GUERRERO: Playboy is often associated with buxom blondes
like Marilyn Monroe, Pamela Anderson,
and Jenny McCarthy.
So, what happens when women break through
who are not the typical standard of beauty
the readership is used to?
He’s shooting me for days, so he thought he had the right
to try to assault me.
-Were you scared? -Yes, I was scared.
I was very scared.
And that is the moment that I felt like my life was over.
People would kill me if they could.
There are some people who would literally kill me.
♪
GUERRERO: A whole lot of controversy.
[motor revving]
My name is Hugh Hefner.
I’m editor-publisher of "Playboy" magazine.
REPORTER: Playboy is one
of the most famous brand names in the world.
It was simply to include sex as
one natural part of a package for a male audience.
KARI ANN: When I made the choice to do "Playboy,"
I didn’t realize all the choices that I was making
that came with that choice.
PITZULO: We don’t judge the men for buying the "Playboy"s,
but we judge the women for posing for "Playboy."
JILL: I was never Jill anymore.
I was Jill that posed for "Playboy."
WOMAN #3: I just gave in and knew that I was
probably gonna go to hell.
ZOE: It got to a certain point
where it wasn’t fun anymore.
SONDRA: This process was very painful,
but I should be able to tell my story as I lived it.
♪
GUERRERO: In 1965, "Playboy" featured
the very first Black Playmate, Jennifer Jackson.
The choice sparked mixed reaction from readers.
Some praised the decision, while others were angered by it
By the time Elan Carter posed for "Playboy" in 1994,
there had already been over 450 Playmates,
but she was only the 13th Black Playmate
in the magazine’s history.
Elan Carter was already in the public eye
when she was a dancer on "Soul Train"
at just 14 years old.
The stepdaughter of Temptations member Otis Williams,
Elan was used to the spotlight
and was modeling by the time she was 17.
So, it wasn’t a big surprise
when "Playboy" asked her to pose for the magazine.
Thank you. I’m so excited to talk to you.
Your mother was actually a Playboy Bunny, right?
Yes, she was a Playboy Bunny, and she worked
at a Playboy Club in upstate New Jersey.
So, when I was approached to do "Playboy" in the ’90s,
she was all for it, and she was dating
my stepfather at the time,
who’s one of the original Temptations. [laughs]
-Otis Williams. [laughs] -Yes.
So, um, my mother talked me into doing it
because I would go visit her at the Playboy office,
and they approached me several times,
and I was like, no, because I was modeling, I was overseas,
and my agencies at that time,
the models weren’t really doing "Playboy."
-It was like a no-no. -They tell you don’t.
Because it was looked down on,
like, you know, you’re posing nude.
It’s pornographic. "Playboy" to me is not pornographic.
But a lot of clients won’t take you serious as a model.
That’s the number one thing, right?
Especially being an ethnic model
’cause I was one of the few girls that worked a lot.
You know, you work a lot. You’re the Black girl that we have.
And it was like, "We’ll have to replace you."
So, because of that platform that you already had...
Mm-hmm.
...why did you decide to pose for "Playboy"?
’Cause my mother talked me into it. [laughs]
Because I was not gonna do it.
And she’s like, "Just try it, just test."
I didn’t think I would get it, right?
Because I knew several ethnic women who had auditioned
to get in "Playboy," and they didn’t get in.
-And why is that? -Because they weren’t
picking Black girls, and these were beautiful women.
So, I didn’t think anything of it.
I was like, okay, I’ll just do it.
There have been very few
African American Playmates of the Month.
And in fact, before you, it had been several years...
Mm-hmm.
...before they had had a Black Playmate.
So, what was posing for "Playboy" like?
It was quite interesting because
I did have an incident when I was doing my test shoot
with a photographer who tried to, uh, attack me.
A "Playboy" photographer?
Mm-hmm.
But he was, like, new, I guess, on the staff
or testing for them. -Wait a minute.
A photographer tried to sexually assault you?
Mm-hmm.
I was in a room with him by myself,
I think the makeup artist, everyone left,
and he just pulled his thing out
and was trying to chase me around.
So, he actually unzipped his pants?
Mm-hmm.
Did you think he was going to rape you?
Yes.
But I quickly was like,
"Oh, yeah, let’s go out on another time.
It’s not a good time." I don’t know what I said,
but I did not react in an angry way
because I knew I needed to get out
of that environment and get in my car to go home.
-Were you scared? -Yes, I was scared.
I was very scared.
First of all, I’m so sorry that happened to you.
I don’t think I told my parents.
