Superstar Maluma was the face of Playgirl’s digital reboot in March and Dancing with the Stars’ Gleb Savchenko finishes the year with a bang. In between, the very popular covers with the “soap hunks” of Days of Our Lives stripping down for our readers (April), two covers dedicated to women’s reproductive rights (May and September), then Dionne Brown and Hulu’s series Queenie (July), Grammy award winner Lucky Daye (August) and the Mister USA pageant (October).
It’s been a rollercoaster. Its ups: our team of exceptional editors/contributors, the 50th anniversary book, the exhibit at Circus of Books, the tv segments aired by Entertainment Tonight, the interviews with Jinkx Monsoon, Lolo Zouaï and the top photographers of the male physique. Its downs: wary gatekeepers (agents, managers and publicists) and social media’s censorship. Meta’s idiotic (bigoted) algorithm has been shadow-banning us from day one; in October it decided to wipe out everything Playgirl-related on both Instagram and Facebook, no matter how mainstream. And yes, everything includes the iconic covers printed over the past decades, the celebrity interviews, the new articles on hot-button issues like birth-control pill and abortion rights and polyamory. 50 years after its debut, Playgirl is STILL paying the price for its “bold, revolutionary and at times (…) beleaguered history” (Nicole Caldwell). Its fearless exploration of sexuality is still ruffling feathers. In fact, more so than ever before.
What about Playgirl+’s Men of the Month? In years past, we’d have called them the ‘centerfolds,’ but you know what we mean… Here they are, all together. Some bearded and mustached (Jonas, Darek, Cristiano, Leo), some clean shaven, all sexy. Cristiano was the most popular on YouTube, Sergio the most ‘liked’ on Instagram, followed by Darek. What say you? Whom would you vote for, should we bring back our Man of the Year? Bottoms up!
