9 WWE Stars Who Posed Naked For Playboy
Thanks for the mammaries, Hef.
Ordinarily, there are few really compelling reasons to take a long-hard leer at those women of WWE who bared all for the hallowed pages of softcore porn rag Playboy. It's hard to shy away from the suggestion that really, it's any excuse for a bit of titillation. But there are a couple of good ones.
Hugh Hefner's death, at the grand old age of 91, is one of them.
The long-time magazine impresario has drawn a range of conflicting eulogies in the wake of his passing, from the hysterical to hagiographic, characterised as both a misogynist pimp and a free-spirited proponent of the sexual revolution. Amongst the volume, one set of voices lost have been those of the models themselves. Torrie Wilson was quick to extend gratitude Hefner's way for the boost the shoot did her career, and many other former Playboy models similarly jumped to echo such sentiments.
For a while, WWE and Playboy made perfect playmates, a relationship ideally suited to the crass ideals of the Attitude Era and the demographic it brought with it. Eventually, the company's policy towards employing women was ultimately dictated by their ability to fluidly adapt to print. In the nude, if possible.
No surprise then, that there're more than two handfuls who bared all for a generation of oogling teenage eyes in darkened bedrooms.
9. Torrie Wilson
In the wake of Hugh Hefner's death, Torrie Wilson quickly jumped onto social media to thank the pornographer for given her the opportunity to twice star on the cover of his illustrious top-shelf rag.
Wilson first stripped off for Playboy in 2003, instigating an on-screen feud with a jealous Nidia. Envy's ugly head reappeared post-WrestleMania XIX, as the original WWE cover star Sable gatecrashed Torrie's 'Playboy Coming Out Party', with the tiresomely inevitably outcome of a Bikini Contest between the two.
They kissed and made up on screen - quite literally - before the pair appeared side-by-side, in the buff, for March 2004's issue of the magazine.
8. Carmella DeCesare
Ohioan Carmella DeCesare completed the standard Diva career progression in reverse, bearing all for Playboy Magazine in 2002 before she joined WWE.
A shapely brunette with supermodel good-looks and a pre-established proclivity towards getting her kit off, DeCesare was tailor made for Vince's early-2000s Divas department. Unfortunately, she failed at the last hurdle of the company's much-lamented Diva Search in 2004, earning the enmity of just about every contestant along the way.
Nevertheless, the losing finalist was offered a short WWE contract anyway - for self-evident reasons - and she went on to revolutionise women's wrestling with a Lingerie Pillow Fight opposite her usurper Christy Hemme at Taboo Tuesday.
7. Ashley Massaro
Although both Ashley Massaro's father and brother competed as amateur wrestlers, she was one of a raft of women with absolutely no prior industry experience hired as part of WWE's Diva Search programme on account of their other marketable assets.
After a typically degrading freshman year common to all nascent Divas, featuring the requisite array of Bra and Panties contests, Massaro migrated to SmackDown where she experienced more of the same. In February 2007, she revealed herself (quite literally) as the latest Playboy cover star, and a tired old record was respun as Jillian Hall became the latest in a line of begrudging colleagues opposed to the candid shots.
Ashley's association with the mag didn't end there; a year later, she encouraged Maria to pose nude, before starring in the tragic Bunnymania Lumberjack 'match' at WrestleMania XXIV.
6. Christy Hemme
Making her WWE PPV bow in the aforementioned grotty Lingerie Pillow Fight opposite fellow Diva Search finalist Carmella DeCesare rather set the tone for Christy Hemme's early tenure in the wrestling biz. A former burlesque dancer and model, Hemme had prior (clothed) centrefold experience in Playboy magazine before dropping her drawers for a WWE promoted issue in 2005. Booking 101 dictated that yes, another locker-room colleague took umbrage at the spread, the chagrin on this occasion belonging to former fitness model Trish Stratus.
The 2005 edition was the first time Hemme had appeared au naturel, a move for which she sought the permission of her father, weirdly. Probably easier to just do it on the sly than make him totally aware.
5. Maria Kanellis
It's a familiar story: Maria Kanellis, a star of beauty pageants in her youth, was drafted into the WWE fold thanks to the Diva Search in spite of her complete lack of sporting credentials. After three years of residency which ran the usual gamut of unedifying matches centred around the removal of lingerie and such, Maria was coaxed by former Playboy cover star Ashley Massaro into following birthday suit by posing for the mag.
And so she did - but not before having to beat Beth Phoenix to earn the right. Maria had originally been asked to get her kit off for the softcore 'zine as a teenager, but snubbed the offer through fear of embarrassing her sister. Clearly, she no longer gave a sh*t seven years later.
4. Candice Michelle
For Candice Michelle, see: Carmella DeCesare, Christy Hemme, Ashley Massaro, and Maria Kanellis. Her transition to wrestling followed an identical route, the erotic actor and model using the Diva Search as a conduit into WWE. Like her contemporaries selected from the competition, a long and glittering in-ring career was never the objective, and instead she completed the natural apotheosis of a Diva by disrobing for Playboy in April 2006.
3. Maryse
It's not even necessary to say it at this point. Maryse. Diva Search. Eliminated. Hired anyway. Obvious reasons.
The future Mrs. Mizanin unclothed for Playboy's special 'Vixens' issue in 2006, as well as baring her Quebecers for the publications 2007 Girls of Canada calendar, though for a change, the erotic exposé wasn't tediously transformed into an on-screen angle.
2. Chyna
Joanie Laurer was the very antithesis of the sort of 'Divas' WWE would later seek with explicit intent to feature in titillating scenarios. A muscle-bound Amazonian trained under the tutelage of Killer Kowalski, 'Chyna' was unlike any woman previously seen in the company, and one who could realistically stand on par with the men. Yet despite being cast from such a unique mould - and with the aid of extensive cosmetic surgery - she surprisingly became one of the industry's prototypical Playboy pinups.
The 'Ninth Wonder of the World's first shoot for Hefner's mag was one of its best selling issues of all time, boosted by the perfect mélange of wrestling's Attitude era boom and the piqued curiosities of its predominantly male fandom. Even after leaving WWE, Chyna's stock was sufficiently high to feature in a sequel issue, before she gradually transitioned into the adult industry full-time. Laurer was far from the typical Playboy pinup - and perhaps that's what made her one of its most important.
1. Sable
Arguably as crucial to the Attitude era as Steve Austin and The Rock, Sable set the new blue tone for what a WWE valet should be when she became the company's first ever star to strip nude for Playboy. The April 1999 issue quickly became the hottest selling edition of the magazine ever, simultaneously pushing Sable's popularity into orbit (albeit at the expense of poor Marc Mero).
Such was the immense financial success of the shoot that Sable quickly realised she'd outgrown WWE, and could make more money in similar projects outside Vince's auspices. Soon after leaving the company in painfully bitter circumstances, she became the first woman ever to twice adorn Playboy's cover in the same year. She's now married to Brock Lesnar, and we don't advise anyone to eye up her centrefolds just on the off-chance he happens to be nearby.