I don’t even think I mentioned it to any--to them.
Is this gonna be the first time
your parents are gonna hear about this?
Yes. Yes. When you’re sexually assaulted,
I understand how women have a hard time
when you’re young, expressing it and talking about it
because it’s something that you think
you could have done something different,
or it’s some shame to it.
Do you think he had ever done this to other women?
I don’t know. I don’t know why he felt comfortable enough
to try to assault me.
Could it be ’cause as ethnic women we’re looked at,
upon as being overly sexual or sexualized?
Did you immediately call somebody from Playboy?
I do remember reporting it.
-Yeah, to Playboy? -Mm-hmm.
-But not to law enforcement? -No.
So, you reported it?
Yes, and they didn’t believe me at first.
Somebody from Playboy didn’t believe you?
I remember they questioned it, and I said,
"Listen, I’m telling you, this guy, like, had me in a room
and really tried to sexually assault me."
You report it to whom?
I don’t remember ’cause it was so long ago.
I know that he was really pissed off.
He called me and cussed me out, and it’s like,
"I got fired, and I’m not gonna work."
I’m like, you tried to attack me, literally.
Within one of your first encounters with Playboy,
somebody tries to sexually assault you.
That is going to color the way
the rest of your relationship is potentially with that brand.
My experience working
with the Playboy enterprise had obstacles.
It wasn’t Hef, ’cause I know,
you know, people have had their issues with him.
It was the enterprise of Playboy.
Explain that, because I think part of your journey goes back
to when you were actually shooting your pictorial.
What did you think about it?
I was extremely disappointed
because I got one of the best photographers, Steve Wayda,
who has been shooting for "Playboy" for a long time.
He does lovely stuff, and he was happy to shoot me.
Now in my test shoot, I had beautiful stuff, very sexy.
And then they decided, let’s have her eating pizza,
let’s have her jumping up and down.
It was just comical. It was almost character-ish.
But that’s what "Playboy,"
you know, they wanted to portray.
They want it to be the way they wanted it.
They had me on electrical cords on one of the shots.
-I don’t know if you saw that. -Yeah. I saw that one.
It was not typical "Playboy."
I didn’t think that it was soft-looking.
I didn’t think it was pretty.
Like, it almost looked like kind of S&M.
That’s not someone you look at
and you put on a pedestal and you admire.
You just have sex with that person.
Would they have done that to a white woman?
No.
-No? -Mnh-mnh.
Because some of the girls I see, they weren’t models.
They were just very plain, and they made ’em look like,
I mean, just outstanding, beautiful.
So, if you have to have that standard of beauty,
then how come you don’t show that standard of beauty
with an ethnic woman?
After you pose for "Playboy," especially if you are
a Playmate of the Month or a Playmate of the Year,
you’re asked to come back and kind of host events...
-Yes. -...or be seen.
What was your experience like
as opposed to the other women that you saw?
After you do your pictorial,
then they have almost like a Playboy agency.
So, the girls get work as a model,
but the opportunities weren’t the same.
There were certain jobs that didn’t happen.
We got accused of little things that happened on the set.
I remember one particular incident.
I got accused of taking something.
I really don’t need to steal shoes like that, you know?
You were accused of stealing shoes...
-Yes, on a set. -...at a photo shoot?
Yes. And they would go,
"Don’t hire Elan because Elan stole shoes,"
and when they finally told me, I go,
"What are you talking about?" ’Cause I didn’t even know.
There are some of the younger Playmates that are Black
that I’ve met recently.
And I’ve asked them, I said, "Well, how was your experience?
Because you guys were in the early 2000s. I was in the ’90s."
And they didn’t have anything great to say.
They just said, "You know, I was just there."
But they still didn’t get the opportunities
to take their career to the next level.
What was your experience like at the Mansion?
I had a good experience.
That’s because I wasn’t
the standard...type that Hef liked,
’cause he liked the, you know,
young, all-American blonde girls.
I mean, if you think about it,
a lot of the Playmates lived at the Playboy Mansion.
Can you name one Black Playmate who’s ever stayed there?
And I remember a friend of his that I became very close to
had made a comment like
he wasn’t interested in dating the Black Playmates.
I was like, well, I don’t care because I’m not
interested in dating him either. [laughing]
Did Black women fit Playboy’s standard of beauty?
No.
I think politically they tried to do the right thing,
but once you got in there, they just was like,
"Okay, we did what we were supposed to do."
I think they should have had more Hispanic girls,
more Asian girls.
I think they should have had more ethnic girls, period,
even on the cover.
