She might be Maxim's number one on their annual Hot 100 list, so it's no surprise Miley Cyrus decided to strip down to barely nothing for V magazine. From Lindsay Lohan’s much-hyped Playboy spread to Demi Moore’s pregnant pose that started it all, see other magazine covers that feature stars wearing nothing at all.
From Lake Bell nude and tattooed to Demi Moore’s pregnant pose that started it all, see magazine covers that feature stars wearing nothing at all.
New York Magazine, Fall Fashion Issue 2013
34-year-old actress -- and now director, producer, etc. -- Lake Bell sports a faux-tattoo of a large gray rose designed by her tattoo-artist husband Scott Campbell, and nothing else, for New York Magazine's Fall Fashion Issue. While Bell meant to rock the tattoo for the magazine cover only, the actress didn't have time to remove the oversized rose after the photo shoot, forcing her to wear the tattoo to a Hamptons wedding. She told New York Magazine, “I had a spaghetti-strap maxi-dress on and I came in with this massive flower on my chest, and nobody said a word. Everyone was apparently abuzz behind my back, 'I can’t believe she did it.''Did you see it?' 'How couldn’t I see it, are you kidding? 'Well, you know, she married that tattoo artist.'”
Shape Magazine, March 2012
She might star on a show called Private Practice, but Kate Walsh didn’t care about hiding any private parts on the cover of March’s Shape magazine. The 44-year-old actress said she was “terrified” to do the naked cover shoot, but she “really wanted to a naked cover—especially with Shape, because the magazine is about loving yourself inside and out.” Walsh said it was her idea to go nude and she pitched the idea to the Shape editors—who had long been searching for a celebrity to go nude on the cover. “Right now, I feel really healthy, confident and sexy,” she said. “I’m enjoying my 40s and wanted to share that. Is it a midlife crisis? I do drive a Porsche, so maybe it is!” Walsh twisted her limbs around to make the cover PG-13, and Shape editor-in-chief Tara Kraft complimented Walsh’s “amazing figure.” “She works hard for it,” Kraft said.
Playboy, January/February 2012
The starlet has bared all on magazine covers not once, but twice—and the frenzy surrounding her second one, the January/February 2012 issue of Playboy, proved that there’s always an appetite for nude spreads. Lohan fetched close to $1 million for Playboy, with the article and photos being billed as her comeback after she was embarrassingly—and publicly—fired from the Linda Lovelace biopic Inferno due to her legal troubles. On the Playboy cover, Lohan covered her private parts with the famous Playboy bunny ears, but she stripped down to her birthday suit inside the magazine. The anticipation over the cover proved to be almost unbearable—so much so that it leaked online a week ahead of when Lohan had been set to reveal on Ellen. After the photos became public, Playboy dropped the issue on stands early and said it would be added to the Collector’s Edition.
Entertainment Weekly, November 2010
This on-screen couple—who previously played husband and wife in 2005’s Oscar-winning cowboy drama Brokeback Mountain—bare almost everything in their new raunchy romantic comedy, Love and Other Drugs. “There is that revoltingly embarrassing moment when you have to take your clothes off in front of strangers,” Hathaway told Entertainment Weekly of stripping down for the movie, in which the two play a pair of noncommittal twentysomethings who get caught up in a whirlwind sexual relationship. But nevertheless, Hathaway got naked again with Gyllenhaal for their new EW photo shoot. It was “ so sensual,” according to the magazine, they decided to publish three different covers.
Rolling Stone, September 2010
Anna Paquin, the heroine of HBO’s steamy vampire series True Blood, appeared on the cover of Rolling Stone in September, splattered in (presumably fake) blood and flanked by the men who play her love interests, Alexander Skarsgård and (her real-life husband) Stephen Moyer. The cover perfectly encapsulated the series—sexy love triangles, lots of gore, and even more skin.
Vanity Fair, August 2010
This monstrous pop star often gets the blogosphere roiling and did again this summer with her revelation that she had stopped having sex because she was afraid it was depleting her creativity. In her interview with Vanity Fair, she said she was “ quite celibate “because she never has time for relationships. But Gaga’s had plenty of other ways to release her sexual tension lately, like shooting more nude magazine covers (for both Vanity Fair and Out, for example) and filming the scandalous video for her single, “ Alejandro.”
GQ, January 2009
Friends star Jennifer Aniston, who posed naked for a classic Rolling Stone cover in March 1996, repeated her stripped-down performance for GQ on the eve of her 40th birthday. Aniston’s nude covers are not only known for being sexy, but they also manage to show her down-to-earth sweetness. “There is a moment when you walk in and see the wardrobe—it’s basically a tie—and you think, ‘Where’s the underwear?’” she told GQ. “But it felt really good to be that comfortable with myself—and to lie on men as furniture.”
Esquire, May 2008
When Esquire went looking for a classic cover to recreate for its 75th anniversary, they settled on their March 1965 issue that depicted Italian actress Virna Lisi shaving her face. The magazine picked the bodacious songstress Jessica Simpson to feature in the remake, then outfitted her with a retro hairdo and slathered her with shaving cream. The Texas native had no problem removing her $200 bra on set and told Esquire, “I’m a naughty sweetheart… but I won’t go into details.”
