There’s something titillating about a badass, admirable woman baring her breasts with confidence and pride. Throw in veteran credentials and political activism, and you’ve got a person who could rule the world.
Born in Oak Cliff to a Baptist family of 12 children, Chasity Samone's rise from “rebel child,” as her mom always called her, to U.S. Army veteran and now Playboy’s February Playmate renders her an anomaly, and she isn’t stopping there; Samone plans to run for office.
A graduate of Carter High School, Samone’s ROTC background led her straight into the Army after graduation. After three years in the military and one year inactive, she decided not to reenlist because of a growing distaste with the attitudes toward female soldiers.
“I didn’t like the way they treated women,” Samone says of the Army. “Obviously, the ratio in the Army from men to women is a big difference, so of course a lot of things were happening as far as not having a voice or not being able to win even a simple problem.”
Upon returning home to Dallas, she began to rethink her future. As she recollects, modeling somehow fell into her lap. After a friend posted a photo of her on Instagram, the follows began to stack up and suddenly she found herself featured as a “Muse of the Week” on Playboy’s website. Samone did a stint modeling in New York and finally took a chance by direct-messaging a casting director from the magazine. Her risk paid off. Next thing she knew, she was making plans to shoot her own spread.
“If you don’t tell someone you want to do something, then no one’s going to know,” Samone says, reflecting on the journey that followed. “It’s crazy, like, people don’t even believe I was in the Army,” she says.
Don’t let her high cheekbones and flawless, ebony skin fool you; this Oak Cliff native is far from your average Playmate. In becoming Playboy’s February Playmate, her unusual representation as a veteran bombshell and black, female advocate earned her place in the magazine’s first-ever “Equality Issue."
Samone says that, initially, the plan was for her to grace the cover of the quarterly “Speech Issue,” but she says the board of Playboy knew she was vocal about dark-skinned women being represented in beauty and fashion, so they changed the theme of her issue last minute.
"Once we had the chance to hear her talk about her goals and what makes her passionate, everyone agreed on the impact Chasity representing Playboy as a Playmate would have," says Kristi Beck, senior marketing manager for Playboy. "She is an incredible role model, and she spoke emphatically about so much that aligned with our values of free expression, equality and non-judgment. The collaboration was extremely creative — the moment Chasity mentioned wanting to reshoot the Darine Stern cover, it sparked a wave of inspiration for our team and the concept for her Playmate feature was born."
"At the end of the day, I’m a Playmate and I’m smart. And I’m going to be a politician.” — Chasity Samone
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“They were so nice,” Samone says of the publication's creative team. “They let me do some creative direction. I picked my photographer and let them know about my makeup artist, making sure that she was black. I told them I wanted to do a tribute to Darine Stern, the first black woman to pose for the cover of Playboy, and they brought in the chair from her shoot and everything.”
Despite her royal treatment from the magazine shoot, it wasn’t until the moment that Samone saw the issue for the first time that it really began to resonate with her. Not even the potential negative reception of becoming a nude model in a fundamentally conservative region could shake her. Samone does well to shrug off any negative feedback, saying that if she had experienced hatred, she “probably swept it under the rug.”
Her plans include a spectrum even broader than the one the Baptist-raised, soldier-turned-Playmate has lived so far. She hopes to eventually run for Dallas City Council and represent her home district in Oak Cliff, where she plans to put an end to redlining and fight for access to higher education for the youth.
“It’s kind of like, I still want to do the same thing I did in the Army,” Samone affirms, remembering the values her father instilled in her that constantly push her to fight for the people.
“I don’t want to join the military, but I still want to fight for people, just in a different way now. At the end of the day, I’m a Playmate and I’m smart. And I’m going to be a politician.”