I think they had, like, La Toya Jackson on the cover,
but she’s a Jackson, so a Black woman
had to be really famous to get on the cover of "Playboy."
Let me put it like this.
Most of the Black women that you see in "Playboy"
are usually a certain type--
someone who’s lighter-skinned, someone who has long hair,
someone with more European features.
You don’t see Afrocentric.
And because of that,
I think that it didn’t define us as Black women.
And I don’t think that Hef was against it.
I think it was the people that were running the company.
I think that there were so many chiefs
that were deciding what the standard of beauty
was for "Playboy."
Ellen Stohl was in a serious car accident
when she was just 18.
The crash left her paralyzed from the neck down.
With the help of therapy,
Ellen recovered the use of her upper body,
but she was now labeled as a person with a disability.
So for Ellen, showing off her body
was the ultimate way to reclaim her sexuality.
♪
Do you remember the first time you ever saw "Playboy" Magazine?
Uh, yes.
How old were you? What did you think?
Let me see. I was probably, uh,
in second, third grade,
and I just thought, you know, the women were beautiful.
You know, makeup is beautiful. Their bodies are beautiful.
And I really saw "Playboy"
as more artistic than sexualized.
Um, I’m sure, you know, at 8,
we don’t know much about sexuality,
but we do know about what looks beautiful,
and--and to me, it just was beautiful.
So...
fast forward to the time in 1985.
-What caused the accident? -It was a car accident.
Uh, first rain of the season, and I was taking,
uh, the 57 southbound to the 91 westbound,
and it’s a nice curve.
-Mm-hmm. -Um, at 18,
you don’t pay attention to the little yellow signs
that say 45 miles an hour. I was probably taking it 50, 60.
But when I came around the curve,
I hit the oil that had come up on the road on the first rain,
and my car hydroplaned.
♪
And then it slid off to the shoulder,
and it flipped on its side,
and it rolled three or four times,
and then it was airborne ’cause there’s a big gully there.
And when it was airborne,
I came out through where the windshield had been.
I landed on the left side of my head,
and I broke my neck in five places
and both my collarbones.
They thought that I was probably gonna be DOA.
They didn’t think I was gonna survive.
It was devastating. You don’t know the damage at the time.
You just know the pain and that something’s not right,
until I woke up in that emergency room.
♪
There’s a doctor running
what looks like a pizza cutter up my leg to say,
"Can you feel this? Can you feel this?"
And I’m like, "I don’t know what you’re talking about."
And the woman standing next to me--
I didn’t even recognize her-- is like,
"She doesn’t know. She doesn’t know."
And the doctor’s like, "You have to tell her, or I will."
[voice breaking] And that’s when my mom reached down...
touched my face, said, "You’re paralyzed.
Honey, you’ve broken your neck."
♪
And that is the moment
that I felt like my life was over...
...and that I would never have the things that I wanted.
So, it was--it was devastating in that moment,
because of that bias about what life could be.
This idea of who I could be and what I was
came into my head, and I thought,
"I’m never gonna get married. I’m never gonna have kids.
I’m never gonna have sex."
And it was devastating. I mean, I wanted to die.
♪
I refused a blood transfusion, and my mom said,
"You’re gonna die," and I said, "I want to."
And my mom was like, "Please, you can’t."
And I actually hated my mom for the next six months.
Every time it was hard to move, to function, I blamed her.
Like, I had wanted to die,
and she was like, "Not gonna happen. Not on my watch."
And so I was angry at her.
And yet she said, "This isn’t the end."
No. She said, "You will go on, and you will do it well."
-And you have. -Yeah. [laughs]
-And you have. [laughs] -Yep. It’s been amazing.
Ellen, in 1985, you wrote to Hugh Hefner
that you wanted to be in "Playboy."
Why? What was the goal?
I came back out into the world,
and what I realized is the world never saw me as a woman anymore.
They saw me as a disabled person.
And so I thought, wow, you know,
what would be the best way to-- to sort of
meet those social, stereotypical ideas of what a woman is
without being a triumph over tragedy story?
I did not want to be,
"Oh, look, yay for her."
I thought, well, "Playboy." "Playboy" seemed like
the best venue to sort of break that barrier,
and at the same moment of breaking that barrier,
this idea of the perfect woman, that "Playboy" can be charged
with creating this unrealistic idea of perfection.
Well, I fit the criteria of the "Playboy" model--
blonde, blue-eyed, big boobs,
but I happen to be in a wheelchair.
So, I wrote Hef a letter.
"Dear Mr. Hefner, my name is Ellen Stohl.
