Dean Cain recalls seeing his model mom nude in friend’s ‘Playboy’

Dean Cain is totally comfortable with his mother’s modeling career.

The Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman star shared his memory of his mom’s early work, which included a nude Playboy photo shoot, in a conversation with Michael Rosenbaum on his Inside of You podcast.

“Mom’s hot. Yeah. There’s no question,” Cain said, explaining that his mother was crowned Miss Michigan International Speedway and worked as a Playboy Bunny at Playboy Clubs. “She’s 78. But if you and I and, you know, four other people went to dinner and you took a glass of red wine and you just kind of swiped it under her nose, she’d be on the bar dancing.”

Rosenbaum asked Cain about the extent of his mom’s Playboy tenure, and the actor confirmed that his mother “did have one photoshoot” during her time on Hugh Hefner’s payroll.

“Naked?” Rosenbaum asked.

“Well, let me explain. Yes,” Cain responded. “But backside, looking back over her shoulder with a see through negligee on, you know, back when Playboy was a little more discreet.”

Cain went on to recount his childhood friend excitedly beckoning him to behold a collection of explicit photos. “I’m in fifth grade and my buddy calls me up and he’s like, ‘Dean! Dean! Come over to the house right now!'” the actor said. “My buddy was [like], ‘You gotta come over the house. I found my dad’s old Playboys and I put them all in photo albums.”

Cain accepted his friend’s invitation and looked over his Playboy collection. “He goes, ‘Look at this!’ He opens it up and he’s like, ‘Look at her, whatever, blah blah,'” he remembered. “And he flips the page and he goes, ‘Look at her ass!’ And I go, ‘That’s my mom.'”

The actor noted that he was already familiar with the photograph in question by the time his friend discovered it. “My mom had that picture next to her bed and everything, you know, so I knew it was there,” he said. “I had seen my mom’s picture because it was next to the bed [in] her bedroom, but the kids hadn’t been up there, my friends hadn’t gone to my parents’ room.”

Rosenbaum asked, “How embarrassed were you?”

Cain said that he didn’t feel scandalized by the situation, but his friend didn’t realize that the photo was Cain’s mother. “Oh, no. Wasn’t even embarrassing. Didn’t even think twice about it,” the actor remembered. “I was like, ‘That’s my mom, dude.’ And he was like, ‘What?'”

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The former Ripley’s Believe It or Not host said that his friend was incredibly entertained by the mix-up. “We laughed for probably an hour,” he said. “We probably laughed so hard, I don’t think we spoke for 40 minutes. And Darren Perman, if you’re listening, you know it was you, buddy.” 

Listen to the conversation between Cain and Rosenbaum above.