Tiffany's "Playboy" Makeover

Tiffany's "Playboy" Makeover

by Joal Ryan
Feb 25, 2002, 2:00 PM PT

When Playboy called Tiffany last August, it was not to see if the former teen pop star wanted a subscription. Rather, the men's magazine wanted her to pose in the way the men's magazine prefers--in the buff. The 30-year-old wife and mother did not hesitate to respond.

"I said no right away," the singer says. "Being naked? I'm not too sure about that."

When the April edition of Playboy hits stands March 5, you'll see Tiffany reconsidered. Boy, will you see.

Tiffany is the issue's featured famous nude person, but not its centerfold. "It's a pictorial," she says. "[Playboy told me] you're not going to be asked to do what some of the other girls do."

If you follow such things, the April Playboy is the "Sex & Music" issue. It is for the sake of the second half of that equation that Tiffany says she reconsidered.

"I think for me it was about me breaking the image," says the singer, who in 2000 released her first new album in the United States in 10 years.

The "image" would be the "Tiffany image," minted in 1987 when the Southern California native took to malls and inspired young shoppers to buy enough records for two number 1 singles, "I Think We're Alone Now" and "Could've Been."

Anyone with a working knowledge of the E! True Hollywood Story canon knows what came next: A fall down the charts, a split with bandmates and/or management (in Tif's case, the latter), downtime away from the spotlight, a comeback bid.

Tiffany's comeback bid consists of "bids"--plural. There was the stint as a Vegas singer in the early '90s. The album (Dreams Never Die) that never made it past Asian markets. The dabbling in the country scene in the late '90s.

The 2000 release, The Color of Silence, was supposed to be the real thing. "I had always known there had been this image of Tiffany--mall queen, whatever happened to her? [But] I thought, music is what I do, and if I do a great album maybe everyone can get over it."

Billboard got over it, calling it "one of the most appealing surprises of the year" Spin weighed in with "super-sexy." More than one reviewer drew comparisons to Alanis Morissette.

But if you've never heard of The Color of Silence, then maybe you'll understand why Tiffany changed her mind about Playboy.

Tiffany says, on one hand, she had people telling her she'd made a "great album," but, on the other hand, telling her they couldn't book her on MTV because she was, well, Tiffany. And, "frankly, my name wasn't cool."

"When Playboy came, I was reassessing my life."

Other career reassessments that have gone down in the pages of Hugh Hefner's guy bible run the gamut from Diff'rent Strokes star Dana Plato, who eventually committed suicide, to Kim Basinger, who eventually won an Oscar. Tiffany says she was showed last year's Belinda Carlisle pictoral as a guide.

"To be tied with the Playboy name is not bad," she says. "They've taken some stunning pictures of me."

The four-day shoot went down in November. She says she's happy with the pictures. And happy to be booked on the likes of Howard Stern and ABC's The View in the coming week to talk about them--and her music.

Tiffany concedes the Playboy thing takes some getting used to--for herself and her family, which includes a nine-year-old son. In fact, when asked, she says she wouldn't even advise fellow 1980s teen popster Deborah (née: Debbie) Gibson to take it all off for the sake of an image overhaul.

"I am the first teen star to ever do it, and I think it probably wouldn't have the same effect," she says. "I don't think she would do it, frankly...And I don't think she needs to."

Tiffany, obviously, felt otherwise.

"It really was an avenue for me to break out of the young mall queen image."

She hopes.