I’m a model-actress who, three years ago,
was injured in an auto accident.
The reason I chose "Playboy" for this endeavor
is that sexuality is the hardest thing
for disabled persons to hold onto.
This is not to say they’re not capable,
but rather that society’s emphasis on perfection
puts a definite damper on self-esteem.
Well, I believe it’s time to show society the real story.
Anyone can be sexy.
It’s a matter of how a person feels about himself or herself,
and personally, I feel great."
[laughter]
When you actually posed for the magazine,
were you terrified?
That’s very funny. When they called me and asked me
to come in for test shots, I’m like, "What do I wear?"
[laughter]
They’re like, "Nothing."
And I will say my photographer, my makeup artist,
everybody I worked with was so amazing, and, you know,
I have a huge scar across my butt from the injury.
And they helped me be comfortable with my body,
positioning my body, and that came through.
So, there was a year’s worth of discussion within Playboy...
-Yes. -...about whether or not
they should publish the pictures you already shot.
-Yes. -Because they don’t wanna seem
as if they’re taking advantage of you for publicity.
Did you hear about this?
And how--how did they tell you about that?
Oh, they told me. [laughs]
Because I posed and did all my shots in ’86.
We didn’t publish till ’87.
-It took a year. -What were they worried about?
They were worried about exploitation.
They didn’t go to you. You went to them.
Yes, but they think society will look at it as exploitation.
"We’re exploiting this."
♪
Publishers were absolutely against it.
They did not want it to be seen as exploitation.
And Hef just said, "No, this is important.
She came to us, and I believe in her story,"
and I think he felt so strongly about it,
he went against the publishers.
He said, "This is important. We’re doing it."
But it did take a year of controversy for them
to feel comfortable enough to publish.
Playboy was focusing on me as a woman.
They were not exploiting me. They were including me.
So, you waited a year. That issue hits the stands.
You don’t know what pictures they’re gonna choose.
You don’t know how you’re gonna look,
and you don’t know how people are gonna react.
Were you scared?
I was...
I was scared to death.
This was the "Playboy" Magazine that came out. It was amazing.
I was on page 69, which I always find ironic.
Um, my butt was my least favorite
because I have a huge scar that’s like a half moon shape
across one half of one butt cheek
and the whole other butt cheek.
So this picture sort of ups my hip and rounds my butt,
and I love it. I love this photo.
It’s one of my favorites.
So, the issue finally comes out,
and what did you see
was the immediate reaction to those photos?
It was chaos. Into the--out of the fire, into the frying pan.
People are camping out at my door
to get pictures of me. [laughs]
I had to share my body in front of people,
and I wasn’t even confident in my body.
Ellen Stohl, who’s the first person with a disability
to pose in "Playboy,"
Talk about breaking the barriers of what is sexy.
We are not seen as men and women.
We are seen as disabled people,
and that’s a very small definition
of who a human being is.
Ellen Stohl is in this, the July issue of "Playboy."
You want to see some of the pictures?
-Yeah, sure. Yeah. -[laughter]
-What has the reaction been? -Groups all over,
a lot of disabled groups have said
"You’ve finally broken a barrier,
that people need to see us as people, not as a disability."
REPORTER: Her actions have forced many to view handicapped
in a whole different light
and make society sit up and take notice.
GUERRERO: Everybody that is a boundary breaker
faces some kind of backlash.
Did you feel like because you broke this boundary,
you were the focus of criticism from some corners?
Oh, absolutely. I mean, there are some people that were like,
"Well, she’s just Barbie doll in a wheelchair,
so it doesn’t really--it’s not really breaking the barriers
because she looks like a Playmate."
I’m like, well, okay. Wouldn’t it be wrong for "Playboy"
to put somebody with an impairment
in their magazine that didn’t look like
the standard "Playboy" model?
You know, I met the standards,
and I happened to have an impairment.
So, there was a faction of people with impairments
that felt like it wasn’t enough to change attitudes,
but, you know, it takes one step at a time.
You can’t just bowl over and--
and, you know, shift the narrative.
Playboy was great about not letting the negative reach me.
I know that there were people that wrote nasty letters
to "Playboy," but they never made it my way.
-They shielded you. -They shielded me.
They wanted to support my voice and my mission.
So, I-I feel like it had
the impact that I wanted it to have.
There was a little bit of controversy
about that photo shoot because the chair
wasn’t really in the pictures.
I think at one point,
you could kind of see the chair in a corner,
but the wheelchair wasn’t a part of that pictorial.
It was part of my candids.
They had shots of me in my chair,
in my life, in my candids.
