Inked Magazine Cover Girl contest: Southwest Florida women compete for $25,000 grand prize
NOTE: This article has been updated with more Inked Cover Girl competitors in Fort Myers, Cape Coral and Port Charlotte.
Rhianna Keesling set out to prove something in this year’s Inked Cover Girl contest — to both herself and the world.
Moms can be sexy, too.
And they don’t have to strip down to their underwear to do it, either — not that there’s anything wrong with that, she says.
“Being a mom, I wanted to not do the whole bra and panties or the lingerie — like I see with 90 percent of the girls who are competing (in the Inked contest),” says Keesling, 29, of Arcadia, formerly of Punta Gorda. “I wanted to do things a little different. …
"I wanted to show that moms can be confident and sexy and still be moms at the same time.”
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After all, the wedding photographer has her four kids — ages 2 to 10 — to think about.
“My oldest, he’s almost 11,” she says. “And if anything does come of this, I was like, ‘I don’t want him to be seeing parts of his mom that he doesn’t want to see (laughs)!’”
Keesling is one of thousands of tattooed women competing in the annual contest. The winner gets $25,000 and appears on the cover of Inked Magazine.
Voting in this round continues through Wednesday, Feb. 2.
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Keesling and at least six other Southwest Florida women hope to make it to the next round of voting. And they’re likely not the only ones.
It's unclear how many locals compete every year. The contest website doesn't group competitors by region or show their cities and states of residence, and an "Inked" representative confirmed that the contest's organizers aren't able to do that, either.
Cape Coral tattoo artist Savannah Leslie, 33, of True Alchemy Tattoo Studio already knows what she’d do with that $25,000: Start a nonprofit to tattoo women who've had breast-cancer surgery or people who have attempted suicide or self harm and want to cover their scars.
It’s something Leslie has been doing on her own for several years now. And she’s been doing it for free, tattooing people after work hours or on her off days.
She got the idea about seven or eight years ago when she tattooed a breast-cancer survivor.
“I gave her her nipples back, because she had lost them,” Leslie says. “She was so thrilled and so happy, she just bawled in my chair.”
She was supposed to charge the woman, but Leslie didn’t feel right about that.
“To me, it was like giving her her womanhood back,” she says. “And I don’t feel like anyone should have to pay for that, so I gave her her money back through my cut of the studio."
How to vote for Inked Magazine Cover Girl 2022 contestants
The Inked Cover Girl contest is divided into many small groups of competing women. Eventually, the winners in those groups will be combined into one big group for the finals.
Here's where to vote for the Southwest Florida women competing this year:
Savannah Leslie: https://cover.inkedmag.com/2022/savannah-leslie
Rhianna Keesling: https://cover.inkedmag.com/2022/rhianna-keesling
Caitlin Marie Florence, 25, of Fort Myers: https://cover.inkedmag.com/2022/caitlin-marie-florence
Heather Donaldson, 32, of Fort Myers: https://cover.inkedmag.com/2022/heather-donaldson
Candi Betts Couto, 31, of Port Charlotte: https://cover.inkedmag.com/2022/candice-betts
Victoria Nelson, 31, of Cape Coral: https://cover.inkedmag.com/2022/victoria-nelson
Ashley Movalli, 26, of Cape Coral: https://cover.inkedmag.com/2022/ashley-movalli
Voters must register through their Facebook account. You can vote once every day.
The contest is a fundraiser for MusiCares, a nonprofit that helps musicians in times of financial, personal or medical crisis. It also spotlights tattoos and tattoo culture.
The top 15 winners in each group will move on to the Top 10 round, which narrows down each group to just 10 women. Voting for that round take place Feb. 3-10.
After the Top 10 round, the winners advance to these rounds:
Top 5 round, where the Top 10 winners are reduced to five in their various groups (Feb. 10-17);
Group Finalists round, where one overall winner in each group is chosen and moves to the quarterfinals (Feb. 17-24);
Quarterfinals, where the group finalists compete in several new quarterfinals groups. One winner will be chosen from each group (Feb. 25-March 3);
Semi-Finals, where the quarterfinals winners compete in several new semi-finals groups. One winner will be chosen from each group (March 4-10);
And Finals, where all semi-finalists compete in the same group to win the competition (March 11-17).
To learn more about the contest and see the other competitors, visit cover.inkedmag.com.
— Are you a Southwest Florida woman competing in this year’s Inked Cover Girl contest? Email reporter Charles Runnells at crunnells@gannett.com or connect with him on Facebook (facebook.com/charles.runnells.7), Twitter (@charlesrunnells) or Instagram (@crunnells1).
This article originally appeared on Fort Myers News-Press: Inked Cover Girl contest: Cape Coral, Fort Myers, Arcadia women compete for $25k
