'Richardson', the famed erotica magazine, launched their 20th anniversary issue Friday, featuring Kim Kardashian on the cover shot by infamous, and equally erotic, photographer Steven Klein. The provocative spread brings together the mutual appreciation for nudity shared by Kardashian and Klein, and is captured in the hyper-real photography that Klein has used to captivate the fashion industry for decades. The shoot's concept was inspired by the film Perfect Blue, a Japanese animated psychological thriller that also happens to be celebrating its 20th anniversary.
Andrew Richardson founded the magazine in 1998 as a publication dedicated to sex and sexuality. While Kim's cover is in celebration of the magazine's 20th anniversary, this is only the ninth issue to be released. Other notable cover stars include Sasha Grey, Jenna Jameson, and Blac Chyna.
Richardson explained how his relationship with Kanye West allowed him to book Kim Kardashian's cover. “I basically was working with Kanye on a couple of projects, so I had met with Kim, and we’d had a conversation about it. That was about a year and a half ago. A lot of energy went into getting it to work and making it happen. It was very cool but logistically probably more challenging than anything we’d done before.”
In the written portion of the cover story, author Bret Easton Ellis interviews Kim on everything from her sex tape and her Paris Hilton days, to Donald Trump. While many of the answers were either expected or regurgitated, her remarks about her conservatism and her comfort level when talking about sex were quite unanticipated.
“I’m actually uncomfortable when I talk about sex, and I’m more conservative when it comes to that. But I’m vain like that. I can go on a set and be fully naked in front of fifty people doing a shoot, but if I’m one on one, intimate in bed, I’m like shy and insecure. I definitely have two different personalities like that.” Having graced the covers of several publications in her birthday suit, most notably that of PAPERin 2014, it was refreshing to read that even Kim Kardashian gets nervous when being intimate.