And for me, the whole reason I was doing the shoot
was to focus on the fact that I was a woman first and foremost,
who used a wheelchair, so, consciously on my part,
yes, it was distancing from the chair in the nudes,
in the sexuality part, but it was very clear
in the candid shots in the pictorial,
that I was a wheelchair user.
In my PR, I’m-- I’m in a wheelchair.
I don’t sit, you know, in a different chair
to hide the fact that I’m in a wheelchair.
I am in a wheelchair, but I’m also a woman,
and that was the focus of the article.
Did you feel then that you were breaking
that standard of beauty by posing?
Absolutely. I met the standard of beauty on one criteria,
but another criteria, I was not even in the ballpark,
and yet I brought it into the ballpark,
and I shattered the idea
that there is a perfect ideal of beauty.
People don’t have to be perfect to be beautiful and sexy.
♪
Sometimes people have preconceived notions about you
based on being in a wheelchair.
One of them is that people in wheelchairs don’t have sex.
You were a virgin when you had your accident at 18.
Had you been able to have sex after your accident?
Yes. [laughs] I have a daughter, so...
-[laughter] -Sex, and I had a pregnancy,
which I didn’t think I could have, um, and, yes,
I had natural birth, so, uh, all of that,
people just assume that you can’t have--
I mean, I would go to bars, and before people
would buy me a drink, they’d be like,
"Can you have sex?" I’m like, okay. [laughs]
-Wait. A man would ask you that? -Yes. Oh, yes.
When you have an impairment, and it’s visible,
people think that they can ask you anything.
I’ve been asked if I can have sex
in a grocery store buying peas by other women.
Like, "But can you have sex?"
"Uh, yes, yes, I can. Thank you very much,
but I’m just trying to buy groceries here."
Do we have to communicate more to have sex?
Because my body works differently
than what you see in the media?
Because sex is not rose petals and orchestra music
and what we portray in the media being,
"Whoa, so beautiful!"
And if it’s good sex, it’s messy and dirty,
and you have to communicate.
You have to actually deal with the differences
and then find out how you can come together
to, you know, to give pleasure to each partner.
When you’re in a wheelchair, people think you have no agency,
that you certainly can’t be a parent or a professional,
that you are weak, you need to be taken care of.
There is the assumption that somehow,
because my legs don’t work, my brain don’t work,
even that my hearing doesn’t work.
People will talk to me louder.
They will talk to me slower. They will pat me on the head.
They will ask my partner what I want to eat.
They will refer to people with me instead of talking to me.
I am a person first and foremost.
I have sexual desire. I have values.
I have interests. I have dreams. I have goals.
Just because I’m in a wheelchair doesn’t mean
I can’t be a person with a full life.
It doesn’t mean I can’t pose for "Playboy."
♪
Inès Rau is not the typical Playmate
"Playboy" readers are used to.
At just 14 years old, Inès began her journey,
transitioning from male to female,
and completed gender reassignment surgery at 17.
In 2017, when Inès was 26 years old,
she was handpicked by Hugh Hefner to grace the pages
as the magazine’s first transgender Playmate.
It was a groundbreaking decisio
that caused controversy for both "Playboy" and Inès.
-So good to meet you. -So excited.
Really so excited to meet you. Thank you for having me.
-You’re gorgeous. -Thank you.
-Thank you for being here. -Merci beaucoup.
Oh, my goodness. All right. Wow.
I have so many questions to ask you,
but I’m gonna jump in by asking you
when was the very first time
you remember ever seeing a "Playboy" Magazine?
I think the first time I’ve seen "Playboy" covers
were when I was, like, about 15, 14 years old,
and I was really amazed
by how beautiful "womens" were looking on the covers.
And when I saw these "womens," I was, like,
super happy and inspired and mesmerized.
But in the same time, I felt stuck to my male form.
I knew my soul was the soul of a woman,
and I didn’t know it was possible to be a trans person
and to change your gender.
So, you started hormone therapy at 14.
-Mm-hmm. -By 17 and a half,
you actually had reassignment surgery.
-Exactly. Yeah. -What was that like for you?
I would love to even do it again,
how the transformative journey was so powerful,
to transform like a butterfly...
♪
...and just, like, to witness the--
how the body can heal and readapt,
like, how my brain readapted to the new shape of my sex.
It’s like I was born like this.
It’s--It’s crazy. It’s fascinating.
Was it painful?
Yes, but a very short time, like, few days, yeah.
And this is something that you had wanted to do for many years?
