6'4" in Heels, Inked in Confidence: The Woman Who Redefines Power & Presence

She walks into a room and the conversation stops. Paula is our Spring 2025 CoverGirl — and she has something to say about what it means to own your body, your ink, and your space.

The first time I met Paula, she was standing in a doorway, backlit, wearing a simple white tank and jeans. At 6'4", with sleeve tattoos running from wrist to shoulder, she looked like someone had painted her into the frame on purpose. She smiled and said, "I know. I do that to rooms. I've stopped apologizing for it."

Growing Up Tall

Paula grew up in Sacramento, the tallest person in every class from fifth grade forward. "You can either shrink or expand," she tells us. "I spent about three years trying to shrink. Terrible years. Then I stopped." The tattoos started at 18 — small at first, then more ambitious. Each one a story she chose to carry permanently.

"My body is a record of everywhere I've been and everything I've decided to keep. That's not rebellion. That's autobiography."

The Spring 2025 Cover

For our Spring 2025 issue, we wanted someone who embodied earned, specific, real confidence. Paula shot our cover in a single afternoon. The brief was essentially: be yourself. The results speak for themselves — it's one of our most-shared covers in recent history, and the reader response has been overwhelming, particularly from tall women and tattooed women who wrote to say they'd never seen themselves at this level before.