Gilles Bensimon Lily Aldridge has her limits.
The beautiful brunette has been modeling since she was 14, and Aldridge made her debut as a Victoria's Secret model in 2009; she is now one of just eight Victoria's Secret Angels. In 2014, she shared the cover of Sports Illustrated Swimsuit's 50th anniversary issue with Nina Agdal and Chrissy Teigen. Her contracts are ironclad and stipulate precisely how much skin she will show. "I'm very careful about it. I enjoy feeling sexy and beautiful; I just don't think everyone needs to see everything," she says.
Aldridge poses topless and in a thong for Maxim's April issue, and that's where she draws the line (and for this photo shoot, that line may as well have been in the sand).
The 29-year-old beauty, who married Kings of Leon's Caleb Followill in 2011, insists that she isn't totally comfortable being called a sex symbol. "I don't think of myself as an object of lust. I can't even say that with a straight face," she says with a laugh. "But I'm more flattered when someone thinks I'm funny."
Aldridge also tells the magazine she was a "lanky, awkward" teenager, even though she began modeling for Abercrombie & Fitch in the ninth grade. "I know it's an age-old story that no one believes, but no one asked me out in high school!" says the cover girl, who was raised in L.A. and attended public high school.
She didn't even attend prom, saying, "I was in Paris, working. But I would have rearranged my schedule."
Aldridge laughs at her transformation. "I don't know how I ended up where I am. I was so painfully shy as a child, [but] I eventually learned that it's more exhausting to be shy than just to be open," she says.
Is Aldridge's life as glamorous as it looks? "People think it's all rock concerts and runway shows," says the catwalk queen, who is mom to daughter Dixie, 2-and-a-half. "I don't take this life for granted. That's why I like social media. People see that I'm married. They see I have a family. They see that I'm human."
"I don't walk around feeling like a supermodel," she adds. "I mean, I high-five people."
Aldridge and her family now split their time between Nashville and New York City. "I never thought in a million years a girl from L.A. would end up in Nashville, but I love it," she says. Taylor Swift is in a similar situation. "Taylor makes me dinner," she says. "And she's the sweetest, most humble girl I've ever met."
For more sexy photos of Aldridge, pick up Maxim's April 2015 issue.