Yeah. So when you’re young, you’re 17, you’re so strong
and so determined, and you don’t care of the pain, you know?
What was the reaction like
the first time you identified as transgender in public?
It was--Well, first of all, back in the days,
I was not telling anyone.
♪
I was petrified by people being mean to me or because--
-Transphobic or even violent. -Transphobic and everything.
Exactly. So, I was like, you know what?
I wanna protect myself. I’m not gonna tell anyone.
You are really risking your own physical safety...
-Yeah. -...to come out as transgender.
Exactly.
♪
So, this is actually, I think, one of my favorite pictures.
When I see this picture, you know what I see?
It’s not even about the beauty or whatever. I see respect.
I see how "Playboy" respected me,
how they wanted the pictures to be so chic,
so fashion, so Parisian, French, sophisticated, elegant.
I never saw pictures like--
a picture like this in "Playboy."
♪
Back in the days, I was scared of saying
that I was a trans woman,
but I realized that this is who you are
and there is nothing to be ashamed of,
and it’s so sexy, actually,
Now--now I think it’s very sexy and powerful,
but back in the days,
I was scared of being rejected, you know.
And then I hear trans stories and everything,
and I was like, well, actually, this is a bit sad for me to be
that beautiful and feminine and powerful and happy
and not be able to share that story
and to hide it for the rest of my life.
And one day, a little tipsy, I had to say
that I was trans to someone gay, like--
-Oh, I’m sure -The sisterhood thing.
Like, "Well, by the way, I’m trans,
but don’t tell anyone," and that person--
[scoffs] Of course everybody’s gonna tell everyone.
-Everybody in New York knew it. -Of course.
And then Bruce Weber and Barneys
heard of my story, and they’re like,
"We know about your story. I think you should come out,
and we would like you to do a Barneys campaign with us
shot by Bruce Weber."
GUERRERO: Did you want to be a model right away?
I didn’t "wanted" to be a model at all.
I didn’t think that I could be a model.
It all happened so... "surprise-ly," you know?
What was the feedback?
The feedback was really amazing because then Playboy in 2014
heard about that story on models.com
and the Barneys campaign with Bruce Weber,
and they’re like, "Actually,
we’re doing an ’A’ to ’Z’ special edition."
-You heard about it? -Yes.
"And we would like to photograph you, uh,
as our very first trans in the magazine."
But it was just two page with an interview.
GUERRERO: You were "E"--"Evolution."
INÈS: Exactly, "Evolution."
But I-I would never think that one day
Playboy will contact me again to be a Playmate.
So, in 2017, when Hugh Hefner
and Cooper Hefner talked about it,
and they remember I did that 2014 spread,
and they was like, "Maybe we should have
a trans woman in ’Playboy.’"
♪
One thing that really surprises me,
and I really loved about Playboy and that I realized
that they really wanted to break boundaries,
and they want to be part of a society
that evolves mentally
and to raise the state of consciousness
because they were really more excited of the outcome
and, um, groundbreaking situation
about being a trans woman in "Playboy"
than the picture of being sexy or whatever.
They were really genuinely involved
in the empowerment of that decision.
All of it was a positive experience.
-Extremely positive, yeah. -Until what happened?
When the pictures got out on Playboy’s Instagram,
which was a month or two months after Hugh Hefner died,
people, they were not taking it.
They were like, "This is disgusting.
She is horrible. That’s a man.
This is the devil," and everything.
And I was not ready for this. I was shocked.
What hurts me the most when I received
transphobic comments is that a lot of people think
that I’m something that is gonna make their kids
perverts or whatever, what I represent,
when I love kids so much and I...
there is nothing--because, you know, I’m not a mother,
I would love to be a mother.
I cannot carry kids, but I will adopt.
But I have a big maternal instinct.
I love kids so much. I want to protect them.
So, you know what? They will never make me feel...
bad about what I am,
’cause I think what I am is beautiful,
is powerful,
it’s sexy, it’s strong.
And it hurts me to know
that so much people hate us.
[horn blaring, crowd cheering]
It shows that it’s very dangerous
to be a trans person in America. -It is.
-That’s the thing. -In certain states, it...
-In certain states. -It really is.
So, this is not a joke. This is crazy.
GUERRERO: Have you ever felt threatened?
I received a lot of threats for the--when "Playboys" got out.
-You received physical threats? -Death threats. Oh, yes.
-Death threats? -Oh, yes, a lot.
♪
A trans journey-- it’s a very lonely journey.
♪
And I feel like transphobia is rising up.
I don’t want to think about that, but I do think
that at some point there’s gonna be, like, these extremists.
