Prez JFK sunbathing with naked women picture a hoax

TMZ  published a photo purporting to show John F. Kennedy frolicking on a yacht with a harem of naked women–except that the image actually appeared as part of a November 1967 Playboy photo spread, according to The Smoking Gun.

The TMZ hoax was billed as an “exclusive” featuring a photo that “could have altered world events” had it surfaced prior to JFK’s presidential campaign. “It could have torpedoed his run, and changed world history,” the site added. In reality, the photo appeared in story about Playboy’s “Charter Yacht Party: How to Have a Ball on the Briny with an Able-Bodied Complement of Ship’s Belles.”

While the Playboy photo is in color, the “Exclusive” TMZ image was simply reproduced in black and white.

According to the web site, the photo was “eventually given to a man who owned a car dealership on the East coast. The man kept it in a drawer for years, and would brag to friends he had an image of JFK on a boat with naked women. The man died 10 years ago and one of his sons inherited the photo.”

The site noted that “we believe the photo was taken in the mid-1950s,” likely while Kennedy was on a two-week “Mediterranean boating trip” with his brother Ted and Senator George Smathers. TMZ claimed to have consulted with “multiple experts,” including a forensic photo expert and two unnamed JFK biographers, as it sought to confirm that the late president was photographed surrounded by a quartet of naked women.

In an interview, Larry Dale Gordon, the Playboy photographer who took the yacht image, said that the man TMZ identified as Kennedy was a “paid model,” as were the naked women featured in the shot.