From private school to Playboy: She went to Duchess of York's school, her father owns racehorses... so now Emily's posing naked for millions, what do her parents think? 

  • Emily Shaw went to £15,000-a-year Hurst Lodge prep school in Ascot
  • Her father, a racehorse owner, is sales director at a leading estate agency; her mother is yoga teacher
  • They both supported her decision to be a model
  • 23-year-old is now a 'sexy secretary' Miss July - first British woman in a decade to become a Playboy Playmate
  • Emily: 'I’m sure my dad would have preferred it if I was a doctor or a lawyer' 

When Emily Shaw’s wealthy parents enrolled her at one of Britain’s most expensive preparatory schools, they could have been forgiven for dreaming of a bright future for their daughter.

Set in the midst of rolling Berkshire countryside, Hurst Lodge in Ascot has turned out generations of educated young ladies, including Sarah, Duchess of York, actress Juliet Stevenson and television presenter Emma Forbes.

This month, however, 23-year-old Emily can be seen stripped bare across the pages of Playboy magazine. 

She was once enrolled at the exclusive Hurst Lodge prep school in Ascot... but this month, 23-year-old Emily Shaw can be seen stripped bare across the pages of Playboy magazine 

She was once enrolled at the exclusive Hurst Lodge prep school in Ascot... but this month, 23-year-old Emily Shaw can be seen stripped bare across the pages of Playboy magazine 

Playboy magnate Hugh Hefner selected Emily after seeing her pictures

Playboy magnate Hugh Hefner selected Emily after seeing her pictures

Having flown to Los Angeles at the personal invitation of Playboy magnate Hugh Hefner, she spent a month living at the notorious Playboy Mansion, and is currently the magazine’s Miss July — the first British woman in a decade to achieve the dubious honour of becoming a Playboy Playmate.

This, she declares, not long after we meet at a central London hotel, is the proudest achievement of her life.

‘It’s a dream come true and an honour,’ she says blithely, pulling this month’s copy of Playboy out of her bag and proudly placing the open magazine on the table to show me her pictures. She is oblivious to the effect they have on the poor waiter who hovers over us, tongue-twisted, trying to take our drinks order.

‘I’m really proud of the pictures,’ she continues. ‘This is something I’ve wanted to do for years and I worked hard to make it happen. The pictures are beautiful and classy. I almost can’t believe it’s me in them.’

Nor, one suspects, can her parents — her father, a racehorse owner, is sales director at a leading estate agency, and her mother is a yoga teacher.

Given the upbringing they gave their daughter — a home in a leafy village which has more than its fair share of celebrities, annual trips to Ladies Day at Royal Ascot, skiing holidays and jaunts to Barbados and New York, not to mention those £15,000-a-year school fees — they might have expected a rather more serene life for their daughter.

Emily insists that they both supported her decision to enter the world of modelling, although she admits that her father does not look at the eye-watering images taken of her.

‘Out of sight, out of mind,’ she says, as I put away the magazine to spare the blushes of the waiter who, understandably, has returned with the wrong drinks and mumbles an apology before scuttling off.

‘Obviously my dad wouldn’t want to look at them,’ Emily says. ‘But he’s not going to see them. There’s no need for him to see them.’

It goes almost without saying that the graphic images are not something any father would want to see of his daughter.

His friends might, however. On the pages of Playboy, where she has been titillatingly styled as a ‘sexy secretary’, Emily is all crimson lips and nails, thrusting breasts and pert bottom, her lithe body contorted into the kind of poses that even her yoga expert mother might find hard to adopt.

Childhood innocence: Emily Shaw enjoyed an idyllic upbringing. Fast forward, and today she is Miss July ¿ the first British woman in a decade to achieve the dubious honour of becoming a Playboy Playmate

Childhood innocence: Emily Shaw enjoyed an idyllic upbringing. Fast forward, and today she is Miss July — the first British woman in a decade to achieve the dubious honour of becoming a Playboy Playmate

Then there is the online video readily available on the Playboy website, which shows a naked Emily writhing around on a desk and a leather armchair. For all this, though she is reluctant to say just how much, she is likely to have been paid around $25,000 (£15,000).

