After just a year, nudity is returning to Playboy in the March/April issue of the magazine, according to Cooper Hefner, Hugh Hefner's son. On Monday, the 25-year-old, who recently took over as Chief Creative Officer of Playboy, released a statement via Twitter saying that the magazine made a mistake by removing nudity in the first place.
"When you have a company, and the founder is responsible for kickstarting the sexual revolution, and then you pluck out the aspect of the company's DNA by removing nudity, it makes a lot of people, including me, sit and say—what the hell is the company doing?" Hefner said in an interview with Business Insider.
The magazine made the executive decision to no longer feature images of nude women in their pages in February 2015, but Cooper publicly disagreed with the decision and said, "I didn't agree with the decision because I felt as though millennials and Gen-Y didn't view nudity as the issue. The issue was the way in which nudity and the girls were portrayed."
The younger Hefner admitted to taking a back seat after disagreeing with the previous nudity decision, but since taking his new position, Hefner is using his new power to bring the magazine back to the form that made it famous. The new issue even features the title "Naked Is Normal," which has also turned into a social-media hashtag. Playboy's Twitter account poked fun at the no-nudity policy by placing white T-shirts over famous nude works of art.
3 #NakedIsNormal #AdamandEve pic.twitter.com/0fp50IFTnHFebruary 10, 2017
5 #NakedIsNormal #PabloPicasso pic.twitter.com/fB0PbUBjCOFebruary 8, 2017
7 #NakedIsNormal #SandroBotticelli pic.twitter.com/c4ozRjvgQJFebruary 6, 2017
The March/April issue of Playboy will hit stands on February 28th. In addition to the return of nudity, the magazine will also feature interviews with Van Jones, Scarlett Johansson, and Adam Scott, as well as the traditional Playmate of the Month spread. They will also take the tagline "Entertainment for Men" off the cover, in a nod to evolving gender roles.
"This is a remarkably special moment personally and professionally that I get to share this issue of Playboy magazine with my Dad, as well as with readers," Cooper said in a press release. "It is a reflection of how the brand can best connect with my generation and generations to come."
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