Playboy is pressing rewind—but with a Wi-Fi connection.
The once-mighty men’s magazine, now publishing a single annual print issue, is reviving its legendary Playmate of the Month contest with a modern twist. No glossy centerfolds in the mail this time. The new version—The Great Playmate Search—will roll out online, with public voting followed by a judging panel stacked with former Playboy icons.
Among them: Shanna Moakler, Summer Altice, Brandee Roderick, Daphnee Duplaix, and the current 2025 Playmate of the Year, Gillian Nation. If that sounds like a stacked deck, it is.
There’s also a TV series in the works, reportedly pitched as a behind-the-scenes look at the casting process—a kind of Playmate Academy, minus the pom-poms. One insider compared the tone to America’s Sweethearts: Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders, except instead of touchdown dances, expect slow-mo poolside struts and tense swimsuit deliberations.
For Playboy, this is more than just a contest—it’s brand CPR. Founded in 1953, the magazine once blended nude pictorials with heavyweight bylines—Ray Bradbury, Margaret Atwood, James Baldwin. But the empire took hits over the years: first from Maxim, then from Pornhub, and finally from a culture that didn’t need permission to bare it all.
The last real cultural blip was The Girls Next Door, the mid-2000s reality show that let viewers peek inside the mansion life of Hef and his girlfriends. Hefner died in 2017. The brand went public in 2021 under PLBY Group, Inc.
Now they’re trying to find relevance again, one digital bombshell at a time. The only question is whether today’s girl next door still wants the bunny ears.
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Last modified: August 5, 2025