New York Magazine, February 2008
In 1962, photographer Bert Stern took a series of famous naked photos of Marilyn Monroe at the Hotel Bel-Air, depicting the Some Like It Hot star wallowing playfully in between the bed sheets. Six weeks later, Monroe was found dead of a drug overdose. Nearly 50 years after “The Last Sitting,” as Monroe’s final shoot was called, Stern recreated it with the equally troubled, substance-abusing Lindsay Lohan. “I was comfortable with it,” the Monroe fan told New York magazine of being photographed nude, coyly posing on white linens, with strategically placed rosettes, and behind see-through scarves, as depicted on the 2008 cover.
Harper’s Bazaar, August 2006
Pop princess Britney Spears’ downward spiral had only just begun in 2006 when she posed nude for Harper’s Bazaar. She had just been photographed driving with her son Sean on her lap and a few months after this shoot, she would give birth to her second son, Jayden, and divorce her (second) husband, Kevin Federline. But the shoot, heavily inspired by Demi Moore’s 1991 cover for Vanity Fair, brought Spears a moment of positive buzz. As for her uncovered appearance, the pop star told the magazine, “I still walk out of my house in rollers… I do not care what people think.”
Jane, August 2006
Model and Project Runway host Heidi Klum has no qualms about showing her skin, whether it’s all of it or just most of it. She’s done it in the swimsuit issue of Sports Illustrated, on the cover of Esquire UK, and on this 2006 cover of now-defunct women’s magazine Jane. “I love being naked,” she told Tatler. “I think it’s because I grew up in a very easy-going family where my parents were always naked.”
Vanity Fair, March 2006
Controversy swirled around this nude, Tom Ford-designed, Annie Leibowitz-photographed annual Vanity Fair Hollywood issue in March 2006. Actress Rachel McAdams had a fit of modesty and backed out of the shoot at the last minute. Ford, apparently overcome with desire for Keira Knightley’s earlobe, decided to replace McAdams with himself—though he managed to keep most of his clothes on.
Entertainment Weekly, May 2003
Just before former President George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq began, the Dixie Chicks’ lead singer Natalie Maines notoriously told a London audience the country girl-group was “ ashamed the president of the United States is from Texas.” When their singles were banished from the nation’s airwaves and their records run over with tractors across the South in response, the Chicks responded with this defiant, naked cover shoot. Fiddler Martie Maguire told the magazine, “We wanted to show the absurdity of the extreme names people have been calling us. How do you look at the three of us and think, ‘Those are Saddam’s Angels?’” Maines added, “We don’t want people to think that we’re trying to be provocative. It’s not about the nakedness. It’s that the clothes got in the way of the labels. We’re not defined by who we are anymore. Other people are doing that for us.”
InStyle, September 2001
Almost Famous actress Kate Hudson told InStyle that she loved taking off her clothes because she grew up in a family where the female figure was celebrated—but there was another motive as well. “Maybe the reason I don’t have a problem with nudity is that since I have such small breasts I never feel that they are gratuitous,” the then-22-year-old star told the magazine in September 2001, while promoting her film, The Four Feathers.
Rolling Stone, October 1996
Brooke Shield’s nudity has been the cause of some controversy throughout her career. The actress’ body was responsible for propelling Calvin Klein to superstardom. Shields drew fire because she was only 15 when she purred, “Nobody comes between me and my Calvins” in an underwear commercial for the company. The actress later graced this cover of Rolling Stone, stripping down once more before her wedding to tennis ace Andre Agassi.
Rolling Stone, September 1993
In May of 1993, Janet Jackson’s fifth album, janet, “announced her sexual maturity,” according to Rolling Stone’s reviewer, who added that CD’s release was “a cultural moment.” In the fall, Jackson announced her sexuality a bit more boldly: by appearing in unbuttoned jeans and topless on Rolling Stone’s cover, with her then-husband René Elizondo, Jr. simultaneously cupping and shielding her breasts.
Vanity Fair, August 1991
Demi Moore’s pregnant, naked Vanity Fair cover was so shocking in 1991 that some magazine retailers covered it up with a paper bag like they usually do with pornographic publications, such as Playboy and Hustler. Despite the censorship, photographer Annie Leibovitz’ image of Moore, who was pregnant with her second child, quickly made cover-shoot history, spawning a virtual industry of naked-with-child magazine photo shoots over the next two decades. “We all knew what we were doing up to a point, but none of us completely understood the ramifications,” Leibovitz later recalled to Vanity Fair.
Rolling Stone, January 1981
Photographer Annie Leibovitz is yet again responsible for this haunting Rolling Stone shoot of one of music’s most famous couples. Five hours after the infamous photo shoot, John Lennon was shot and killed by a fan in front of his Manhattan apartment. “What is interesting is [Yoko Ono] said she’d take her top off and I said, ‘Leave everything on'—not really preconceiving the picture at all,” the photographer recalled of the iconic image to The Times of London. “Then he curled up next to her and it was very, very strong. You couldn’t help but feel that she was cold and he looked like he was clinging on to her. I think it was amazing to look at the first Polaroid and they were both very excited. John said, ‘You've captured our relationship exactly. Promise me it’ll be on the cover.’ I looked him in the eye and we shook on it.”
