Charli XCX has officially become a Playboy Bunny.
The singer covers the Fall 2026 issue of Playboy, photographed by Aidan Zamiri in London, with Kylie Jenner taking the interviewer’s chair. The shoot moves between black lingerie, the Thames and some very Charli-looking attitude. The issue also comes with a little extra: the first print run includes a limited flexi-disc of “Playboy Bunny,” the B-side connected to her latest album, Music, Fashion, Film.
Charli has wanted to do Playboy for a while, partly because of its visual history and its celebration of female bodies and sexuality. But when she talks about the shoot, she isn’t keen on looking perfect.
“To me, a sexy photo is something that captures someone’s true essence,” she says, describing sexy images as raw, messy and sometimes vulnerable. “I think a sexy photo shows the truth.”
That feels pretty far from the idea of the perfectly constructed Playboy fantasy.
So let’s go back.
SO WHAT DID PLAYBOY USED TO MEAN?
Playboy launched in December 1953 with Marilyn Monroe on the cover. There is a small but important detail: Monroe didn’t actually pose for Playboy. Hugh Hefner bought previously published photographs from a 1949 calendar shoot and used them for the magazine’s first issue.
From there, Playboy became much bigger than a magazine. It became a visual language of its own, mixing sex, celebrity, glamour, fashion and the particular kind of fantasy that came with the Playboy Bunny.
And the women appearing in it changed too.
Dolly Parton. Bo Derek. Kim Basinger. Cindy Crawford. Pamela Anderson. Anna Nicole Smith. Carmen Electra. Naomi Campbell. Kate Moss.
The magazine eventually became a strange meeting point between Hollywood, pop culture and fashion. Supermodels appeared alongside actresses and musicians, while some women became so closely associated with Playboy that the magazine became part of their public identity. Pamela Anderson, for example, appeared on the cover 13 times between 1989 and 2011, more than any other celebrity at the time.
And then came the celebrity era in full force.
Playboy was no longer only creating stars. It was also borrowing their existing fame.
THEN CHARLI HAPPENED
Charli herself has named Pamela Anderson, Anna Nicole Smith, Carmen Electra and Dolly Parton among her favourite Playboy covers.
Playboy has always been about more than simply taking your clothes off. At different points, it has been about fame, fantasy, glamour, sex appeal and the power of being looked at.
Charli is playing with the same ingredients, but the language around them has changed.
Her idea of a sexy photograph isn’t necessarily the most polished one. It can be messy, vulnerable and – it can show the person rather than just the fantasy.
And that matters when you consider how much of celebrity culture now happens through cameras that aren’t controlled by magazines at all.
SO WHAT DOES PLAYBOY MEAN NOW?
The magazine itself doesn’t exist in quite the same world anymore.
After ending its regular print run in 2020, Playboy returned to newsstands in 2025 as a quarterly publication. Its recent covers have included Karol G and Cara Delevingne, before Charli took over the Fall 2026 issue.
The result is less about recreating the Playboy of the past and more about figuring out what the Playboy name can actually mean now.
And Charli is a pretty good person to test that question on.
She has spent the last few years turning herself into something that sits somewhere between pop star, fashion personality, filmmaker and internet character. Now she’s literally stepping into one of the most recognisable visual identities in celebrity culture.
Even the song title feels like a joke that somehow became reality.
“Playboy Bunny” is on the record.
Charli is on Playboy.
Kylie Jenner is interviewing her.
Playboy spent decades telling us what a Playboy Bunny looked like.
Now Charli XCX gets to decide.