Maria Kanellis Fought With WWE Over Playboy Appearance

Maria Kanellis is known for her role on pro wrestling television, but she is also known for her Playboy magazine appearance. She posed for the cover of the April 2008 issue, with an accompanying NSFW pictorial. This gave her modelling career a major boost and she was also named on “The Sexiest Women 2008” list by British magazine FHM.

Maria recalled her experience with WWE regarding the Playboy magazine appearance. While speaking on Oral Sessions with Renee Paquette, Maria revealed that she had to fight the wrestling company regarding it as they wanted it done only a certain way.

“I remember even having long conversations on what my Playboy was going to be. And I wanted it to be more fashion forward. I was a big Cindy Crawford (fan), I loved her style and I wanted to bring more of that vibe to wrestling and make it more fashion forward and make it more pop culture. That was a fight. It was a fight even to get that, even something so sexualized at the time as a Playboy cover. It was like ‘we want it to be more sexy.’ I tried to get it black and white and they were like ‘no, we want it full color.’ So there were those conversations, even about something as sexual as that.”

Maria was drafted into the WWE after participating in Diva Search. Former Playboy cover star Ashley Massaro suggested that Maria should be on the cover of the magazine. Maria would go on to defeat Beth Phoenix to “earn the right” to be on the cover of Playboy, all as part of a storyline. She was originally asked to pose for the magazine when she was nineteen, but she turned down the offer because she didn’t want to embarrass her sister.

Right now, Maria Kanellis is currently working with ROH. She and her husband Mike Bennett were released by WWE in April 2020 as part of COVID-19 budget cuts. She has stated that she does not want to wrestle in ROH and is content with her position in the company.

h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the quote