Meet Xandra Pohl, The Swimsuit Model & DJ Who’s Being Called The ‘Next Kate Upton’
The three-time SI Swim star and EDM DJ has been compared to the famed supermodel.
Xandra Pohl’s self-taught skills behind the decks have led to DJ spots at Lollapalooza and Formula One‘s Miami Grand Prix. She’s grown a TikTok following of 1.3 million with her famously candid “Get Ready With Me (GRWM)” videos. She hasn’t missed a spot in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue since she debuted there in 2024. But maybe the root of her success is more nebulous—as featured rapper Bryce Vine says on her dance track “Superstar” off her 2026 EP What Is On Your Mind, she’s “got that je ne sais quoi.”
Whatever the source of Pohl’s appeal, the “next Kate Upton” title that’s been repeatedly bestowed upon her since 2024 has made her even more recognized, if mostly for the obvious physical similarities she shares with the veteran supermodel.
In contrast with Upton, though, the tool that shaped Pohl’s trajectory was the internet. The Cincinnati native got into EDM in college, buying a DJ board and dipping into mixing via YouTube tutorials. While earning a marketing degree and a minor in music business at the University of Miami, she worked hard to break into Magic City’s party scene—unsucessfully, at first.
“The first frat party I went to, I brought my computer in a backpack. I showed up and plugged my shit in,” she previously told Elite Daily in a 2024 profile. “All the guys tried to tell me I had no idea what I was doing. I was like, ‘Literally, watch me for five minutes. Then if you want to tell me to fuck off, I’ll fuck off.’ Guys can play twice at a frat party and be taken more seriously than I am.”
Even as she started gigging, walls kept coming. “When you start out, half of the time they say that they’ll pay you and then don’t,” she says. “I was told that if I actually wanted to be taken seriously, I needed to have a following on social media.” Eventually, she took to TikTok to build an audience who became heavily invested in witnessing the wild BTS moments she chronicled as a student/DJ.
Nearly 200 million likes later, and TikTok is still the best place to catch up with Pohl, whether she’s posting clips from her Electric Daisy Carnival performance, SI Swim runway walks, or wellness-promoting morning routine.
If Instagram is more your speed, she’s killing it there, too: