Kate Upton built one of modeling’s most recognizable careers off the back of a single viral video before her marriage to MLB pitcher Justin Verlander added another layer of public attention to her name.
She has since become the mother of two children, watched Verlander move through three different MLB organizations, and continued acting and modeling on her own terms, all while managing the same body image criticism that has followed her since her earliest days in the industry.
Kate Upton Biography
She was born June 10, 1992, in St. Joseph, Michigan, and grew up primarily in Melbourne, Florida, alongside two sisters and a brother. Her father, Jeffrey Upton, has worked as a track and field coach at the high school level.
Her mother, Shelley Davis Upton, was a competitive tennis player and former Texas state champion. Katherine Upton comes from a politically and industrially prominent family. Her uncle, Fred Upton, served as a US Congressman representing Michigan for over three decades.
Her great-grandfather, Frederick Stanley Upton, co-founded the Upton Machine Company in 1911 alongside his brother, Louis Upton, and their uncle, Emory Upton, a company that was renamed Whirlpool Corporation in 1950 and grew into a billion-dollar appliance manufacturer.
Kate attended Holy Trinity Episcopal Academy, a college preparatory school in Melbourne, Florida, before pursuing modeling.
She has described her Christian faith as an important part of her upbringing, wearing a cross necklace regularly and having a small cross tattooed on her finger as a permanent reminder of it.
Justin Verlander’s Wife
Kate Upton dated NFL quarterback Mark Sanchez briefly in 2011 before beginning her relationship with Verlander in 2014.
Justin proposed in 2016, and the two married on November 4, 2017, in a private ceremony in Tuscany, Italy, days after Verlander and the Houston Astros won the 2017 World Series.
The couple welcomed their first child, a daughter named Genevieve Upton Verlander, on November 7, 2018, announced on Instagram with matching black and white photos, Verlander captioning his post that she had stolen his heart the first second he met her.
Genevieve, who goes by Vivi, has grown up around her father’s baseball career, appearing with her parents at MLB All-Star Games, including in 2022, when Verlander described it as the first he got to experience with his family present, recalling a moment in the clubhouse when Genevieve stopped, pointed at a highlight of him playing on a television, and said, that’s you, Daddy.
Upton later told E! that Genevieve, still working out what her parents actually did for a living, once told her she thought she was a tennis player, a reference to grandmother Shelley’s background.
On June 19, 2025, Upton and Verlander welcomed their second child, a son named Bellamy Brooks Verlander. Verlander was placed on the MLB paternity list the following day.
Career
Kate Upton signed with a modeling agency in 2008 but spent several years working smaller campaigns before her actual breakthrough.
In early 2011, a video of her dancing the Dougie at a Los Angeles Clippers game, filmed by friends in the audience, went viral, racking up nearly 10 million views and getting described by Vogue as a cinema verité classic.
That same year, she appeared in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue and was named the magazine’s Rookie of the Year, launching a run that included the 2012 and 2013 covers.
In 2012, a second viral moment defined her early fame. Photographer Terry Richardson filmed her doing the Cat Daddy dance in a bikini during a photo shoot and posted the video online without fully preparing her for how it would spread.
Upton later told Vogue UK she was horrified to see it go viral, saying she had thought it was just filmed for fun.
She confronted Richardson directly about it afterward, telling him it was disrespectful, that he could have told her first.
The video nonetheless became one of the defining moments of her early career, helping drive her to a July 2012 GQ cover and cementing her as one of the most talked about models of that year.
That rapid rise came with immediate criticism over her body type relative to more conventional runway standards. Upton pushed back publicly and repeatedly.
When a blogger compared her figure to a well-marbled cow, she responded that she was not going to starve herself just to be thin, saying she wanted to enjoy her life rather than be miserable.
When another critic suggested she should not be considered a real model, she pointed to Gisele Bündchen’s own crossover fame as a professional athlete’s wife as proof that her own path was legitimate.
Upton continued modeling through the 2010s, appearing in campaigns for Dooney and Bourke and Guess, along with continued Sports Illustrated Swimsuit appearances and covers for Vogue and Vanity Fair.
She moved into acting during the same period, appearing in Tower Heist in 2011, The Three Stooges in 2012, The Other Woman in 2014, and The Layover in 2017, along with a voice role in the 2018 animated film Sherlock Gnomes.
In 2019, she launched a swimwear line in partnership with the Italian brand Yamamay, extending her career into fashion design. She has continued modeling and acting selectively since becoming a mother.
Her husband, Justin Verlander, built his career primarily with the Detroit Tigers, winning AL Rookie of the Year and later AL MVP in 2011, before being traded to the Houston Astros in 2017, the same year he and Upton got engaged.
He won World Series titles with the Astros in both 2017 and 2022, adding to multiple career Cy Young Awards.
He became a free agent and signed with the New York Mets for part of the 2023 season before returning to the Astros later that year, and has since moved to the San Francisco Giants, continuing his career into his forties as one of the most accomplished active pitchers in the sport.
Kate Upton’s Net Worth
Kate Upton’s net worth is estimated at $5 million, built from her modeling contracts, acting roles, and her Yamamay swimwear line.
However, Justin Verlander’s own net worth is estimated at $200 million, built from his MLB salary across multiple long-term contracts, his World Series bonuses, and endorsement deals, reflecting one of the longer and more lucrative pitching careers in recent baseball history.