[indistinct shouting]
These transphobic people.
Who would one day think that trans people
is one of the most evil thing that’s happening in this planet
and would be a good thing to kill them?
I wouldn’t be surprised. People would kill me if they could.
There are some people who would literally kill me.
♪
Ellen, Elan and Inès, you are all beautiful women,
but you are not the prototypical type of woman
that "Playboy" is famous
or infamous for showing on its pages.
"Playboy" isn’t just a message to men about idealized beauty.
-It’s a message to young girls. -ELAN: Mm-hmm.
The first time I saw "Playboy," I was little.
My dad was at a barbershop.
It’s the first time I ever saw a naked lady,
and I thought, wow, this is what
ladies are supposed to look like.
And it was a white, blonde woman.
And what has this said over time to women of our generation,
but also to young women today?
It absolutely distorts their ideas of what is beauty,
what is acceptable, what is desirable,
and it results in depression and anxiety.
And that’s why it is so important
that diversity is-- is in the industry.
♪
INÈS: Playboy, for a long time, kind of, like,
decided and shaped what was sexy or not.
So, to have a disabled person in "Playboy,"
to have a trans woman in "Playboy,"
to have a woman in color in "Playboy"
really helped to open people to different kinds of beauty,
which is diversity.
However, nowadays, in 2023, we don’t give a [bleep]
of what "Playboy" would decide of who’s sexy or who’s not.
I think the era of "Playboy" is a bit over.
As iconic as it is,
I think it’s a bit part of the past, you know?
First of all, the growth of our culture,
that we are feeling like there’s different
standards of beauty,
we’re seeing now curvier women being celebrated,
curvier women walking down the runways
and being featured in magazines as well.
We saw a Down Syndrome model
for the first time walk in Victoria’s Secret recently.
So, there are different standards of beauty now,
and--and part of it is because of what you’ve done.
And you’ve got to take a little credit for that...
-Yeah. -...I would think,
or a lot of credit for it. -Mm-hmm.
You know, it’s always been Hef’s magazine.
It’s always been Hef’s idealized version of women.
And what all three of you have done is push back against that,
saying, "I’m allowed to be sexy, too."
-Yes. -That’s not his ideal, you know?
Well, and he, like, idolized Marilyn Monroe.
He loved who she was, her image.
So, I think that that’s what he had in his mind.
So, he wanted all the girls to represent
and be like a Marilyn Monroe type.
Yeah, but that--
he’s very much a creature of his generation.
-Mm-hmm. -Right?
’Cause he is a white male from a certain generation...
-Yes. -...that saw that
as the ideal beauty, Marilyn Monroe.
And I think he was probably pulled along as time went on
through the civil rights era,
through, you know, women’s liberation.
-And, you know, certainly... -The ’70s, the ’60s.
...you were the last person that he approved to be...
Yeah, I’m the last real Playmate.
-...a Playmate. -Yes.
-Yeah. -Started with Marilyn...
-Wow. -...and you were the last one.
Oh, my God, stop. I’m gonna cry. That’s amazing.
I didn’t-- never thought about that.
I mean, that’s quite an evolution.
-Yes. -Yeah.
He did have his image and his ideas,
but he was at least open to expanding...
-Yes. -...to including, and he--
-Oh, yes, completely. -He, you know,
we pushed back, but he let us in.
-Yes. -Right? If he hadn’t let us in,
if he hadn’t approved-- I mean, he had to fight for me
to be in the magazine. The publishers were like,
"Do not put her in the magazine."
And he put his foot down and said no.
He may have evolved a little bit, but ultimately,
when you think of "Playboy," you think of Pamela Anderson...
-Yes. -...Jenny McCarthy, the blondes.
-Yes. -You were not that.
Right.
You were "allowed" to be a Playmate.
However, there were very few
African American Playmates, period.
There were very few Latina Playmates...
-Mm-hmm. -...period.
-Mm. -There were very few
Asian Playmates period.
Our country was changing,
but that was not reflected in "Playboy."
-Yeah, mm-hmm. -It certainly was not.
-Yeah. -Yes.
You know, there was a little bit of it.
-It took time. -It was a sprinkle.
Can you talk about, though, how that must have felt for you?
Because you were a Playmate. You were very visible.
You were at the Mansion, and yet, you know,
there were just a handful of Black Playmates.
Did you feel like you were a token in that way?
I don’t feel like that I was a token.
I just felt like they tried to portray
what they thought was standard beauty,
not capture what was beauty for me.
