Playmate Profile Miss June 2019

Yoli Lara

MY ISLAND IS EVERYTHING TO ME. When Hurricane Maria hit back in 2017, it was devastating to my hometown of Toa Baja, which is on the outskirts of San Juan and right near the beach. I was living and working as a model in Los Angeles at the time. I wanted to go home immediately and help my family and my people put the pieces back together, and I had an idea how I could make the biggest impact. I told my mom, "I'm moving back, and I'm going to compete for Miss Puerto Rico in the Miss Universe pageant." My mom said, "You're crazy—you're already established in Los Angeles. Why do you want to come back to the island?" I told her, "I want to use that platform to say something for people to hear me." I moved back to Puerto Rico the following April. Nobody in the industry knew me, and I'd never done a pageant in my life. While I was there, I worked with Waves for Water, a nonprofit that was installing handmade water filters all over the island. They sponsored a project I did for the pageant: One of the schools in my hometown didn't have any water, so we installed a cooler and did a presentation where we ran dirty water through the filter so it was totally clean. They do wonderful work, and I was blessed that they helped me use that experience in the pageant. Winning Miss Puerto Rico would have been a dream, but it wasn't in the cards for me. Around the time of the pageant, my modeling agency in Los Angeles dropped me because I wasn't there. (Luckily, they ended up giving me a second chance.) When I came back here, I had nothing; I had given up everything to go back home. It was frightening, but I didn't care. I gave 110 percent of myself, and even though I didn't win I felt like a winner with everything I had done—the pageant, the rebuilding, everything. And if I had won, I wouldn't have been able to do this story! It wasn't even two weeks after I got back to Los Angeles that PLAYBOY contacted me. I remember thinking, This is it—my validation. If I work hard and treat people with respect, the universe follows through. I said yes because I think any chance a woman gets to showcase her power is a great opportunity. I didn't get this opportunity because I look the way I look; there are 10,000 girls who are more beautiful than I am, who have all the things a magazine would be lucky to have. I got this opportunity because I have something to say. I fell down, I got up. Even though one door closed, it doesn't matter, because down the road I'm going to have a good time. That's what I want people to say at the end of my journey: "She did it." Find sexy photo galleries, videos and more of Miss June 2019 Yoli Lara in this Playboy Playmates SFW blog.