Lifestyle

GUESS WHO'S BACK?

‘Baywatch’ Bombshell, 54, Poses for Playboy 30 Years After Her Debut

Three decades after her first photo shoot in the Hefner-founder mag, she’s back as a model and columnist.

Cailey PetschHealth and Beauty Intern

PublishedJul 16, 2026, 4:43 PM EDT

UpdatedJul 16, 2026, 4:43 PM EDT

Updated Jul 16, 2026, 4:43 PM EDTPublished Jul 16, 2026, 4:43 PM EDT

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Carmen Electra first mesmerized Playboy subscribers when she appeared on pages 64–65 of the magazine’s May 1996 issue. Now, she returns to its glossy pages, posing three decades after her original debut for the iconic magazine’s Summer 2026 edition.

In the 1996 shoot, a 24-year-old Electra dazzled in a black corset leotard, tall strappy pumps, fishnet tights, and elbow-length gloves. The first sentence of her pictorial announced her accordingly: “Prepare to be electrified.”

​Thirty years later, Electra, now 54, makes another steamy appearance, this time with her experience and wisdom published alongside her striking looks in the form of an advice column.

Posing in fishnet tights and black lingerie, her glossy, dirty-blond hair blown straight, Electra appeared in a shoot by photographer Max Montgomery that accompanied her column.

Now led by Phillip Picardi, the founding editor of Condé Nast’s Them and the former editor-in-chief of Out, the Hugh Hefner-founded magazine revived its print operation in 2025 after a five-year hiatus.

In it, she offers valuable insight for readers’ pressing midlife questions.

“What should a man stop doing after 40?” one reader, credited as Kyle H. in Orlando, Florida, asked.

“Nothing,” Electra answered. “Nothing at all. Keep it young, keep it fun, keep it hot, right?”

Another advice seeker, Monica L. of Portland, Oregon, wrote, “I was the life of the party in my early 20s. Now I’m recently divorced and miss feeling reckless and hot. But I don’t want to destroy my life trying to relive 2009. How do I get that spirit back without f---ing up my life or becoming a cliché?”

“Who cares about being a cliché?” Electra said, adding, “Go for it. If you’re in your 40s, you’re still so young. You need to go have fun, keep having fun, and live your life.”

Other readers’ questions ran the gamut, covering topics from threesomes and dating apps to six-packs and wooing women in their midlife.

Like her fellow Baywatch alumna Pamela Anderson, Electra kicked off her career as a bombshell and Playboy icon in the 1990s when Electra, born Tara Leigh Patrick, auditioned for an all-girl music group assembled by Prince.

Soon after, the late pop legend took her under his wing, launching her career and, in the process, bestowing a memorable new name upon her.

Her career quickly took off, with Electra starring in the original Baywatch series in 1997 and landing a role in the first installment of the Scary Movie parody film series soon after.

She posed for Playboy an impressive six times, including the Summer 2026 issue.

​In a video posted Wednesday after Electra’s advice segment, the model sat down with the magazine and shared her favorite featured issues.

​“Playboy will always be a part of my story,” she said. “I’m so grateful to share all these memories with you guys out there.”

​“I love being sexy,” Electra continued. “I love putting on that show of my sensuality. I’ve always been in touch with it.”

​Flipping to her 2009 cover, she said, “You know, listen, throughout my time in Playboy, I was never the skinniest. During that time, as I would say, the ’90s, early 2000s, the pressure was on to be skinny, super super skinny skinny.”

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​“I wouldn’t change anything for the world,” Electra asserted. “Having a thicker body than every other girl in Playboy, I wouldn’t change it for the world.”

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Cailey PetschHealth and Beauty Intern

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