Paris Hilton cried over her Playboy cover because she had no idea her picture was going to be used.

The 42-year-old socialite has revealed she turned down a seven-figure offer from Playboy boss Hugh Hefner to shed her clothes for the raunchy magazine, so she was stunned when years later she saw herself on the front of the March 2005 issue wearing a red corset and fishnet tights because she had no idea her picture was going to be featured.

In her new book Paris: The Memoir, she explained: "Hef really wanted me to do a Playboy cover. He kept offering me more and more money, saying I wouldn't have to be totally naked, just topless. And then saying, I didn't have to be topless, just sheer. And then saying I could wear whatever lingerie I wanted.

"Even when he offered seven figures, I turned it down, because I knew my mum would lose her mind ...

"I had already been branded as a s**t after the sex tape. I felt like a Playboy pictorial would just cement that in people's minds."

Paris claims she was blindsided by the 2005 cover and only found out about when a friend got in touch to compliment her on the snap.

She went on: "I was like: 'What?' ... Hef had 'honoured' me with the Sex Star of the Year Award, which means they can claim it's 'news' and not a pictorial. He got a picture from an old test shoot with a woman photographer ... My parents were p*****, and I cried, but none of us confronted him [Hefner], because you just didn't do that."

Hefner died in 2017 and Playboy is now under new management.

Bosses of the publication have since addressed Paris' claims in a statement to People which read: "While the current management does not know what occurred surrounding that cover, the claim does not reflect our values nor how the company operates today."

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Source: Bang