No doubt Emily’s parents would prefer to visualise her as the sweet-faced young toddler and then schoolgirl who appears in the family photograph album, who enjoyed ballet, was captain of her school netball team and once took a Saturday job in her local Waitrose.

Certainly, her mother also finds the Playboy snaps uncomfortable viewing.

‘She knows what my body looks like. She’s my mother,’ says Emily, ‘but she did keep looking away and saying: “Oh Emily, that’s hard for me to see.” ’

Until she was 18, Emily (left, in a party dress) insists she was flat-chested and sporty, with train-track braces clamped to her teeth
Emily at school

Until she was 18, Emily (left, in a party dress) insists she was flat-chested and sporty, with train-track braces clamped to her teeth. Pictured right, Emily at school

So how on earth did a pretty, intelligent Home Counties schoolgirl, who grew up with the world at her feet and could quite possibly have turned her hand to whatever she wanted, end up in the clutches of 88-year-old Hugh Hefner?

The story of Emily’s journey will certainly make salutary reading for parents faced with raising their teenage daughters against the backcloth of an increasingly sexualised world.

Until she was 18, Emily insists she was flat-chested and sporty, with train-track braces clamped to her teeth. She was, she says, a late starter, both physically and emotionally, and didn’t meet her one and only boyfriend until she was 19, by which time many of her friends were already at university and on to second and third relationships. She is currently single.

I’m very body confident and the shots they did were tasteful. 

And until her late teens — she left Hurst Lodge at 16 to study at a sixth form college — Emily, too, had her sights set on university. She studied for A-levels in history, politics, media and art, but despite being predicted A and B-grades, says she started socialising too much.

The three Cs she achieved were not enough to take up the conditional place she’d been offered to study history at Southampton University, and she wasn’t interested in studying anything else.

‘I didn’t just want to go to university for the sake of a Mickey Mouse degree,’ she says. ‘It wasn’t right for me. I think my parents were a bit disappointed, but they understood. They did ask me what I was going to do next.

‘But I think that not going to university has made me work harder, because I’ve needed to push to make things happen.’

She decided to take some time out, started working full-time at Waitrose in Sunningdale before moving on to a company which compiles databases. 

Her entrance into the world of modelling came at the age of 19 when a friend who was training to be a make-up artist asked if she could ‘borrow’ Emily to be made up and photographed for her end-of-course portfolio.

Her entrance into the world of modelling came at the age of 19 when a friend who was training to be a make-up artist asked if she could ¿borrow¿ Emily to be made up and photographed for her end-of-course portfolio. Above, on a music video shoot

Her entrance into the world of modelling came at the age of 19 when a friend who was training to be a make-up artist asked if she could ‘borrow’ Emily to be made up and photographed for her end-of-course portfolio. Above, on a music video shoot

Emily felt ‘ecstatic’ about the results, and at first dreamed of making it as a fashion model. She sent photographs of herself to some of the UK’s top agencies, including Storm, which manages Kate Moss, but was eventually signed by Girl Management, a London glamour agency.

She vividly recalls her first topless test for the agency when she was 20 years old.

‘I wasn’t at all nervous. I have no problem being topless or nude. I realise what I have going on,’ she says looking down at herself. ‘I’m very body confident and the shots they did were tasteful.’

And her parents’ reaction when she told them what she was doing? ‘They were very supportive. I’m sure my dad would have preferred it if I was a doctor or a lawyer, but he understands that I want to use this as a platform for other things. They know I’m sensible and that I can take care of myself.’

Playboy has changed the world... it’s a fascinating brand. It’s not just a magazine with naked girls in. It’s classy and educated.

