Playgirl is an American magazine that has historically featured pictorials of nude and semi-nude men alongside general interest, lifestyle, and celebrity journalism, as well as original fiction. For most of its history, the magazine printed monthly and was marketed mainly to women, though it quickly developed a significant gay male readership.

In 2009, Playgirl transitioned from a monthly to quarterly print publication, before ceasing regular print operations in 2016. In 2020, the magazine relaunched in November with nearly 10,000 copies in the U.S. and London before selling out and going back to press for a second printing and resumed monthly releases as an online-only publication in 2020.^[1][2][3]

The magazine was founded in 1973 by Los Angeles-based nightclub owner Douglas Lambert, who'd initially explored creating a men's lifestyle magazine featuring nude women to compete with Hugh Hefner's Playboy.^[4] At the suggestion of his wife, and inspired by the success of Helen Gurley Brown's use of male nudes in Cosmopolitan magazine (including a shoot featuring film star Burt Reynolds), Lambert refashioned his idea as a feminist response to movement as a response to Playboy and Penthouse instead.^[4][5] In partnership with William Miles Jr., an area advertising executive, Lambert founded Playgirl in Century City, California, in 1973 with a $20,000 investment.^[4]

After two test issues (featuring race car driver Mike Hiss and the Hager Twins, country singers and stars of TV's Hee Haw, in seminude centerfolds), the magazine, initially styled as Playgirl: The Magazine for Women formally debuted in June 1973,^[4][6] featuring television and film star Lyle Waggoner as centerfold and an interview and nude photoshoot with actor Ryan McDonald. Editorial in the issue included a travel pictorial on Hong Kong, long-form interview with actress Cloris Leachman, original fiction by Jillian Charles, and a guide to selecting artwork for the home.^[7][6] The first issue sold out quickly, selling 600,000 copies in four days, and for the rest of the 1970s, the magazine would sell, on average, 1.5 million copies each month.^[4]

From its inception, Playgirl has featured full frontal nude and semi-nude (rear and obscured frontal) pictorials of men, except for a 10-month period in 1986 and 1987, when following the sale and reorganization of the magazine, new ownership mandated a new approach in the hopes of appealing to a wider readership in an increasingly politically and culturally time.^[4][8] Editorially, the magazine covered hot-button sociopolitical issues like abortion and equal rights for the majority of its print run. In the magazine's first decade, it typically did so via long-form journalism, commentary, and feature interviews from well-regarded staff and freelance writers.^[4][6] Through the mid-1980s, in-depth interviews with A-list celebrities and newsmakers, including Maya Angelou, Larry Flynt, Barbra Streisand, and Jane Fonda, were frequently paired with commentary from cultural essayists such as Angelou, and original fiction from both emergent and established writers, including Erica Jong and Truman Capote.^[5][6]

In 1977, Lambert sold Playgirl to Ira Ritter who took over as publisher, continuing the magazine's editorial style and direction (including male nude pictorials) but leaning more publicly into the magazine's feminist and journalistic bona fides.^[4][5] Covers in Ritter's first years centered women, often alone, to highlight female perspectives on politics and other cultural issues, deemphasizing the nude photography and erotic themes still central to the magazine, in terms of magazine's public-facing image and newsstand presence.^[6] Ironically during this period the magazine featured its first pictorial with an erection, when 21-year-old man of the month model Geoff Minger became the magazine's first centerfold to display a full erection in the historic January 1980 issue.^[9] Results were mixed and in 1986, compounded by bad investments by the owners (including the launch of an unsuccessful spin-off publication, Playgirl Advisor, with a more direct focus on sex, sexuality, and couples), Playgirl filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection^[10] and was subsequently acquired by Drake Publishers, Inc.^[11][5] The magazine was published by Drake from 1986 until 1993, when Drake was merged into Crescent Publishing Group, Inc.^[12]

Until the 1986 change of ownership, Playgirl's interviews, journalism, and original fiction were central to the magazine's identity and featured and promoted as such.^[13][14] Post restructuring, the magazine began featuring simplified beefcake-style covers (usually featuring a model from the issue, often in underwear or speedo-style swimwear), and implemented changes to cut costs and expand readership in an increasingly conservative and less feminist-friendly cultural environment of the late Reagan era.^[13][15] This resulted in substantial reductions in the in-depth, substantive journalism, political and social feminist commentary the magazine was known for, a decrease in non-pictorial pages, and an increase in advertising space.^[5][13]

Ultimately, the 1986-87 reorganization of the magazine failed to significantly increase general readership or improve the magazine's cultural palatability in the new environment, but did have the effect of eroding the magazine's credibility as a substantive mainstream publication that blended erotic content with substantive journalism, repositioning it as a niche, adult-oriented publication.^[4][5] The 1993 acquisition of the title by Crescent Publishing Group, the owner of hardcore magazine like High Society and other pornographic titles, cemented this reputation and, as a result, the number of celebrities and newsmakers sitting for interviews or pictorials rapidly decreased.^[5]

