‘I never asked for this to happen’: Ryli Johnson, dubbed the most beautiful girl in Australia, stars in first fashion shoot

A young woman who was branded the ‘most beautiful girl’ in Australia has opened up about the ‘surreal’ moment a photo taken at a nightclub catapulted her to fame.

It seems that at least one of the unofficial requirements of becoming a top model – aside from the obvious – is having a backstory that involves an unanticipated moment of discovery. Cindy Crawford first caught the eye of a photographer as she was sitting in the stands at an American football game. At the age of 14, Kate Moss was waiting to board a flight to London with her father when modelling agents, who just happened to be on that same flight, first noticed those cheekbones.

Ryli Johnson was at a nightclub in Townsville when her own moment arrived on March 1. A photographer on the premises snapped her photo, it ended up online, and soon it went viral. It was everywhere: TV reports, news sites and social media feeds. Before she knew it, Johnson – who works at the Aboriginal Land Council in Port Macquarie on the NSW mid-north coast – found herself transformed into what many were calling “the most beautiful woman in Australia”.

Picture: Steven Chee for Stellar

“It’s surreal,” Johnson tells Stellar. “I was at a concert recently, waiting to use the loos with about 500 other people, and these two people came up and recognised me. Then everyone started cheering. It’s like, ‘What the heck?’”

The 20-year-old, who is a proud Gomeroi Murri woman, says she lives by the saying that everything happens for a reason. But the circumstances that took her from nightclub to national headlines and, now, her first professional photo shoot for the cover of Stellar, seem serendipitous.

Johnson had travelled to Queensland to meet the family of her new boyfriend, 21-year-old rugby league player Tyreice Baira-Gela, who she had been dating for three months. “We actually met on the Gold Coast at a festival,” she says of the relationship. “We exchanged numbers. We started talking, getting to know each other, and then he came down to meet my family. And that’s when I planned to go up to Townsville to meet his family.”

Picture: Steven Chee for Stellar

Picture: Steven Chee for Stellar

During that trip the couple joined up with friends for a night out at The Bank, which bills itself as “Townsville’s home for urban party entertainment”. Early on in the evening, a photographer who knew Baira-Gela approached the couple and asked for a snap. This wasn’t unusual, since it is common practice for the venue’s photographers to ask most club-goers to pose for a photo so that it can later be shared on the nightclub’s social media pages.

“He took a picture,” Johnson recalls. “And then he was like, ‘Can we do another? Because the photo was blurry.’ So we did it again. And that was it.”

The photo itself is laid-back and candid: Johnson is smiling at the camera, her hair slicked back, as Baira-Gela stands behind her with his left arm wrapped around her, his right hand making the peace sign. All in all, pretty normal stuff for two young people enjoying a night out.

What happened next was anything but. Instead of simply posting the photo amid dozens (or even hundreds) of others in a Facebook gallery, the club decided to share it as a stand-alone picture. Soon it was flooded with comments from strangers, who remarked on the couple’s good looks, and in particular Johnson’s. “She’s the very definition of beauty,” one wrote. Added another, “Sign her to a modelling agency, she’s so naturally gorgeous.”

It was Johnson’s mother, Sarah Sampson, who first noticed the traction the post was getting, and who showed it to her. “I got home from work and saw it was blowing up,” Johnson recalls. “I didn’t think anything of it. I was just like, ‘Thank you for all the lovely comments.’”

Johnson, who is originally from Moree, a country town in northern NSW around an hour from the Queensland border, explains that in her family (she has four younger brothers) a premium has never been placed on beauty.

“I wasn’t brought up like that,” she tells Stellar. “My mum, she’s worked for everything. My great-grandmother, she’s worked for everything. In our culture we are matriarchal, not patriarchal. The women are the saviours and protectors. I’ve never really focused on my looks.”

Sampson herself entered a local model search when she was young, but never took it any further. “People have made comments in passing and in general conversation that Ryli should be a model, but she would just laugh about it,” she says.

Suddenly, though, that career path looks like more of a potential reality. Johnson says she has been approached by numerous modelling agencies to join their roster of talent, which would mark a decided turn of events. When Stellar spoke with Johnson, she explained she was progressing through various recruitment stages with Qantas, having applied for a customer service role with the national airline last December. Now, she says, “I have this whole new opportunity. And I’ve always believed in saying yes to any opportunity and seeing where it leads.”

With her mother by her side, Johnson flew to Sydney for her shoot with Stellar.

Ryli Johnson on the cover of Stellar. Picture: Steven Chee for Stellar

“I loved the atmosphere,” she says of the experience. “I honestly had the most amazing time. It definitely gave me some inspiration of what I want to do with modelling.”

Johnson, in turn, proved inspiring to Stellar’s contributing style director Kelly Hume, who oversaw the creative direction of her shoot, and guided her along the way. “For someone who had never been professionally photographed before, Ryli was the ultimate model in front of the camera,” Hume says, calling Johnson “a true and authentic beauty, humble, and interested in the entire process. Big things await – I’m sure of it.”

Given that kind of feedback, Johnson may feel empowered to further explore modelling opportunities – but she is also hesitant about jumping in too quickly.

For one thing, soon after that nightclub photo went viral, Johnson became the target of abusive and cruel messages that flooded her social media accounts.

“I had to put my accounts on private,” she says. “Because I had people message me, and they were really rude comments talking about my relationship or me. Honestly, I never asked for this to happen. And the comments made me feel like: ‘Wow, maybe this isn’t for me.’ I’m the nicest person that you will ever meet. So I don’t think it’s fair for me to be treated like that.”

Yet she admits the trash talk isn’t new to her. As a teenager, she attended a boarding school in Sydney, where she recounts a range of bullying. “A lot of things happened to me. I got called names and some girls spat in my hair. I’d always loved school – and suddenly I didn’t want to be there,” she recalls. Then, like now, she turned to her family. Her mother, who has a background in child protection, moved Johnson to a new school, from which she graduated in 2022. Sampson says that she is now helping her daughter understand and cope with this new-found attention.

“This is new to all of us, and we are navigating through this together,” Sampson says. “She’s my only daughter, and yes, she’s beautiful. But she’s got a kind and humble heart, and I don’t want anyone taking advantage of her. As a mother, all I want is my five children to be happy.”

More than anything, Sampson adds, she is appreciative of her daughter’s ability to stand tall as a proud First Nations woman. “She told me if anything comes from the attention, it’s putting the spotlight on First Nations people for positive reasons, and not the stereotypes,” she says. “When she told me that, I welled up.”

So whatever comes next for Johnson – whether it be her dream of working in the travel sector or ending up in front of more cameras as a model – one priority takes precedence.

“I want to represent my culture. I’m proud of my culture, I immerse myself in my culture,” she explains.

“There’s so much negativity and hatred out there, but I want to show we have an amazing culture. Why can’t we share it with the world? Why can’t we have the same opportunities that everyone else has? I guess that’s my message. My main message. But also, for myself.”

See the full shoot with Ryli Johnson in Stellar today. For more from Stellar, click here.