Once you’ve slipped off your clothes and bared all for the world to see in the pages of Playboy, just how scary could Fear Factor be?
That’s the question we posed to Playboy’s exotic Miss January 2002 Nicole Narain, one of six of the celebrated centerfolds who will go head-to-head with the halftime show of Feb. 3rd’s Super Bowl XXXVI on a special all-Playmate edition of NBC’s reality series. And for Nicole, the answer was simple: even fully (or at least partially) clad, Fear Factor‘s definitely the more nerve-racking experience.
“I’m used to the camera, and I’m comfortable with my body” said the 27-year-old stunner, who chatted with us while in her bed at her L.A. pad. (Ahem–We were on the phone, and Nicole was exhausted after a day of interviews at the Playboy Mansion and she still had to pack for a whirlwind trip to a pre-Super Bowl party in New Orleans the next day).
But Fear Factor was an entirely different story. “The first day blew me away,” Nicole revealed. “Especially the first stunt. Everybody did it–no one backed out!” The gorgeous model said viewers will be surprised at just how tough the Playmates had to be for stunts like walking a tightrope ten stories above traffic without a net. “If I was surprised, I think the guys who tune in will be just as blown away.”
Speaking of the guys who tune in, Nicole says this particular episode does depart from the form just a bit. “There’s definitely a lot more skin to be shown,” she laughed, pointing out that the competitors will be wearing bikinis. “It just makes it a bit racier.” She’s mum on other details, other than to point out that Hugh Hefner, alas, does not make an appearance and that the show’s trademark “gross-out” segment ranked high on an “ick” scale of one to ten. “Being that it’s us girls, it’s about an eight.”
Still, Miss January, whose exotic looks come by way of the fortuitous mingling of genes from her Guyanese mother and her Chinese-Indian father, didn’t regret taking the challenge. “It’s mostly just fun. It’s [the most] nerve-racking the day before, when you don’t know what’s going to happen. It’s the unknown…but for the most part it’s just a really good time.”
This despite the fact that the six Playmates, some of whom were or became Nicole’s pals, got a little intense, even cutthroat, when it came down to their fright-filled face-offs. “It was very competitive,” she reveals. “I was surprised.” She offered no hints as to whether any cat fights–or in this case Bunny fights–broke out, however.
Nicole first came to the attention of Playboy when a scout spotted her in a nightclub in her native Chicago. She went on to appear in Playboy-related material like The Book of Lingerie and a Girls of Mardi Gras video before finally being tapped to become a Playmate. Hefapproved her test shots, and soon she was a tri-fold in the middle of the world’s most famous men’s magazine.
She credits the rapport she built with the organization for her rise to full Playmate status, as well as the fact that “I’m never late, I never complain and I like [posing]!”
As for her plans for Super Bowl Sunday, Nicole expects to watch the game–and Fear Factor–at a party at Hollywood’s legendary Pig ‘N Whistle, then maybe head up to Hef’s mansion in Holmby Hills to check out the scene.
While they can’t join her at the Mansion, the Playmate thinks most viewers will be tuning in to her show as well. After all, she says, “Which would you rather do, watch Playmates in bikinis or watch U2 lip-synch?”
