For those of you us who only watch the UFC when Conor McGregor is involved, let me introduce you to Arianny Celeste.

Living the American dream, Arianny managed to turn a job usually considered as a ‘background role’ into a million dollar income.

Arianny Celeste

Arianny is the UFC’s top ring girl. She has reportedly made her first million dollars recently from becoming the queen of MMA promotion.

According to KGBanswers, the UFC is paying the ring girls about $20,000 per year. But Celeste has managed to use her MMA profile to help her sign her own deals, which have made her more than a million dollars.

She has also won a handful of awards like Sports Illustrated’s 2010 lady of the day and Ring Girl of the Year 2010 by the MMA Awards and the Hottest UFC Octagon Girl by Maxim in 2010. The brunette has 459,000 Twitter followers and was rated No. 23 on Maxim’s Hottest 100 List in 2010.

Awards and accolades

Arianny Celeste has won multiple awards since joining the UFC. Awards like Sports Illustrated’s 2010 lady of the day, Ring Girl of the Year 2010 by the MMA Awards and the Hottest UFC Octagon Girl by Maxim in 2010.

Celeste is also extremely famous Instafamous. She has 2.8 million Instagram followers, 459,000 Twitter followers and was rated No. 23 on Maxim’s Hottest 100 List in 2010.

UFC Career

Celeste made her UFC debut in 2006 as a UFC Octagon Girl at the Hard Rock Cafe and Casino in Las Vegas and became a sensation among fans.

A few public appearances, magazine covers and TV shows later, the octagon sensation has truely transformed herself into a brand. As proven by the long list of things you can buy on her website that have her face body printed on them.

Clothing optional. ???? @azuliktulum #azulikbeachbar #beach #babe #love #mykindabeach #fitspo #happiness A post shared by Arianny Celeste UFC® (@ariannyceleste) on Mar 23, 2017 at 10:44am PDT

Backlash

In 2015 back when Ronda Rousey was at the top of her game, she complained about the pay in the UFC’s female divisions. Ronda claimed that some ring girls were paid more than fighters.

“I don’t know if the ring girls get paid too much or the fighters don’t get paid enough,” Rousey said. “But, yeah, there’s definitely a lot more in what the fighters do than what they do. So, I think that’s one thing that’s unfair.”

It’s hard not to see this as a direct attack towards Celeste.

At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter what you think of ring girls, Instamodels or even MMA. Arianny Celeste took a background role and turned it into a million dollar business. For that reason, I believe she has earned anybody’s respect.

by Ed Toussaint – contributor