Jillian Grace’s mom clearly gives new meaning to the saying, “A mother’s love knows no bounds”
By Traci Angel
While other teenagers’ parents were helping them fill out college applications, Jillian Grace’s mother, Katharine Walter, was trying to help her daughter achieve an entirely different goal: appear as a centerfold in Playboy. And it worked. Last month Grace had her very own spread as Playmate of the Month.
The drive began last year when Grace was finishing high school in Washington, Mo., and Walter wrote a letter to radio shock jock Howard Stern, asking him to help Grace achieve her longtime dream of posing for Playboy. “I started following the Playboy culture when I was 12,” Grace says. She recalls being inspired by A Tale of Two Bunnies, a movie about two women who made it as part of Playboy’s exclusive club. Stern’s staff invited Grace to the New York studio to be evaluated by a panel that included Playboy senior photo editor Kevin Kuster. She won them over with what was described as her “radiant smile, knockout natural body and soft-spoken, girl-next-door appeal.” Many Playboy wannabes have been evaluated on the Howard Stern Show, but Grace is the first to make the cut.
Grace became a certified personal trainer last fall but is hoping her national exposure and publicity tour over the last couple months will lead to a modeling career in Chicago, New York or Los Angeles.