Crescent's experiments in the 1990s with the publication of celebrity nudes acquired from external sources -- including art nudes alleged to be actor Antonio Banderas and intrusive paparazzi photos of actor Brad Pitt (both presented as cover stories), proved short-lived after a series of expensive legal losses and settlements with Banderas, Pitt, and others. Actor Leonardo DiCaprio successfully sued to stop publication of photographs taken without his knowledge, and the pressure from Crescent to publish the photos led to the resignation of Editor-in-Chief, Ceslie Armstrong, who called the photographs "an invasion of privacy [that] I can't be associated with."^[16]

By the 2000s, Crescent had fully repositioned the title as an adult brand, relaunching Playgirl's website as a pay site primarily featuring co-branded hardcore straight pornography, and increasing explicit content in the print magazine.^[4][5] In August 2000, Crescent was charged by the Federal Trade Commission with over $180 million of online credit card fraud, some of which was alleged by the FTC to have taken place on their new Playgirl website.^[17][18] In November 2001, Crescent agreed to pay $30 million in refunds and subsequently changed its name to Blue Horizon Media, Inc.^[19]

In August 2008, the magazine announced that it would cease publication of its print edition as of the January 2009 issue.^[5] The last print issue of the magazine's initial print run was published as a January/February issue and sold on newsstands through March 2009.^[8] Playgirl was then published online through February 2010, when print publication resumed with a March issue featuring political celebrity Levi Johnston, shot by longtime Playgirl photographer Greg Weiner.^[20] In 2011, Blue Horizon sold the print rights for Playgirl and other titles to Magna Publishing Group, Inc. of Paramus, New Jersey,^[21][22] and the magazine continued to publish as a print title, approximately quarterly, until 2016, when with print subscriptions dwindling to approximately 3,000 the title ceased regular print operations.^[23][13]

In 2020, new owner Jack Lindley Kuhns, a gay man, revived the title, relaunching the "New Playgirl Magazine" with a special print edition, featuring a pregnant and nude actress Chloe Sevigny on the cover (a nod to both Playgirl's feminist roots and the magazine's early issues, which often featured women on the cover), edited by Skye Parrott.^[1][24] The issue, described by Kuhns as "part political magazine and part art magazine" featured images of nude bodies of all ethnicities and genders, as well as writing about racial injustice, trans empowerment, and body positivity and sold out immediately.^[1][25]

Since the 2020 relaunch, the magazine has moved to a regular publishing cycle as an online-only title split across two domains: Playgirl.com, a free site featuring a mix of news, features, and photo essays reside, and PlaygirlPlus.com, a subscription site where access to the publication's archives and the magazine's traditional "Man of the Month" nude photospread, modernized with additional video and multimedia content, are hosted.^[26][27] Nicole Caldwell, a former editor-in-chief during the magazine's print run, oversees the online iteration in the same capacity. Under the direction Caldwell, Boardman, and production director Daniel McKernan, the brand has refocused on the traditional male physique and art nude composition the magazine is historically known for, incorporating additional video and multi-media content, moving away from the more explicit depictions of the print magazine's final years and reembracing the magazine's roots.^[26] Both domains highlight the decades of substantive journalism, commentary, fiction, and pictorials from the magazine's archives, presenting them in newly digitized formats.^[26][27]

Many celebrities and public figures posed nude or semi-nude for Playgirl during the magazine's initial print runs (with "posed" defined as sitting as a model for the magazine specifically vs. merely appearing clothed and/or shirtless in the magazine or in photos acquired from external sources).

Playgirl featured the highest number of A-list celebrities in nude photoshoots in the 1970s, in the wake of the American sexual revolution and early feminist positioning of the magazine, and 1980s.^[14] While many celebrities, such as football legend and actor Jim Brown, World Series MVP Steve Yeager, and actors Lyle Waggoner and Christopher Atkins, posed nude at the height (or near height) of their fame, some, including actors Sam J. Jones and Steve Bond, and country singer Keith Urban, went on to greater professional success after posing for the magazine. Others, like teen idol singer and actor Fabian, Skid Row musician Phil Varone, and supermodel Tim Boyce posed nude for the magazine after the height of their fame, introducing themselves to new generational audiences. In rare occasions, as with fallen 9/11 firefighter Vincent Princiotta, Playgirl models came to prominence nationally posthumously.

