Up Close & Personal: Natasha Yi

Our cover model make-up artist, Cathy Dang, has applied Yi's finishing touches on several previous photo adventures in the past; when Yi popped up at the Tuner party, an introduction was a must. We have Dang to thank for our acquaintance.

Although she may not have known it at the time, Natasha was the perfect fit for the cover of our April issue. There was just no way we were gonna let our readers miss out.

A month later, our interview is under way at Tuner's favorite Thai food restaurant. Since the photo shoot had already taken place, we decided to make it a dinner date.

In a restaurant filled with a lot of people, Yi drew a lot of attention from onlookers. (OK, we were seated next to the window, but at any rate, her beauty almost caused several pedestrian accidents.) As you're about to find out, her beauty is a quality that runs far deeper than her outer shell.

At the age of 21, this Korean beauty is one down-to-earth, passionate young lady that places family and friends ahead of everything.

2NR: I'm gonna start with the question I usually leave for the end of an interview, 'cause I know if I don't, everyone is gonna skip straight to the end! Are you going out with anybody?

NY: No, I'm not really looking for anybody, I just want to have fun right now. First off, I'm way too busy to have a boyfriend. Since I moved to Los Angeles four months ago, I want go out, have fun and make friends. If I were to say I am looking, then I would really need a guy that's cool with all my friends. It's kinda like my best friend that I live with--a guy who gets along with all my friends. We used to date, but now we're really good friends. He's real cool.

2NR: Any first date rules?

NY: I haven't dated since I moved here. I just hang out with my roommates and my friends all the time.

2NR: Here's a situation: Some guy you think is cute comes up to you and asks you out, are you gonna say, "OK, only if my roommates can go"?

NY: [Giggling] Yeah, I probably would say that. Well, I can't just leave my friends at home, we all moved out here and that would suck, because they don't know anyone out here but me.

2NR: OK, here's another question. Since you like to party, do you go out to meet guys, or just to have fun with your friends?

NY: I like to go out and have fun, whether it's meeting new people or just hanging out with friends. I mean I've met a lot of people here that I hang out with now--a lot of people I met at clubs.

2NR: OK, that sounds fair enough. How about giving me a bad dating experience that you have had in the past?

NY: I really didn't date that much, even in high school. OK, I can tell you one experience from high school. There was this one guy...I really didn't even date him, we were friends and he was new in town, so I would take him out, because he didn't really know where to go. Well, later, he started telling everyone we were going out and we weren't, we were just good friends.

I let him know and after that, we didn't hang out anymore, but later on down the road, I found out he was spreading all these rumors about me. It got bad, where his friends would come up to me and start saying, "I heard you're a bitch," and all kind of other things. I just kept thinking to myself, "What did I ever do to him to make him start saying all this crap about me?"

I can't really say that was a bad dating experience; it was just a bad experience that still comes back to me. He still pops up on the Internet just to talk shit about me. Guys like this have nothing better to do.

2NR: That sucks, 'cause now you're well known. What about a good dating experience?

NY: Oh yeah!

2NR: Judging by that response, it sounds like somebody got lucky on a first date.

NY: [Giggling] Hey! That's getting a little too personal!

2NR: That's 'cause I'm the only dirty bastard that would ask a question like that.

NY: Again, I was in this long relationship in high school and since I moved out here, I haven't been on a date with anybody, just hanging out with friends.

2NR: You said you just moved out here four months ago. Where did you move from?

NY: Denver. It's weird, 'cause my roommate is from Denver too, and when he got a job out here, he had to start right away. Well, I wanted to move out here too, so my two friends and I just upped and left our hometown.

We didn't even have a place to stay or anything, so when we got to L.A., we just drove around in our rental truck, looking for a place to live. We got really lucky, because we found a place that night and to this day, we still live there. Eventually, I'm gonna probably miss my dad, so I'll move back one day. I still go there a lot to visit him, though.

2NR: So what did your dad think about the whole Playboy thing?

NY: That got really ugly. I did Playboy when I was still in high school; it was actually at the end of high school, so it wasn't like I was at school when the first issue came out. I turned 18 a couple of days before the shoot. It's funny how it happened though, I was eating lunch in this fast food restaurant and a Playboy scout came in because they were holding auditions nearby and she came up to me and told me to come down and try out. The funny thing was, I didn't know Playboy had nudity.

2NR: Come on now! Everybody knows that Playboy is nude.

NY: No, I thought it was just lingerie and sexy girls. I had no idea about the nudity part, so when I went in for the shoot, they took a couple of test shots and then they told me to take my clothes off!

I took everything off except my top and bottom, but they told me I had to everything off. Eventually, I ended up just taking off my top and that was it, but I was all embarrassed. Think about it, I was still in high school! After a while, I felt comfortable because all the people behind the scenes were really professional about it, but after the shoot, I was telling them that I didn't think I was cut out to be a Playboy model 'cause my boobs were small.

2NR: What size were you then?

NY: Just one size smaller.

2NR: So those are bolt-ons?

NY: What do you mean by bolt-ons?

2NR: Implants.

NY: No! How come everybody says that?

2NR: So those are 34C! Oh my god, I thought they were fake this whole time. That's not small.

NY: Well, right now I'm wearing a bra, but they're 100 percent natural 34C now, but they were one size smaller when I first did Playboy. Back then, I thought they were small. I didn't know what was big and what was small. It's not like I went around high school looking at other girls' boobs.

2NR: I did. So now you're a natural 34C?

NY: Yeah, they weren't this big when I was 18, they just grew in the past year. When I first started modeling, I thought about getting implants, but I'm kinda scared about them.

2NR: I don't think you need them. Did your dad didn't know about the first shoot?

NY: No, he didn't find out until the second shoot. He found out 'cause somebody photocopied the second issue, typed a letter and mailed it to my house. I didn't know about the letter, but he didn't talk to me for a month, so I finally had to ask him why he wasn't talking to me. That's when he showed me the letter. I went to go live with my aunt in L.A. for the summer and we eventually started talking again. Now we talk at least three times a week. I told him I wasn't going to do anything stupid like pornography.

2NR: Whatever! I saw your porno. Just kidding, Dad.

NY: [Laughing] No, I haven't done anything that I regret.

2NR: Good for you. Any last words you want to say to our readers?

NY: Yeah, I'm kinda new to the import scene and I thought Hot Import Nights was really cool. I'm gonna try and make it out to more of them, so if you see me, stop by and get my new poster.

Who would have thought a lunch at a Micky-Ds in Denver would lead to Playboy stardom, then onto the cover of your favorite magazine you're holding right now.

Now that the mile-high queen has left her hometown for L.A.'s weird-and-wild life, she is ready to take the import market by storm. If you happen to be at one of the premiere events, be on the look out for this billboard of beauty--we know we will.