There was a time — say, back in the 1980s — when a major pop or movie star appearing nude in Playboy was truly shocking, a career toss-of-the-dice that could rocket you to Page One or drop you into sad obscurity as a has-been making the final swirls around the career shower drain.
Of course, plenty of A (and B and C and, sorry, D-list) celebrities have posed for the magazine over the years in the hope that the buzz would kickstart their careers or comebacks, from former cover-girl Pamela Anderson to actresses Drew Barrymore and Kim Basinger, ex-MTV VJ "Downtown" Julie Brown and, er, professional wrestler Chyna.
And to that list you now can add Aubrey O'Day, who recently confirmed her forthcoming pictorial to us, to that list. The ex-Danity Kane singer will appear on the March cover of the mag in a shoot she told MTV was "empowering," and which, along with her recent comments about her sexuality, she presumably hopes will help jump-start her solo career.
But a quick look at the list of singers who've appeared in the magazine reads more like a rogue's gallery, with not one having achieved any significant career resurgence as a result of stripping down their act: ex-Go-Go's singer Belinda Carlisle, '80s pop tartlets Debbie Gibson and Tiffany, disgraced Jackson family member LaToya, ex-Prince protégé Vanity and, Vanessa Williams, who has gone on to a successful acting and singing career, despite losing her place as the first black Miss America due to a lesbian photo-shoot scandal involving another men's magazine, Penthouse. (The shoot was done long before Williams was crowned, and published after.) Of course, Madonna appeared in some tasteful black-and-white shots taken by acclaimed photographer Lee Friedlander in 1985, but she’s Madonna, and it was 1985.
In an age when barely a week goes by without some leaked nude or semi-nude photos of celebs like Audrina Patridge, Vanessa Hudgens Miley Cyrus or Cheetah Girl Adrienne Bailon (who is also reportedly gearing up for a Playboy spread), not to mention sex tapes (and alleged sex tapes) that leave little to the imagination, is posing for Playboy really that big of a deal? To judge by the mainstream press, you're likely to see as much as you would in Playboy in your local high school thanks to the rampant epidemic of "sexting."
Plenty of others who've hit career dry spells have turned down six-figure offers to appear in the all together in recent years, including Lindsay Lohan, Nelly Furtado and Ashlee Simpson. Not to mention red-hot stars like Rihanna, who has said she would never consider posing for the magazine, and Mariah Carey, who appeared on the cover in 2007 in a bathing suit but did not strip down further.
Is O'Day's "big reveal" really the thing that will put her over the top? Time will tell ...
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