Cardi B is now Playboy magazine’s Creative Director: ‘Dream come true’

Rapper Cardi B has announced that she has been appointed Playboy magazine’s first-ever creative director in residence.

In a statement released on Thursday (2 December), the “WAP” singer said the opportunity was a “dream come true”, adding “I can’t believe this is real.”

The statement read: “For as long as I can remember, I’ve felt connected to Playboy. It’s truly the original platform for uncensored creativity and I’m inspired by its incredible legacy of fighting for personal freedoms. I have so many ideas already – I can’t wait!”

Cardi B, whose real name is Belcalis Marlenis Almánzar, also teased the launch of Playboy’s new creator-led platform CENTREFOLD.

The Grammy winner said: “Creators today deserve to express themselves freely and unfiltered. They deserve to feel safe in their creativity and sexuality. And they deserve to own their future.”

“This is what CENTERFOLD is all about,” she explained, inviting creators doing “bold, revolutionary, and truly culture-shifting things” to join her.

Ben Kohn, chief executive officer of PLBY Group, said the rap artist’s “unapologetic commitment to free expression, her dedication to lifting up artistic voices, and her celebration of sex and body positivity” made her the “perfect embodiment” of the Playboy brand.

“I also can’t think of a better creative visionary to partner with us on the launch of CENTERFOLD,” Kohn continued, adding that the platform will revolutionise “the creator economy” just like the adult magazine “shook up” the publishing industry decades ago.

Kohn announced the end of Playboy’s print magazine in 2020, 66 years after it was launched by Hugh Hefner in 1953.

At the time, he said that the Covid-19 pandemic had forced the company “to accelerate a conversation” Playboy executives had been having internally.

“The question of how to transform our US print product to better suit what consumers want today,” Kohn continued in the 2020 open letter to the Playboy team and brand partners.

“We have decided that our Spring 2020 Issue... will be our final printed publication for the year in the US,” Kohn said in the letter published on Medium on 18 March 2020.

However, Kohn also revealed that Playboy would “bring back fresh and innovative printed offerings in a variety of new forms” like special editions, partnerships with “provocative creators”, timely collections and more.

Cardi’s appointment as the brand’s first ever creative director in residence appears to be a crucial step in that direction.

On 18 October, Nasdaq-listed PLBY announced it had entered into a definitive agreement to acquire social platform Dream, which provides tools for creators to engage with their fans directly.

The company announced Dream and its development team would lay the foundation for PLBY’s own creator-led site CENTERFOLD.

Forbes reported that the launch of CENTERFOLD had been preponed to the fourth quarter of 2021, instead of the second half of 2022 as originally planned.