Don’t bother taking your bunny ears and corset to the dry cleaners—Playboy will not host an afterparty for the White House Correspondents’ Dinner this year, Washingtonian has learned. The magazine—which has one White House Correspondent—is “sitting this year out,” according to John Vlautin, a spokesperson for Playboy Enterprises.
Playboy‘s inaugural bash last year, dubbed the “No Tie Party,” made quite a splash. Playmates posed for pictures with journalists and their plus ones as Miguel crooned on a stage in a roped off VIP area. (This reporter remembers waiting in the rain for nearly an hour to squeeze into the event at Dupont Circle’s the Living Room.)
Hello, DC. #PlayboyNoTieParty #WHCD pic.twitter.com/k4iAN8o5I1
— Playboy (@Playboy) April 28, 2018
At the time, Playboy Enterprises chief creative officer, Cooper Hefner conceded that many Beltway folks may be uncomfortable with the Playboy brand (neither Jeff Flake nor Nancy Pelosi showed): “I’m sure there are still some taboos around lawmakers getting photographed with a Playboy bunny,” he told People.
This year is already looking to be more low-key, as indicated by the White House Correspondents’ Association’s decision to forgo a comedian to keynote the dinner (it chose historian Ron Chernow instead). Vlautin says Playboy may be back: “don’t count us out for future years.”
Brittany Shepherd covers the societal and cultural scene in political Washington. Before joining Washingtonian as a staff writer in 2018, Brittany was a White House Correspondent for Independent Journal Review. While she has lived in DC for a number of years now, she still yearns for the fresh Long Island bagels of home. Find her on Twitter, often prattling on about Frasier.
