While Shayk posed topless for the magazine, she said she would never do Playboy. (Yu Tsai, courtesy of Esquire UK)
Irina Shayk poses topless in the February issue of Esquire UK, for the same photographer who snapped Lindsay Lohan’s Playboy spread. But the Russian lingerie model says she would never pose for Hugh Hefner’s magazine, calling herself “classy” and Playboy “cheesy.”
The girlfriend of soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo also reveals that she turned down a high-priced offer from Hefner’s publication.
“I would never do Playboy,” Shayk tells Esquire UK. “Yes, I am a lingerie model, but I have class. Playboy offered me so much money last year. I was like: ‘No. Way.’”
Shayk’s photos in Esquire UK, shot by Yu Tsai, are risque — she poses in a sheer underwear while covering her breasts with her forearms. But still, she bristles at the idea of being seen nude in Playboy, though some famous supermodels have stripped down for the magazine.
“All right, Naomi Campbell and Claudia Schiffer did it,” Shayk said. “But they did it at the end of their career and it was classy. I think of myself as a cover girl. But I would never do some kind of cheesy magazine.”
In Esquire UK’s interview, Shayk gives some clues as to what it was about Ronaldo that initially got her attention.
“Different things about men appeal to me … When they’re very cute or smart. I love a sense of humor,” she says. “When I see a man on the street, I look at the shoes and the hands. I love it when a man wears some good shoes.”
Presumably, soccer cleats count.
The full interview with Shayk appears in the February issue of the magazine, on sale Jan. 5.