Playboy is reportedly returning to its roots after going through a failed woke rebrand that included pop star Lizzo on a centerfold, a transgender Playmate, and a ban on nudity.
After a five-year hiatus, the magazine was relaunched this month with a new issue including a fully nude centerfold featuring Guess model Gillian Nation — a fit, biological female — who has been crowned Playboy‘s 2025 Playmate of the Year, according to a report by Daily Mail.
View this post on Instagram
Nation was born and raised in rural Montana, and her photos include shots of her outdoors on a farm, featuring cowgirl vibes.
In the interview portion of the issue, the 27-year-old talks about her love for masculine men, as well as having been homeschooled when she was growing up, Daily Mail reported.
“I like a masculine guy. I’m very feminine, so I appreciate the contrast,” she said.
“And I like someone who is funny,” Nation added. “If a guy can make me laugh I’m immediately more attracted to him. Also, kindness, charisma, and confidence.”
Meanwhile, beauty influencer Lori Harvey — the daughter of comedian Steve Harvey — will serve as Playboy‘s comeback cover girl.
View this post on Instagram
The magazine features Harvey — who is sassily branded “America’s hottest nepo baby” — in a lingerie cover shoot, Daily Mail reported.
The Playboy issue also includes an article, titled, “The Rise of the Beta Male,” which reportedly explores the phenomenon of porn-addicted virgins.
The move to revert back to its original content comes after the magazine announced in 2017 — just one month after the death of Playboy‘s founder Hugh Hefner — that French model Ines Rau would be its first transgender Playmate.
“It’s the right thing to do. We’re at a moment where gender roles are evolving,” Hefner’s then-26-year-old son Cooper said at the time of the decision to feature men in Playboy.
Notably, 2017 was also dominated by the #MeToo movement, followed by woke “cancel culture” running rampant.
Cooper ended up leaving the company in 2019, after which an editorial team of two women and a gay man took over with a mission to make Playboy more progressive, Daily Mail noted.
“Today, we strive to be more inclusive, stretching and redefining tired and frankly sexist definitions of beauty, arousal and eroticism,” the new editorial team announced at the time.
After that, nudity was canceled at Playboy, and the magazine’s pictorials started featuring celebrities like Lizzo and pop star Halsey, who was claiming to be “non-binary.”
The magazine’s “Playboy Bunnies,” meanwhile, were renamed “brand ambassadors,” while Playmates were given sex-neutral names such as “September Playmate” rather than “Miss September.”
Playboy also started featuring male models who weren’t even trying to pretend to be women, such as influencer Bretman Rock, who became the magazine’s first-ever gay male cover star.
Another Playboy cover showed three activists — one of whom who prioritized raising awareness about H.I.V. — posing naked underwater, while the magazine’s executive editor, Shane Singh, declared, “The water is meant to represent gender and sexual fluidity.”
That same Playboy issue featured a profile on former openly gay U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg.
The magazine’s decision to return to its roots notably comes after landslide election victory of President Donald Trump, which many understood as also a message from the American people that they are vying to see the “woke” era finally come to an end.
Interestingly, the new Playboy issue also features a repurposed 1990 interview with Trump, Daily Mail noted.
“This edition brings back everything that made Playboy a cultural icon while introducing a fresh perspective that resonates with today’s world,” the company said in a statement.
The magazine’s editor-in-chief, Mike Guy, meanwhile, added that “This issue celebrates our rich history while embracing a bold new vision for the future, blending nostalgia with innovation to inspire a new generation of readers.”
Alana Mastrangelo is a reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow her on Facebook and X at @ARmastrangelo, and on Instagram.
