PLAYBOY is shutting down its iconic men’s magazine after falling victim to the spread of the coronavirus.
The much-loved company – founded by Hugh Hefner 66 years ago – revealed it will no longer release a regular print edition.
CEO of Playboy Enterprises, Ben Kohn, said the struggling magazine was eventually killed off by the virus.
In an open letter he said the “pandemic” had been disrupting both “content production and the supply chain.”
He added: “We will move to a digital-first publishing schedule for all of our content including the Playboy Interview, 20Q, the Playboy Advisor and of course our Playmate pictorials.
“It’s no surprise that media consumption habits have been changing for some time… our content in its printed form reaches the hands of only a fraction of our fans.
“We have decided that our Spring 2020 Issue, which arrives on US newsstands and as a digital download this week, will be our final printed publication for the year in the US.”
However, Kohn added from next year 2021 there will still be “print offerings” such as special collector editions.
Sales of the magazine were already on the decline prior to the outbreak partially down to the availability online porn.
It was still being published monthly as recently as 2017, but was recently scaled back to a quarterly mag without ads.
In its heyday in the 1970s, the magazine had a circulation of more than seven million across the world.
More recently, Madonna, Naomi Campbell, Cindy Crawford, Pamela Anderson, Kim Kardashian and Carmen Electra have gone on to be Playboy cover models.
Since being founded in 1953, Playboy has become a global brand with TV shows, merchandise, resorts, clubs, and even a record label.
The first issue – featuring a photo of Marilyn Monroe in the buff – was a smash hit, selling more than 50,000 copies.
The magazine famous for its iconic covers went from strength to strength in the 1960s and 70s, becoming a household name and catapulting Hefner to fame.
His parties at the Playboy mansion and his antics with the models that live there with him became the stuff of legend.
By his own account, Hefner had sex with more than a thousand women, including many of those pictured in his magazine, after the collapse of his marriage.
But he wasn’t always the party animal in a silk smoking jacket the public knew in his later years.
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The man behind the glossy girlie magazine was a shy, geeky intellectual who was a virgin until the age of 22 and married his university sweetheart.
Hefner died of natural causes at the Playboy Mansion on September 27 2017.
Paying tribute, the firm behind the magazine described Hefner as “the American icon who in 1953 introduced the world to Playboy magazine and built the company into one of the most recognizable American global brands in history.”
