Dannii Minogue defends nude Playboy photos: ‘You can say whatever you want about them’

Dannii Minogue has defended her decision to appear nude on the cover of Playboy magazine in 1995.

The Australian singer and former judge onThe X Factor was offered a substantial fee to do the cover shoot in the wake of her poorly received second album, Get into You.

Speaking about the shoot in a new interview with The Guardian, Minogue, 51, said: “It was personally empowering to me. I still stand by those photos. I still think it’s awesome.

“My son’s 12, he and his friends are all on their phones, they’ll be Googling, pictures will come up – but I still absolutely 100 per cent stand by that as a complete feminist move.

“Anyone can look at those pictures and you can say whatever you want about them. My body, my choice, my space. I controlled everything about the photos, the shoot, everything. And it just made me feel powerful.”

She admitted that her father was not happy about the cover. “He just hands down said: ‘I do not want you to do this. I think this is the worst move that you could make,’” she said.

Commenting on the cover years ago, Minogue said she partly chose to do it because of the breakdown of her marriage with actor Julian McMahon: “Most women go to the hairdressers – I did Playboy.”

Dannii Minogue (Ken McKay/ITV/Shutterstock)
Dannii Minogue (Ken McKay/ITV/Shutterstock)

Minogue is hosting the UK’s first ever dating show, BBC Three’s I Kissed a Boy, which begins on Sunday 14 May. She said she is “in shock” that it’s the first series of its kind.