In 2006, Ion Iliescu surprised Romania by interviewing the magazine “Playboy”. Arrived in the Christmas edition, the material was illustrated with a memorable photo: the former president, in slippers, next to a portrait of Marilyn Monroe.
Ion Iliescu, in slippers, next to the photograph of the famous Marilyn Monroe. Photo: Playboy Magazine Archive
In a dialogue with Ionuț Vulpescu, before his death at the age of 95, published in full by “Adevărul”, former President Ion Iliescu told how he arrived in the pages of “Playboy” and what that moment meant.
Tired to be listed “Bolshevik” even after the end of the third presidential term, Ion Iliescu decided, in 2006, to give an interview to the Romanian edition of the magazine “Playboy”. The interview, stretched on eight pages, appeared in the Christmas edition, considered the most important issue of the year for that publication.
At that time, the chief editor of “Playboy” was the writer Dan Silviu Boerescu, who made the dialogue with Iliescu even in the PSD headquarters on Athens Street, where he was preparing a party congress. The publication of the interview has aroused controversy, especially due to an unusual photo: Ion Iliescu, in slippers, next to the portrait of the legend Marilyn Monroe.
“Eros is part of life”
Asked by Ionuț Vulpescu, shortly before his last hospitalization, how to accept the proposal of Playboy magazine, Ion Iliescu responded with humor and detachment.
“There was a time in Romania in which even these syrupy publications had their audience and they were in the print. It was a magazine dedicated to the beautiful sex, but it did not make a cultural production. In the pages of that magazine there were ideas, they were not empty of content. The eros is part of life. said Ion Iliescu.
The former president explained that although “boy” was no longer, he was still considered “a player” and looked at the invitation as an interesting experience for the public. Photo in slippers, he said, had been made “As the access of the visit to the museum was conditioned,” And joining with Marilyn Monroe’s portrait has become a jokes for “Cârcotași”.
From Gorbachev to jokes with KGB
Ion Iliescu also stressed that the questions asked by Playboy were “More than decent, provocative in the political common sense”,
covering topics from revolutionary Christmas to culinary preferences. The coincidence made, during the same period, Mihail Gorbachev appeared in the Hungarian edition of the magazine.
“Some said that the KGB controls Playboy in the shadow and gives us a sign … I say that for some gentlemen, I was more progressing than some six to six decades younger,” to joke Ion Iliescu regarding this subject.
“There was nothing outrageous”
Finally, the former president argued that he saw nothing unusual in giving an interview to an publication associated with entertainment and eroticism, reminding that, abroad, important political and academic personalities had appeared on the pages of the magazine.
“One of my favorite authors, John Kenneth Galbraith, once gave an interview to the American Playboy edition. Only in the Mioritic space seemed something curious as a scientist or a political one to give an interview to this publication. I congratulate him, I set a standard,” he stated, confessing that, in addition, he was also convinced by one of his advisers that the appearance was “An inspired move.”
We remind you that Ion Iliescu died at the age of 95, on August 5, and his funeral was marked by tensions related to the opportunity to decree August 7 as a national mourning day, given that he is still judged for his involvement in the 1989 revolution and the miners who took place during his term.
