Playboy Diary

Playboy diary

- Sherlyn Chopra

The Bunny Bone

I still remember that day quite vividly. It was back in 2012 that, on a lark, I wrote to Hugh Hefner, the iconic founder-editor of Playboy, stating my desire to be a cover girl of his popular magazine. His office was quick to respond…my inbox brought news in just a couple of days. My first reaction was disbelief! Would I really become the first-ever Indian girl to feature on the Playboy cover? To be honest, I didn’t quite believe it would ever happen until the cover shoot actually took place in Los Angeles. In his passing away last week, we have lost a trailblazer, someone who followed his bliss and his bliss led him to a billion-dollar fortune.

The Hefner Phenomenon

HEFNER led a flamboyant, bold and often controversial life and projected an image that made him the object of envy for all males. The best takeaway from that—even granting all the less-than-savoury details brought out by investigative journalists and former bunnies—is that he created an empire by not conforming to the dogma set by self-proclaimed guardians of society but by acting on his optimum excitement, not just as the passing fad of a young man but consistently over the decades, almost creating a myth of ever-lasting youth.

Initially conceived as an adult print magazine,