So they said, "Oh, okay, well, she’s ethnic,
and we want that ethnic audience,
so we want to portray her this way
because this is what Black girls are supposed to look like.
This is what they want to look like."
They already were setting the sub--subliminal messages
of what--"This is what you should look like,"
not the soft, beautiful, desirable woman, right?
This is one of my "Playboy" pictures,
which I think I look pretty in the picture,
but it’s very erotic. [laughs]
It looks like I’m doing something else.
You know what that looks like?
Of course we know what that looks like.
That just goes back to the tone of my pictures.
If it was me today, I would have been like, "I’m not doing that."
♪
Okay. So there is this notion that "Playboy" uses women
to make money for the organization,
to make money for Hugh Hefner or the Hefner family,
to create this image that this is the ideal woman.
I would say that the women on this stage
were able to use "Playboy"... -Used "Playboy," yeah.
...for another purpose.
It was a symbiotic relationship. We both got something out of it.
I...for me, I definitely used them as a vehicle
to tell my story through print, and it was in many countries
I was able to give a voice like, you can still be beautiful,
you can still be sexy,
you can still have power and passion and live fully
regardless of the package that you come in.
You know, I’ll say this from my personal experience.
I was 40 when I posed for the cover.
I had been a sportscaster for a long time.
People were very upset that I posed for "Playboy"
at 40, as a Latina,
as a former sportscaster on "Monday Night Football."
That was really shocking at the time.
I was very strategic, though.
I posed for "Playboy" because I knew that it would
provide a platform for me to get the next job
and for me to make a statement about my age and being Latina.
♪
I know a lot of people say, "I have no regrets.
I’m glad I posed in ’Playboy.’"
Do you ever think about that?
-Do you ever have regrets... -I...
...about aligning yourself with "Playboy"?
I do, because my career was taking off,
and I think that it would have gone further in the direction
I wanted to go if I hadn’t done it at that time,
because I was booked, like,
a year in advance from my modeling agency.
But my work faltered because my agent found out
I did "Playboy," and I got blackballed.
So I should have waited to do it later.
And that’s the thing I think people don’t realize.
Once you’ve posed for "Playboy,"
you are forever connected to that brand, to that magazine,
and to whatever those readers think of when they see you
or think of you. -Mm-hmm. True.
So, Ellen, how do you feel about that?
I do not regret having to pose for "Playboy."
Um, I think when I am viewed as the first woman
with a disability to pose for "Playboy,"
it’s still mind-shattering.
They look at me as having used the magazine
to advance and advocate for individuals with disabilities.
So I’m always gonna be seen as a trailblazer.
I do not regret posing for "Playboy."
I regret that I had to pose for "Playboy" to be seen as a woman.
-To deliver your message. -Right?
Because such a significant part of our population
is left out of the mainstream, the sense of belonging
because of such narrow views of what beauty
and what is acceptable in-- in society.
And I can’t even imagine the transphobia and the--
the hate that you’ve got. -Goes beyond.
I can’t even imagine.
But still, I don’t regret it because
it was so groundbreaking.
People don’t really see me as, like, the sexy girl
posing for "Playboy," but, like, trailblazing, opening doors.
It is more attached to what I’ve done with "Playboy."
We all posed for "Playboy."
You know, we have a similar experience,
but we’re all so different in the way that we approached it.
But one thing that is certainly in common
with all three of you is that you have broken
so many boundaries for other people to come later.
And also, you’ve changed the way
that readers of "Playboy" have viewed women
in a sexy way, in a beautiful, feminine way.
Obviously, "Playboy" isn’t around the same way,
but it would have been interesting to know what
the future would have been for "Playboy"...
-Yes. -Mm.
...given the way that our society is going.
And I think, you know,
two steps forward, one step back.
I mean, we’re obviously making ground in some places
and losing ground in other places,
but just the fact that we can have this discussion
is a major step forward. -INÈS: It’s major. Yeah.
♪
"Playboy" changed the way we view sexuality,
and it did give a voice to the girl next door
to be able to be sexual without being chained.
And it did open the doors for a lot of diversity.
Yes, we were sprinkled throughout the blonde-haired,
blue-eyed majority,
but those sprinkles had a ripple effect
that is impacting the way people see beauty.
♪
Posing for "Playboy" allowed me to use it
as a platform to springboard and make a difference
in terms of equity and inclusion,
especially for individuals with disabilities,
but for all people of different shapes, colors,
gender identities, et cetera.
When one person from a marginalized group
can make headway, it can open the floodgates
for all individuals in marginalized groups.
And that’s why we have to work together
to create change for everybody.