Top 5 Celebrities to Appear in Penthouse Magazine

Admittedly, far fewer celebrities have graced the cover, or appeared inside Penthouse then Playboy. The magazine has a reputation to be raunchier and crasser than Playboy. These are the five top celebrities to have been involved with the Penthouse empire, and with the exception of Vanessa Williams, they have all been crowned Penthouse Pet's of the month or year.

1. Vanessa Williams. Possibly the most well-known Penthouse photographs, it was the first and possibly only time a celebrity was born from the magazine's spread. Vanessa Williams won the Miss America 1984 crown in 1983, making her the first black women to win the title. One year after being crowned, Penthouse published nude photographs of young Williams in their September 1984 issue. The photos were taken in 1982, before she was crowned Miss America or Miss New York. People were shocked, and outraged, and subsequently she resigned as Miss America. [1] Ultimately, she became a popular singer and actress and arguably the most famous Miss America ever.

2. Jenna Jameson. She is the Babe Ruth of the X-rated industry, which make it interesting that she wasn't Pet of the Month until January 2004. She did, however, pose for nude photos in 1991 for photographer Suze Randall, with the intentions of getting into Penthouse. [2] She was able to parlay her success in the adult film industry into fame outside the x-rated world. She was able to secure gigs as a guest voice on Family Guy, a small role in Howard Stern's film Private Parts, and even has her own wax statue at the Las Vegas Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum.

3. Traci Lords. Appearing as the centerfold in the same issue that Vanessa Williams did, the September 1984 issue may have been the most controversial because of Pet of the Month September 1984's, Lord's, age. It was later revealed that she was only 15 years old at the time the photos were taken. Besides these photographs, Lords had amassed over 100 adult films, all while under the age of 18. Much like Jenna Jameson, she was able to parlay her notoriety as an adult film star into a mainstream career appearing in films like Underworld, on Melrose Place, and doing voice over work for several video games.

4. Victoria Zdrok. She was June 2002's Pet of the Month and 2004's Pet of the year, but the native Ukrainian is also an attorney, and has her PhD in clinical psychology having completed a post doctoral qualification in sex therapy at New Jersey's Rutgers's Robert Wood Johnson Hospital. She has written several books on relationships and sex and appears on various television and radio shows to dispense her advice. At the time she first came to America to attend college she was the first Ukrainian student officially permitted to study in the United States, and received a lot of attention from the media, as the messenger of peace and international cooperation. [3]

5. Priscilla Barnes. You may not recognize her name, but she is better known as Suzanne Somers replacement in the TV series Three's Company playing the part of Nurse Terri Alden. She was Pet of the Month in the March 1976 issue, under the name Joann Witty. While she admits to appearing topless in the film, Delta Fox, prior to her Penthouse issue and role on Three's Company, she claimed in a People magazine article that the full frontal nude photos in the magazine were not her. [4]

[1] http://celebgalz.com/vanessa-williams-penthouse-pictures-vanessa-williams-nude-photo/

[2] http://www.januarymagazine.com/biography/pornstar.html

[3] http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0954019/bio

[4] http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20080946,00.htm