Despite being pleased with the result, jobs were few and far between. There was a topless appearance in the Czech edition of Maxim magazine, as well as some work for a clothing brand for big-busted women. Feeling that she didn’t want to do ‘tacky stuff’, Emily decided to represent herself.

‘I wasn’t getting any work,’ she says. ‘I realised it’s easy to contact people directly. That way you remain in control of what you do as well and you keep all the money.’

It was last October that she emailed Playboy photographer Tony Kelly some naked shots of herself, and couldn’t believe the response she got.

‘Hugh Hefner asked for me to go out to LA to test for them,’ she says. ‘I couldn’t believe it. It was a dream come true.’

In February this year, she was flown to America and spent a month at the Playboy Mansion, learning about the Bunny Girl brand, spending time with other Playboy Playmates and, most importantly, taking her clothes off. ‘It was amazing to be a part of it,’ she enthuses.

But what on earth did her parents think? ‘They were a bit “oh my goodness”,’ she says. ‘You don’t expect your daughter to be saying she’s off to the Playboy Mansion. They wanted to know I was safe and that I knew what I was doing.’

Emily had her own room in the Playmates’ guest house across the road from the gothic mansion, but says there were no all-night parties and it was much like being at boarding at school.

Hefner himself, she says, was a gentleman. ‘People seem to think you have to sleep with him to be a Playmate. But you don’t. That’s ridiculous. He was very polite.’

It was Hefner who, after seeing Emily’s test shots, decided to make her one of his official Playmates: the title is given to any model who appears in the magazine’s centerfold as ‘Playmate Of The Month’. The shoot itself took place during the night at the magazine’s HQ in Beverly Hills. One shot shows Emily, naked aside from her red glossy heels, red leather gloves and spectacles, hanging from the giant Playboy sign on the outside of the office.

Emily is adamant that the photographs she has done are a world away from ¿tacky¿ men¿s magazines

Emily is adamant that the photographs she has done are a world away from ‘tacky’ men’s magazines

Didn’t she feel embarrassed being styled as a ‘hot office babe’ and revealing her nether regions to the whole world?

Not for a moment, she insists.

‘I felt like a star,’ she says. ‘The whole experience raised my confidence to new levels. I didn’t want it to end.’

She is adamant that the photographs she has done are a world away from ‘tacky’ men’s magazines.

‘Playboy has changed the world,’ she says. ‘It’s a fascinating brand. It’s not just a magazine with naked girls in. It’s classy and educated.’

It seems somehow ironic, given the photographs the flustered waiter and I have just seen, that she speaks with the zeal of a feminist. She describes feeling ‘liberated’ and ‘empowered’ by the images — just the kind of words we’ve heard so often before from women who’ve chosen to make money by stripping naked for the delectation of lascivious men.

Indeed, asked whether other women and young girls would find Playboy liberating, she is lost for words for a few moments.

‘It is something I have thought about,’ she says. ‘But it is always going to happen. Women are always going to be objectified and I’d rather it was me doing tasteful shots like these than some of the horrific stuff you see on the internet.

‘I think we need more shots like mine, that show how beautiful women are in an elegant and classy way.’

What she does next remains to be seen. She is no longer working for Waitrose, but, with the help of her father, has launched herself into the world of property development.

She hopes to return to Los Angeles later this year in the hope of breaking into film. Whether or not her Playboy appearance proves a help or a hindrance to a film career is anyone’s guess.

On the ‘Playmate data sheet’ which accompanies her ten-page shoot, she states that her philosophy is: ‘Never worry about what others think. You only live once, and you’re probably never going to see them again.’

The same can’t be said, of course, for those photographs, already circulating across the internet and being ogled by millions, images which she will never be able to delete, should she ever come to change her mind about quite how ‘empowering’ they are.

What will her future husband think — if she ever comes to get married — of the fact that the world can see his wife naked at the click of a mouse? What will any children she might have make of it all?

Suffice to say it’s hard to imagine Emily sitting on the podium next to the Duchess of York at the Hurst Lodge speech day any time soon.

 

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