Princess Xenia of Saxony Becomes First Royal on a Playboy Cover

Princess Xenia of Saxony has gone where no aristocrat has gone before. The 37-year-old German royal, full name Xenia Florence Gabriela Sophie Iris, is the cover star of Playboy Germany's March 2024 issue. That makes her the first member of a noble family ever to front the famous magazine.

The cover is glamorous but simple. Xenia wraps a white sheet around one side of her body and leaves the other side bare. Inside, the shoot heads poolside, where she poses topless and later slips into a sheer white skirt with slits that reach her waist.

This isn't about shock value, though. In the interview that runs with the pictures, Xenia says her message is simple: "every woman is beautiful the way she is." She was happy to show off her stretch marks rather than have them edited out, and she says she wants women to stop chasing a perfect body that doesn't exist.

The princess also opens up about the pressure she has faced over her looks and her title. She admits people have judged her for both, but she has refused to go under the knife. For Xenia, feeling healthy matters far more than fitting anyone else's idea of beautiful. She's not the first star to use a magazine shoot to celebrate her natural shape, either. Kate Winslet did the same when she bared her curves for Esquire.

Not everyone in her family is cheering, and her right to call herself a princess has long been disputed by some of her noble relatives. Xenia isn't letting that slow her down. She is convinced her ancestor Frederick Augustus III, the last King of Saxony, would have loved the shoot, and she describes him as a man with a great sense of humor and an open mind.

As the issue hits newsstands across Germany, Xenia says she feels happier and more confident than ever, and she hopes her pictures help other women feel the same about their own bodies.

Want to hear what her family really thought of the shoot? Read Princess Xenia bares all for Playboy.

Xenia is the first aristocrat to land a Playboy cover

The princess proudly shows off her stretch marks

Xenia says she's never felt more confident