UF students may see a familiar face at the newsstands today - a local public relations-junior-turned-Playmate on the cover of Playboy Magazine's October issue.
Kelly Carrington, who asked to keep her real surname separate from her Playmate personality, graces the titillating magazine's "College Girls Nude" centerfold only a few weeks after she took a break from classes at UF.
"I'm expecting UF not to be too happy about this," said Carrington, 22. "I mean, I guess I'm just nervous about it. I feel like Bernie Whatever, the president, is like, conservative and Mormon, so I'm just worried about it."
Carrington's path to Playboy started with her viewing of the E! Network's "The Girls Next Door," a reality show following magazine magnate Hugh Hefner and three of his buxom blonde girlfriends.
Carrington's boyfriend - Chris Smith, 23, a UF graduate in finance and entrepreneurship who now works in Savannah, Ga. - said he thought she trumped the on-air models and could make it to the glossy pages of the esteemed porno mag.
"I always told her that she was the most beautiful girl I'd ever seen and honestly meant it," he said with a laugh.
After joking about it for two months, the couple finally agreed to take some test shots and send them to Playboy HQ. In less than a month, the magazine responded.
"It was kind of surreal," she said. "They flew me out there to do a test shoot, picked me up in a limo. I met Hef and the girls at the [Playboy] Mansion, spent two hours in a makeup chair. I felt pretty glamorous."
Carrington said the photo shoot, in which more than 500 shots were snapped of her leaning against Gator-themed lockers or posing in a bedroom, was an honor. Still, she thinks some people will misunderstand her appearance.
"If someone's offended, then don't buy it," she said. "I don't consider it a pornographic magazine. I think it's very classy."
But what of Smith, the boyfriend left behind? How does he feel about his girlfriend of nearly two years appearing in the buff in bedrooms nationwide?
"I think it's great," he said. "It's one of those things that, if I go to a bar with her, guys are looking at her anyway. … She already stands out as it is. I think it's hot."
