Kate Upton covers the April issue of The Edit. She’s surprisingly covered up for the shoot, which signals her continued and hopeful move into high fashion. We don’t see her in a swimsuit nearly as often these days. She still looks alluring. It’s a gift.

Kate uses her interview to discuss her public image. She used to be very active on social media but has lost the urge to constantly update her statuses. A lot of celebrities go through these phases. When they first long on, they experience a heady rush of greetings and salutations. Some celebs grow addicted, and others grow numb to the onslaught. Kate’s not into social media at all anymore:

She’s over Twitter: “I feel like social media at this point is kind of bullsh*t. At the beginning it was amazing and a lot of fun. It was like, ‘Cool, I can talk to my fans!’ And now I think that we’re losing the art of it. When I first joined Twitter it was just me, but [when] you’ve got contracts, it’s so planned. Now it’s about who has the best marketing, not who has a really good personality.”

On scrutiny of her image: “[The criticism was difficult] because I actually cared what people thought. The only thing I do for other people now is cook. That’s the only place in my life where I care what they think … I’ve heard people say, ‘You put yourself in that position to be judge.’ But no, I put myself in that position because I really liked that photographer. I wanted to do that piece of work. Not to be judged.”

On online forums: “The Internet can be horrible, so I just don’t look at it anymore … But maybe a bit of hate is good for me. Because if I’m in a spot where everyone loves me, I won’t try as hard … People always have low expectations of me, but that makes it easy to impress them!”

[From Net-a-Porter’s The Edit]

Kate previously said the internet kept her from taking it all off during photo shoots because “I don’t think that my pictures would be received in the way that I’d want them to be received.” After Kate’s unfortunate inclusion in last Labor day weekend’s massive iCloud photo hack, we saw that Kate was correct. She doesn’t mention the hacking in this interview, but I don’t blame her if she feels burned by the internet.

Social media can mean many different things to different people. I use it mostly to find and spread interesting news stories and to check out dog photos. Some people use it on a strictly professional basis while others overshare their personal lives. Models often use social media to build buzz. Think Kendall Jenner and her Estee Lauder contract. Kate may be shading Kendall (and similar models) a little bit.

Photos courtesy of The Edit & WENN