Katrina Darling Featured In Playboy’s September Issue

Courtesy Playboy/Marlena Bielinska

Katrina Darling, the 22-year-old burlesque dancer and second cousin of Kate Middleton, graces the cover of Playboy’s September 2012 issue and is featured in an 8-page nude pictorial inside the magazine.

The British beauty first learned of her royal relation shortly before Kate’s April 2011 wedding to Prince William via a phone call from a member of the UK press. “It was the most ridiculous thing I ever heard,” she says, laughing. “It’s not every day something like that happens.”

Lines began forming outside the underground clubs and cabarets where Katrina had been performing her own burlesque show, God Save the Queen, and the name of her routine suddenly took on a wonderful irony. “Burlesque is a platform for me to explore these kinds of things. The more into it the audience is,” says Katrina, “the more into it I am.”

Katrina continues to perform on stages throughout England and Europe, and has two upcoming US shows dubbed “A Royal Dream” at the Dream Hotel in South Beach Friday, August 31st and Dream New York Thursday, September 6th.

Her Playboy issue hits newsstands Friday, August 17th, with photos available online at www.playboy.com/katrina.