Image credit: By Northern Ireland Office, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia |
Everyone loves giving Meghan Markle a hard time over her family issues, which mainly involve her father's refusal to shut up; during his latest airing of grievances to the press, Thomas Markle complained about being "ghosted" by Meghan and whined that Prince Harry didn't ask him for his daughter's hand in marriage. However, Meghan isn't the only royal with family members who can be a royal pain in the arse. Thanks to one of her cousins, poor Kate Middleton had two deal with two photo scandals in 2012.
The first involved snapshots from her honeymoon with Prince William. The royals were reportedly very upset about photos that showed them soaking up some sun in Seychelles making rounds on the web. However, they weren't angry because the Duchess of Cambridge was caught topless or anything scandalous like that; they just couldn't believe that the press betrayed them by publishing the snaps of them sharing what was supposed to be a special private moment.
But a photo of Kate in a bikini was nothing compared to the amount of skin that her cousin wanted to share with world. That same year, her distant relative turned having a royal connection into a big payday by posing nude in the pages of Playboy.
Kate Middleton's burlesque dancer cousin Katrina Darling adorned the cover of the September 2012 issue of the men's mag in a move that surely irked her royal relations. Luckily, Katrina didn't opt to impersonate the Duchess of Cambridge by rocking nothing but one of Kate's famous fascinators or her favorite nude panty hose. Instead, Darling wore some rather adorable black lingerie and black thigh-high stockings. She recently shared a photo of her Playboy cover on Instagram in an attempt to sell some copies of the magazine in her possession.
Before landing in the pages of Playboy, Katrina Darling had already done her best to profit from being a royal pain to the royal family with her "God Save the Queen" strip routine. Now, she entertains her Instagram followers with NSFW photos of her skimpy burlesque outfits, which often consist of little more than panties and nipple pasties.
Kate Middleton can take comfort in knowing that she isn't the only celebrity with a relative that has tried to turn a DNA connection into cash by posing in Playboy.
Drew Barrymore had to be extremely embarrassed when her mother Jaid was featured in the mag back in 1995. Apparently, Jaid was attempting to upstage her daughter, who had appeared in Playboy just nine months earlier. This quote makes it fairly obvious that she just wanted to steal the spotlight from her successful offspring:
"I was going to be the star, not her! Drew got all the attention... It was so disgusting."Just be glad that Kris Jenner hasn't taken a page from this Hollywood mom's playbook by trying to compete with daughter Kim Kardashian with her own Playboy spread.
Drew and Jaid aren't the only famous mother-daughter pair to be featured in different issues of the magazine. In 2011, Mick Jagger's daughter Lizzy Jagger followed in the footsteps of her model mom Jerry Hall by appearing in Playboy. But Lizzy had to fight for her right to strip down; despite her parents' wild pasts, they originally banned her from posing in the buff. She said this about their decision to ultimately let her do it:
"They understood that when you don't know when you're going to have kids, it's nice to have wonderful pictures of your 20-something self. And at 27, I feel comfortable expressing myself through my body."
Dirty Harry star Clint Eastwood has also had to come to terms with a daughter's decision to pose nude; Alison Eastwood stripped down for Playboy back in 2003. It would certainly be interesting to know what Clint thinks is worse: having the world see one of his daughters naked or having the world see two of his daughters trying to become the next Kardashians on E!. Remember when Francesca Eastwood did her best to make her father facepalm by burning $100,000 Hermes handbags on her short-lived reality series, Mrs. Eastwood and Company? Even Kim Kardashian wouldn't do something that blasphemous for publicity.
Then there's Z-lister Levi Johnson, who is only famous for knocking up Sarah Palin's daughter Bristol when they were teenagers. Since he extended his fifteen minutes by posing in Playgirl, he couldn't complain much about his sister Mercede deciding to pose in Playboy in 2011. That move probably had Momma Grizzly praying that Bristol wouldn't resort to stripping down to stay in the spotlight since her Lifetime show turned out to be a bomb.
So take note, job hunters: if you're female and related to someone remotely famous, Playboy has a pay check waiting for you.