Lindsay Lohan Playboy Issue ’Breaking Sales Records’ Despite Being Leaked [PHOTOS]

By Nadine DeNinno | December 18 2011 7:05 PM

Despite having the photos leaked just two weeks before the release date, the Lindsay Lohan Playboy issue is not only selling well but breaking sales records for the men's magazine, according to Playboy founder Hugh Hefner.

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Former child star Lindsay Lohan is now all grown up. She was recently scored the cover of Playboy magazine and was reportedly paid $1 million for the shoot. Lohan's Playboy pictures were leaked online before the issue's release date and once the magazine hit stands reports were that sales were still strong.

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The Lindsay Lohan January-February Double Issue is breaking sales records, Hefner posted on his Twitter account on Sunday.

While Playboy did not release the numbers in sales of the issues, a spokesman told CNN the issue was selling very well.

Lohan, 25, was rumored to have been paid $1 million to appear nude in Playboy in a photo shoot reminiscent of Marilyn Monroe's 1953 spread which was the cover of Playboy's debut issue. According to records, Monroe was paid only $50 for the 1949 photo shoot which helped her rise to fame thanks to Hefner.

Hefner has an eye for selecting cover girls although at first he was wary about putting Lohan, who has dominated the limelight over the years not with her acting career, which some say is flailing, but for her frequent court appearances, drug rehab stints and jail time.

After quelling Lohan's mother, Dina, into accepting the offer for her daughter to pose nude for the magazine, Lohan underwent her first nude photo shoot for Playboy. However, Hefner did not like the initial spread and had the actress re-shoot the pictorial, the second time in the light of her idol, Monroe, Hefner's idea.

The pictorial and the concept for the pictorial came from me, Hefner told E! News in early December. She had done semi-nudes before. I wanted to do something that would be memorable. So what is more natural, since she is a huge fan of Marilyn Monroe, than [doing] something that is a tribute to the red velvet, Tom Kelly photo shoot of Marilyn Monroe that was our very first Playmate?

The photo shoot, which has magazines flying off the shelves according to CNN reports, features a blonde Lindsay Lohan with just red lipstick and black pumps lying on red velvet, a la Monroe.

The shoot was initially leaked on Dec. 7, just days before Lohan was scheduled to appear on The Ellen DeGeneres Show to debut the cover. While the leaked photos are much more scarce since the issue was released, you can still see the Lindsay Lohan Playboy spread here, at UrbanIslandz.com.