Sex Fact #120

Leonardo DiCaprio sued Playgirl magazine for publishing unautorised full-frontal nude photos of him taken from the movie 'Total Eclipse'.

DiCaprio sued the publisher, successfully obtained a court injunction, and prevented the Issue's commercial sale/distribution in the United States and all other countries where the magazine is sold. However, because Playgirl Magazine has a US subscriber base of customers who receive their copies in the mail, many copies had already been shipped and could not be retrieved and destroyed, as confiscated copies were.

In addition to the injunction, Leonardo DiCaprio received damages of an unspecified amount.

The photographs come mainly from an early DiCaprio film, "Total Eclipse", and show one of today's most enduringly popular and respected Hollywood actors in full-frontal nude and homosexual scenes. "Total Eclipse" is actually one of the best films of our time (it was directed by the Polish filmmaker Agnieska Holland). It is a real-life account of the French prodigy-poet Arthur Rimbaud and his older lover/patron, the established poet Paul Verlaine. There are at least two versions of the film: a) the American R-rated version, with significant cuts; and b) the "Director's Cut" version, which retains all of the scenes that would have earned the film an NC-17 rating in the United States. DiCaprio's performance as Rimbaud remains one of his best, and his lack of inhibition and outright daring were truly ahead for his generation. As a result, some commentators expressed surprise at his lawsuit against Playgirl Magazine although DiCaprio vowed not to do full-frontal nude scenes in any of his subsequent films (and has never again done so).

Existing copies of the magazine have now become a "must-have" title for male erotic photography collectors.

Info Source: Wikipedia. The story was also widely reported in the mainstream media.