Orville Peck stripped down for a series of steamy photos for Playgirl, becoming the magazine’s cover star and leaving very little to the imagination.
Peck is the first openly gay singer to appear on the cover of Playgirl, making the NSFW photoshoot a piece of queer history. The country western singer is best known for his cowboy aesthetic, complete with a hat and his iconic fringed mask. However, it seems that the hat and mask are about the only things he keeps on in these photos.
“Anything that plays with the OG trope of male strippers and images of what masculinity is supposed to be, tied to heterosexuality, is sexy,” Peck tells Playgirl.
The singer is no stranger to erotic photography, having previously embraced the sexy cowboy aesthetic for a 2024 photoshoot with Paper. The shoot channels classic rodeo imagery, as Peck appears alongside rodeo clowns and partakes in “bull riding” as he poses on a giant black latex balloon bull.
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2026 is proving to be a big year for Peck, with the singer set to release his fourth studio album, Mule, on September 18. Alongside this, he will make his feature film debut as the masked fighter Vega in the live-action adaptation of classic arcade video game Street Fighter, releasing later this year.
Peck’s previous albums include Pony, Bronco and Stampede, all of which have showcased his signature cowboy style. Mule is no exception.
With tracks titled ‘Already Gone’ and ‘Rehab Blues’, the record explores the singer’s experiences with addiction and sobriety and has been described by Peck as “a timeline of the year that I got sober.”
Peck reveals more in an in-depth interview with Playgirl, accompanying his steamy photos, discussing his sobriety journey, why he finds cowboys so desirable and the upcoming release of Mule. It is the singer’s hope that the album speaks to people in the community struggling with their own addictions.
“I hope that having an album that talks about it with openness and humor, as only a queer person probably could, about their hurt, opens a bit more awareness,” he tells Playgirl.
Peck adds, “Often we’re in spaces where drugs are commonplace, and maybe even a part of our culture. I hope we might have a bit more of a discerning courage to reach out to friends and say, ‘Hey, are you good? Is everything okay?’.”
Check out historic photos of Orville Peck and read his full interview over on Playgirl.
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