The Associated Press

NEW YORK - Kathy Ireland is used to people staring at her. A shark, on the other hand, is a different matter.

The swimsuit model says that she was scuba diving at 100 feet in the South Pacific last spring, unarmed and unnoticed by companions, when a shark came at her.

In what she called "the greatest physical challenge of my recent life," she says she held off the killer by staring him down. Another diver eventually shot and killed the shark.

"It was kind of frightening, but it was also exciting," Ireland says in the May-June issue of Fitness magazine. "Maybe I'm sick, but I had no problem diving again. I was upset that the shark got shot." Read Next Article