With dozens of celebrities and public figures posting for the magazine over the five-decade print runs, circumstances and experiences varied. Many of the early celebrity centerfolds elected to pose in support of the feminist and gender equality aims of the magazine, particularly in response to male-oriented titles like Playboy, which already featured nude female celebrities. NFL player Dan Pastorini first posed for the magazine to help pay off a legal settlement, but positive reception to his shoot led to a second appearance shortly after.^[4][26] Olympian Greg Louganis admitted he hadn't wanted to do his shoot, but felt pressured to do as a marketing vehicle (to bolster the heterosexual "heartthrob" appeal of the then-closeted diver).^[28] NFL player Bob Chandler was pleased with the photos from his shoot, and even displayed a framed shot in his home.^[29]

Actor Marcus Patrick claimed Playgirl then-editors' use of photos more explicit than agreed cost him his role on the daytime soap opera Days of Our Lives,^[30] while Urban has jokingly called posing pre-superstardom a "career regret," finding the photos, which featured him posing nude and in underwear with his guitar, embarrassing.^[31] Conversely, musician Peter Steele expressed strong regret for his unusually explicit shoot, repulsed by the attention he garnered from gay fans.^[32] Others, like straight soap opera actor John Gibson, found the attention from male and female fans equally flattering, with Gibson specifically crediting the positive attention from his Playgirl appearance for his career shift and subsequent success as an actor, model, and dancer.^[33][34]

While celebrities and public figures from many walks of life -- including the military, circus arts, and politics -- have posed nude for Playgirl, the majority of the magazine's high-profile nude models have come from the worlds of film and television acting, professional and world-class athletics (mostly professional baseball, football, and Olympic athletes), and music, including well-known pop, rock, metal, and rap artists.^[4][6][16] Historically, famous athletes and musicians have posed fully, frontally nude at the highest rates, while actors, who are required to more carefully manage public image and perception, have been more likely to pose for obscured or rear-only nude pictorials (with some several notable exceptions).^[6][16]

The number of mainstream celebrities appearing nude in the magazine slowed steadily following a 1986 restructuring (which saw significant cuts to the budget for original features and an end to the high fees previously paid out to celebrity models), as a result of increasing cultural conservatism at the end of the Reagan Administration, and the rise of Moral Majority and similar movements, calling for the censorship and restriction of nudity and non-"family friendly" content in American media.^[15] With top publicists and representatives for A-list actors and professional athletes increasingly wary of associating with the magazine, celebrity appearances grew rarer, a trend that only hastened as the print magazine's final owners moved the publication in a more explicit direction in its later years as a print publication.^[35][5] (Explicit celebrity photoshoots, featuring erections or sexually suggestive poses with a female model, were exceptionally rare; most exceptions -- including Steele, Varone and reality stars Nick Hawk and Joey Kovar -- came later in the title's history.) In the final years of the magazine's initial print run, celebrity appearances were limited exclusively to less famous personalities from the world of reality television.

In February 2024, the newly relaunched, and no longer highly explicit, Playgirl announced the first celebrity pictorial of its new era -- featuring actors Bryan Dattilo, Eric Martsolf, and Paul Telfer, and Robert Scott Wilson, stars of the long-running soap opera Days of Our Lives, and their former co-star, Hawai'i 5-0 and Star Wars: Resistance actor Christopher Sean -- would debut in April. The exact level of nudity from each actor was not confirmed.^[36]

Though the magazine was mainly marketed to heterosexual women, it developed a substantial gay male following. In 2003, then-editor-in-chief Michele Zipp acknowledged the magazine's gay readership, noting "it's 'Entertainment for Women' because there's no other magazine out there that caters to women in the way we do [but]...we love our gay readers as well, and the gay readership [of the magazine] is about 30%."^[37]

Dirk Shafer, one of the gay men featured later produced a comic mockumentary titled Man of the Year in which he discussed balancing his own homosexuality with his role as Playgirl's "Man of the Year," a seemingly heterosexual sex symbol. While the magazine always presented its models as heterosexual, openly gay models have appeared in the magazine, including Scott Merritt, Playgirl's 30th-anniversary centerfold, who came out publicly in an interview with The Advocate. Some models featured over the magazine's print run also posed for gay-focused publications or worked in the gay adult entertainment industry.^[37]

Playgirl is available in English and has been published in a number of other languages and international English-language editions during its history:

• Germany (1978–1980 and 1989–2003)
• France (1978)
• Australia (1985–88) and as Interlude in 1991
• Netherlands (1987–88)
• United Kingdom (1992–93, 2011)
• Spain (1992-93)
• South Africa (1995)
• Brazil (1985)
• Russia (2004–09)
• Japan (1986–2015)

When the Russian version of Playgirl was launched in June 2004, it contained photographs of nude, circumcised American men despite circumcision's being less common outside the U.S., being practiced mainly by Muslims and Jews in Russia.^[38]

Playgirl UK's brief 2011 relaunch was accompanied by an announcement that it would feature no below-the-waist nudity, and would focus on attractive male celebrities rather than models and pornography actors. It was a failure, and ceased circulation soon after it began.^{[citation needed]}