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Our famed Playboy Interviews have featured artists, actors, politicians, and all manner of beloved figures, offering a window into their lives and their psyches. But the point of the Playboy Interview isn’t to simply give well-liked people a platform for a well-liked discussion. Instead, it exists to probe prominent figures in a way that gives readers a more full picture of their lives. At times, people don’t like what they see.
Here, we’ve compiled a few of our most controversial Playboy Interviews, ones that broke news, changed careers, rocked readers, and some that were just plain surprising.
Jimmy Carter
In October 1976, just one month before the presidential election, Playboy‘s interview with then-Democratic nominee Jimmy Carter hit the newsstand—and nearly cost him the presidency. Discussing a Bible quote that names lustful thoughts equivalent to adultery, Carter said, by that logic, he had committed adultery in his heart. The statement caused a firestorm, though not enough to sway away his win.
Here’s what the former Georgia governor said:
“I try not to commit a deliberate sin. I recognize that I’m going to do it anyhow, because I’m human and I’m tempted. And Christ set some almost impossible standards for us. Christ said, ‘I tell you that anyone who looks on a woman with lust has in his heart already committed adultery.’
“I’ve looked on a lot of women with lust. I’ve committed adultery in my heart many times. This is something that God recognizes I will do and I have done it—and God forgives me for it. But that doesn’t mean that I condemn someone who not only looks on a woman with lust but who leaves his wife and shacks up with somebody out of wedlock.
“Christ says, ‘Don’t consider yourself better than someone else because one guy screws a whole bunch of women while the other guy is loyal to his wife.’ The guy who’s loyal to his wife ought not to be condescending or proud because of the relative degree of sinfulness. One thing that Paul Tillich said was that religion is a search for the truth about man’s existence and his relationship with God and his fellow man; and that once you stop searching and think you’ve got it made—at that point, you lose your religion. Constant reassessment, searching in one’s heart-it gives me a feeling of confidence.
“I don’t inject these beliefs in my answers to your secular questions. But I don’t think I would ever take on the same frame of mind that Nixon or Johnson did—lying, cheating and distorting the truth. Not taking into consideration my hope for my strength of character, I think that my religious beliefs alone would prevent that from happening to me. I have that confidence. I hope it’s justified.”
George Lincoln Rockwell
If Carter’s interview caused an uproar, the reaction to George Lincoln Rockwell’s interview was pure outrage. The founder of the American Nazi Party and originator of the term “white power,” Lincoln Rockwell has been referred to as the “father of American Nazis.” Playboy’s Alex Haley sat down with Lincoln Rockwell in April 1966 in an effort to expose his “rampant racism and the pathology of fascism.” The interview was revealing, but many readers were incensed at Playboy for giving Lincoln Rockwell’s hateful views any space in the magazine. One reader wrote to the magazine: “In response to your recent interview with George Lincoln Rockwell, I have one basic question: Why would Playboy lower itself to print such outright trash?” Another reader’s note was more explicit: “Your interview with George Lincoln Rockwell made me want to vomit.”
Here’s just a sample of Haley’s exchange with Lincoln Rockwell, which came right at the start of the interview. Lincoln Rockwell did not seem to realize that Playboy would send a Black man to interview him.
Rockwell: Just so we both know where we stand, I’d like to make something else crystal clear before we begin. I’m going to be honest and direct with you. You’re here in your professional capacity; I’m here in my professional capacity. While here, you’ll be treated well—but I see you’re a black interviewer. It’s nothing personal, but I want you to understand that I don’t mix with your kind, and we call your race “n*ggers.”
Playboy: I’ve been called “n*gger” many times, Commander, but this is the first time I’m being paid for it. So you go right ahead. What have you got against us “n*ggers”?
Rockwell: I’ve got nothing against you. I just think you people would be happier back in Africa where you came from. When the pilgrims got pushed around in Europe, they didn’t have any sit-ins or crawl-ins; they got out and went to a wilderness and built a great civilization.
Playboy: It was built with the help of Negroes.
John Mayer
The controversy around John Mayer’s 2010 Playboy Interview might seem insignificant after the last two, but the prolific musician’s wild comments caused quite a stir. Not only did Mayer drop the n-word, he compared his penis to, well, someone like Lincoln Rockwell.
“Someone asked me the other day, ‘What does it feel like now to have a hood pass?’ And by the way, it’s sort of a contradiction in terms, because if you really had a hood pass, you could call it a n*gger pass. Why are you pulling a punch and calling it a hood pass if you really have a hood pass?”
Asked if said “pass” made him popular with Black women, Mayer continued to put his foot in his mouth: “I don’t think I open myself to it. My dick is sort of like a white supremacist. I’ve got a Benetton heart and a fuckin’ David Duke cock. I’m going to start dating separately from my dick.”
He unfortunately did not stop there. He called Jessica Simpson “sexual napalm,” talked about Kerry Washington bragging about oral sex, and went on and on (and on) about his love of masturbation. Yikes.
John Wayne
The Duke’s 1963 Playboy Interview put his off-screen views on full display. The notoriously right-wing Wayne discussed many of his conservative views in the interview, but the controversy came when Wayne expressed his ideas about race, sexuality, and the legacy of the American West. On whether he felt sympathy for Native Americans, who played a big role in his films, Wayne said, “I don’t feel we did wrong in taking this great country away from them, if that’s what you’re asking.” He called “Easy Rider, Midnight Cowboy” a perverted film “about two f*gs.” But the biggest controversy occurred over Wayne openly and proudly declaring himself a racist.
“I believe in white supremacy until the blacks are educated to a point of responsibility,” Wayne said. “I don’t believe in giving authority and positions of leadership and judgment to irresponsible people.”
There was plenty of outrage over Wayne’s comments when the interview was published, but there was a new round of anger in 2019, when his comments from the Playboy Interview spread online.
Anita Bryant
Anti-gay activist Anita Bryant, whose homophobic ideas destroyed a once-successful singing career, sat down with Playboy in May 1978 to discuss her crusade against homosexuality. Sparked by a Florida ordinance that banned discrimination against gay people, Bryant became an unlikely political figure—and a wholly disqualified one. In her Playboy Interview, Bryant is bumbling and unsure, struggling to keep up with interviewer Ken Kelley, who proves her wrong on numerous points. Still, she was impactful. She founded Save Our Children, an anti-gay organization that laid the groundwork for the continued strategy by the religious right to wrongfully pose LGBTQ people as a threat to children.
In her interview, Bryant drew ties between homosexuality and bestiality, equated gay people with murderers, and called homophobia an act of love. Playboy’s readers weren’t on her side. According to the August 1978 “Dear Playboy” section of the magazine, more than half of the letters Playboy received about its May issue were about Bryant. “Not only is she ignorant, she’s a fool to allow others to view the extent of that ignorance,” one reader wrote. Another reader was more succinct: “To be in heaven with Anita Bryant would surely be hell.”
