taking over for Rebecca Romijn. My exposure heightened instantly." In an earlier interview with InStyle, Sims gushed about the experience, saying "MTV probably was the most pivotal" part of her career path. Indeed, it was her stint on MTV that really set her acting career in motion and led to a series of high-profile roles.

Around the same time as Molly Sims was finding fame on MTV, she was also making waves as one of the go-to bikini models in Sports Illustrated. She made her debut in the magazine in 2000 and went on to appear in its pages until 2006, when she wore a bikini worth a whopping $30 million.

While you might imagine that life as a bikini model would be filled with glamour, that wasn't always the case. "I was knee-deep in mud, I almost fell off a horse, my couch caught on fire in Argentina," the model recalled to Vanity Fair of some of her more taxing photoshoots. "I got, like, mauled with goats, I was fly-fishing in a thong."

While modeling for Sports Illustrated, Sims sadly became unhealthily fixated on her eating habits. "I would have never eaten an avocado 10 years ago if you paid me," she confessed to Health. Since then, though, she has developed a healthier attitude towards food. "Now, instead of binging [and] not eating all day, eat it and then you won't binge," she said.

In 2002, Molly Sims made an appearance in the music video for Moby's "We Are All Made of Stars." Perhaps this paved the way for her next big role — a spot in NBC's "Las Vegas." As Delinda, Sims played a super smart entertainment manager who has an on-again, off-again relationship with Danny.

When Sims was first cast in the role, she took comfort in the size of the cast. "It's a huge cast, which is good, because it's an ensemble, there's less pressure," she confessed to Cosmopolitan. "Nothing is resting on your shoulders alone." During one early scene with James Kahn, Sims revealed to Buzzfeed, she spent one entire take "overacting" and using her hands. "He was like, 'Are you done now?' Because my hands were in his entire closeup," she recalled. "I learned so much from him. He was really hard on me and really great to me."

After proving her acting chops on "Las Vegas," Molly Sims was cast in several films. In 2004, she played Mrs. Feldman, the wife of Vince Vaughn's character, in the comedy "Starsky & Hutch." In 2006, she landed the role of Liz, the wife of Gus, in "The Benchwarmers." Then, in 2008, she played Stephanie, the ex-wife of Jim Carrey's character, in "Yes Man." 

As Sims explained to Cosmopolitan in the aughts, she didn't take her transition into acting lightly. Instead, she was working hard. "I've spent the past two years really studying acting," she said. "I think it's important to come from a humble place. Just because I could model didn't automatically mean I could act." 

Although Sims went on to take a long break from acting, she eventually returned with the 2020 romantic comedy, "The Wrong Missy." "I was a little nervous getting back into it, but I realized I missed acting," she told DuJour at the time.

After several high-profile relationships with the likes of Aaron Eckhart and Enrique Murciano, Molly Sims tied the knot with Scott Stuber in 2011. Stuber is a prolific film producer-turned-chairman of Netflix Films and has been behind projects such as "The Umbrella Academy," "Ted 2," "Identity Thief," "Love & Other Drugs," and "The Break-Up," to name just a few.

Sims first met Stuber through work — and it couldn't have come at a better time. "Before I met Scott, I was freaking out," Sims wrote candidly on her blog. "Even with all my successes, something seemed missing. I just couldn't shake it." The pair happened to cross paths at a party and things took off quickly after that. "Within about six months of dating, I knew," she wrote.

The pair married after two years of being together. "We just have that built-in trust and loyalty — and also it's who I discuss everything with today," she told Hamptons a decade after their union. Sounds like a match made in heaven if you ask us!

Shortly after marrying, Scott Stuber and Molly Sims became parents. As of this writing, the pair have three children — Brooks, Scarlett, and Grey. With three young children, Sims' life changed rapidly. "It's like this freaking vortex! It's all-consuming," she confessed in an interview with SheKnows. Quickly, the glamour of her old life as a famous model and actor slipped away. Sims even told an anecdote about being unable to shower without her children trying to climb in with her.

Luckily, Stuber is there to help. In fact, as Sims told Yahoo, he's always been just as hands-on as she is. "I'm lucky to have him because we are a great team. I'd definitely say we are equal players," she said. "Team Stuber, tribe of five — we've got this." The model and actor also emphasized the importance of making time for their relationship, too, by planning date nights. As she put it, "It means everything."

Life as a model isn't always easy. For Molly Sims, it often meant being scrutinized and criticized by agents, managers, and executives. "Your hair is too dark. Your hair is too light. You're too skinny. You're too fat. Your calves are too big. Can you have calf implants? You're too wide. You're too thin," she told Romper, recalling comments she had heard in the past. As a young woman, Sims often internalized these comments.

However, over time, Sims has learned to speak to herself with more kindness. "Listen, is it hard to age? It is. It's hard. I think the biggest thing is I look back and wish I would have felt as good as I looked," she shared with SheKnows. In hindsight, she wishes she could have been more gentle with herself when she was young. Nevertheless, she's started to practice self-care in more recent years. "I do think getting up and exercising or getting up and eating healthy and being conscious — that's really helped me in my evolution of feeling good about myself," she said.

When the pandemic hit the world in 2020, Molly Sims, like the rest of us, had to stay home. Suddenly, she couldn't find alone time. She and her husband had to deal with online school, entertaining the children with "bath bombs and forts," as she told DuJour. They also found ways to have fun, like "having cake for breakfast and staying in pajamas all day." 

Nevertheless, Sims found a way to keep working through it all. She even jokingly posted a photo on Instagram of her three children taped to the floor while she worked on her laptop, writing, "Things I've learned during quarantine: tape has a multi-functional purpose." At least she managed to keep her sense of humor!

As she confessed to C Magazine, "The past year's made people realize how much moms actually do! I want to celebrate them." She collaborated with Mark & Graham on a set of Mother's Day gifts.

In 2021, Molly Sims expanded her empire with a podcast, "Lipstick on the Rim," where she details what she has learned about beauty — both the good and the bad — throughout her career. Sims co-hosts the podcast with her friend Emese Gormley. "I wasn't actually planning on having a cohost," she told Hamptons. "But every time I would talk about something, it was Emese I wanted to talk to about it. We had chemistry, a love of beauty, a love of wellness, a love of being each other's best friends."

As Sims later explained to Kelly Clarkson, her goal with the podcast was to lift the veil on the wellness industry and help her fans understand the reality of the industry. "So many people are like, 'Oh, how do you look like that?' Or, 'Oh, what do you do?'" Sims said. "And, you know, I work at it ... a lot of people don't know because, you know, I'm not really going to open that up. But I decided to with these conversations."

The podcast turned out to be a huge hit. As of May 2023, it's regularly charting in the top 5 across all Apple fashion and beauty podcasts.

Molly Sims never seems to slow down. Just two years after launching a successful podcast, she launched yet another business — this time, a skincare line targeted at Gen X women called Yse Beauty. For Molly Sims, skincare is as important as makeup.

As the beauty mogul explained to People, she saw a huge gap in the market. "My girls want to look good, and they want their products to be cool. [In this industry] It's either you're millennial or you're old, and I'm just not into that," she said.

The skincare line features six products and is inspired by both Sims' late mother and her love of French skincare. Sims also shared that after decades of skin troubles, she finally decided to offer products that looked great and also worked. "I thought, 'Why is everything potent too strong? Or, in ugly packaging? And everything that's gorgeous isn't efficacious? Why can't we have something that looks beautiful and works, instead of leaving you red and dry?'" she said. Sims went through all of the clinical trials herself, so she can back up her products. As she put it, "It will change your skin, period." Is there anything this woman can't do?