Suzanne Somers Said Doing Playboy Was on Her 77th Birthday ‘Bucket List’
Actor Suzanne Somers had big plans to celebrate turning 77 – one idea was to pose for Playboy once again. But the enduring actor died a day shy of her birthday after a decades-long battle with an aggressive form of breast cancer.
Despite facing illness for many years, Somers joyfully embraced her age and worked tirelessly to maintain her health. In April, she said she was ready for just about anything.
“I haven’t pursued it, but it’s on the bucket list,” she said on the Behind the Velvet Rope with David Yontef podcast. “How interesting that would be? I look good without my clothes on.”
When did Suzanne Somers pose in Playboy?
Somers posed for Playboy twice in the past, in 1980 and 1984. At the time, her pictorial was considered to be somewhat “scandalous” because Hollywood stars didn’t readily pose for the magazine. She shared why she posed the first time.
“I was a teenage mother and my son was run over by a car,” she told Adam Carolla. “He was given a 50/50 chance to live. The woman who hit him at no insurance. My child had no insurance from the father.” Somers recalled being “broke and harassed by bill collectors” so had to do something drastic with a good payout.
A photographer suggested Playboy during a model shoot. “If you get picked for Playmate of the Month you could get $15,000,” she recalled.
But once Somer’s landed Three’s Company, the Playboy photos came back to haunt her. “ABC and Three’s Company wanted to fire me for a morals clause,” she shared. “I didn’t even know I had one.
How did she recover from the original Playboy shoot?
But then her manager, Jay Bernstein told her to lean into the photos and gave her some “great advice.” He told her to meet with a reporter who listened to her story about why she posed. “And he wrote a heartfelt column of why don’t we take better of our girls,” she recalled.
“Then the country rallied around because they really like Chrissy Snow,” she said. “And they rallied around me.”
“Now … why is there a second one out,” she said. “In order to get those pictures back from Playboy, they made a deal with me. They would give $50,000 to a charity of my choosing. And we would take beautiful pictures.”
Suzanne Somers hoped to pose for Playboy for her 75th birthday
She told Access Hollywood “Maybe on my 75th birthday ” she would do Playboy. “That would be really cool,” she said mulling over the idea during the interview.
“I would like Annie Leibovitz to shoot me nude for Playboy for my 75th birthday,” she said.
The photoshoot never happened, and she also considered doing reality TV because people in their 70s and 80s aren’t truly represented in that space.
“I’m chronologically old but I’m not old and same thing with [husband] Alan,” she said on Behind the Velvet Rope. “He’s chronologically old but he’s got youthful energy And we’ll be dancing, and we’ll be living not a fake life on the reality show our real life but our real life seems to be interesting to people.”
