Keith Urban Recalls Posing Nearly Nude for ‘Playgirl’

Keith Urban has done a lot of press in his day, but only one spread had him nearly naked. During a recent episode of Rob Lowe’s Literally! With Rob Lowe podcast, Urban opened up about the early days of his career and recalled the time he ended up posing almost fully nude for Playgirl. 

“It was a guy at my record company who was like, ‘Hey, you know, we can do this article in Playgirl, and they’ll do a big, long, nice piece on the record,’ and I was like, ‘Great,’ and then [he said], ‘We’ll go do a photoshoot too,’” Urban explained. “I was like, ‘Oh, OK.’ Luckily, I play guitar and not harmonica.” Urban then joked that he was “apparently willing to do anything to get going” when he was an up-and-coming artist.

Urban went on to claim that he “didn’t know there was a such a thing” as Playgirl magazine, to which Lowe replied, “Hang on now, Mr. Urban. I know you’re from Australia and things are different there.” Urban clarified that he obviously was aware of Playboy, but did not know about the spinoff periodical. “Equal titillation,” Lowe joked.

It was back in 2002 that Urban donned only a thong for a photoshoot with Playgirl, using his guitar discreetly positioned to hide anything sensitive. Notably, Us Weekly pointed out that during an appearance on The Tonight Show in 2013, then-host Jay Leno pulled out the photos, prompting an embarrassed Urban to joke, “That falls into the ‘What the Hell was I thinking’ category.”