Blond. Blue-eyed. All-American body. One look at Harry Howard, our men for July and you know you’ve got the best of boy-next-door masculinity. That’s why Eric’s mom and his girlfriend Michelle Rioux encouraged him to enter Playgirl‘s “Make Your Boyfriend a Centerfold” contest and that’s why the editors selected him the winner over thousands of others.
“I was speechless,” remembers Eric of the day he first learned he was going to be the centerfold. “I was at the mall with Michelle and she was on the phone with her mom. She told Michelle that Playgirl had sent a letter saying I was the winner and Michelle told me. At first I was nervous, because I had to pose nude, but then I figured, how often does a guy get the chance to be in Playgirl?” So, we flew Eric and Michelle from their small town of Somersworth, NH (“There’s maybe only three people,” jokes Eric) to New York City.
“It was my first time on a plane,” says Eric with wide-eyed excitement. “And it was my first time in New York. I’ve been to Boston but New York’s nothing like Boston. New York is huge.”
Back home in Somersworth, though, 23-year-old Eric is more content to pursue life’s simple pleasures —like going to the movies and dining in nice restaurants with Michelle, playing Hacky Sack with his buddies J.R. and Tom at the beach, and skiing. “It’s boring up here if you don’t ski,” he laughs.
When he’s not hitting the slopes, you can find Eric at the University of New Hampshire, where he’s a freshman business major “on the 12 year plan.” That’s where he met Michelle nearly two years ago.
“I had a boyfriend at the time,” explained Michelle. “But I was looking and I liked Eric’s rear. He was a friend of a friend, and everyone thought he was good-looking, but I was the lucky one.”
“At first I thought he was stuck up, but when you meet him once, he’s like your best buddy.”
To earn extra money for school and fun, Eric is a doorman at a local club, The Speakeasy (Michelle works as a cashier and in the coat-check room). And for some more cash he’s a male exotic dancer with the Roy Dee Theatrical Agency.
“We do clubs and private parties,” says Eric, who discovered dancing while working as a topless waiter. He made fun of another dancer who then challenged him to do better. Eric did. “Sometimes women tried to cop a feel and they come on to me. But I’m nice about it. I gently push their hands away. And I have a girlfriend, so I don’t want to get involved. But it is good for the ego.”
“Actually,” interrupts Michelle, “Eric gets embarrassed when girls look at him.” So, just imagine what you’re doing to him each time you look at his Playgirl centerfold.
More of Eric, exclusively on PLAYGIRL+
