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Playboy Portugal cancelled over risqué Saramago cover

The Portuguese edition of Playboy recently made the classy decision to do a cover story about recently deceased novelist and Nobel Prize“winner Jose Saramago. Then it ruined everything by illustrating the article with an image of a long-haired Jesus Christ holding a heavily-tattooed, topless model. Apparently a play on Saramago’s 1994 novel The Gospel According to Jesus Christ, the risqué photo shoot has led Playboy’s U.S. head office to terminate its contract with the Portuguese publisher. From the Daily Mail (via Canadian Magazines):

The pictures show a long-haired, glowing Jesus watching two models in a lesbian clinch, standing next to a prostitute and looking over the shoulder of a woman reading a book.

A final, heavily tattooed woman, appears to have died in his arms.

Theresa Hennessy, Playboy Enterprises vice president of public relations told the Mail Online: ˜We did not see or approve the cover and pictorial in the July issue of Playboy Portugal.

˜It is a shocking breach of our standards and we would have not allowed it to be published if we had seen it in advance.’

By

July 15th, 2010

9:56 am

Category: Book news

Tagged with: Jose Saramago