Bret Michaels Weighs in on His Daughter Raine Posing for Sports Illustrated Swimsuit: ‘I’m Really Proud of Her’

As Bret Michaels‘ 18-year-old daughter Raine competes in the annual Sports Illustrated Swimsuit competition, the Poison frontman couldn’t be prouder.

“As a father, I’m there from the cutting of the umbilical cord ’til right now, and I mean her mom too. I’m saying this, both of us, as parents, really, really proud of Raine,” Michaels told Fox News of his oldest child. “She’s done a great job. She is going to school at a really good university for broadcast journalism. She loves it. She’s in Tennessee doing that.”

“She’s one of those people who’s a kind soul. She’s humble. At the same time, she’s a fighter. I’m really proud of her,” he said, referencing the way she worked her way up the ranks in the competition.

Raine made it into the top six out of 10,000 Instagram video entries, in-person interviews, 67 finalists and the sweet 16 round in the 2019 SI Swimsuit Model Search.

“I’m thankful for the views and the votes. Sports Illustrated – because I’m a sports fanatic – I’m so proud of her because it’s also a great magazine for them to get recognized. All of the girls that entered, I give credit to, and the six finalists, it’s amazing.”

He said he’s confident he provided his daughter with the right tools and resources to make her own decisions as she grows older.

“I knew she wanted to model… You know they call it ‘coming of age,’” the 56-year-old singer explained. “They’re going into their own. She’s 18 years old. She’s making her decision on college, so you hope that you gave her the right skills and the right mindset to make the right decisions. That’s all you can do and I’m there for her no matter what.

“No matter what happens in her life, I’ll be there as a dad because you want to be a good provider and a good protector, and I also tell her the risks that come with it,” he added, adding that “there’s a lot of great people and people that are going to be behind her and great, and you’re also going to get some people that aren’t great people — whether they are trying to talk her into some bad contract or they’re perverts or whatever they are, you know.

“She’s going to have to deal with the good and the bad.”

Raine, a student at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee, told Fox News last year that it had always been a dream of hers to appear in Sports Illustrated Swimsuit.

“Sports Illustrated has been one of my goals since I was probably 13 years old,” she said. “I’ve always wanted to be a part of Sports Illustrated. I loved the magazine. Kate Upton is one of my biggest role models in life. I’ve always loved that they really want to show that it’s all about inner beauty that shines.”

“Beauty comes in all shapes and sizes,” Raine said. “There’s no one shape or size that’s perfect. And they show that all sizes, all shapes matter, all ethnicities are beautiful. That’s something I really wanted to be a part of because that’s what we need in the world today.”

Raine also said that her father, who dated former Playboy cover girl Pamela Anderson in his heyday, has been supportive of her modeling career, including when she embarked on her SI journey.

“He wants me to succeed in what I want to pursue in life,” she explained. “He wants me to succeed in whatever I want to pursue in life. He was so proud. He would call me like every second. He would go, ‘Oh my God, how are you doing? Are you so excited?’ Right before I went on, I was like ‘Dad, I have to go now.’ And he said, ‘Right, right, but I’m so excited for you! I’m waiting outside, I’ll see you right after!’ I was just like, ‘Oh my goodness, OK.’

She continued, “I was talking to some of the girls [in the competition] and they were like, ‘My dad is so mad that I’m going to be walking in a bikini right now.’ And I’m like, it doesn’t have to be sexualized. It’s something you just want to do. You feel beautiful, you’re body confident and you want to show it. That’s amazing. My dad totally gets that, which is really cool because I know that not all dads do.”