Lady luck paved Miss September’s road to Playboy centerfold

By Melissa Arseniuk

Friday, Aug. 21, 2009 | 7:14 p.m.

Playboy’s newest centerfold, Kimberly Phillips, says there’s nothing fake about her.

“Just my boobs,” she giggles.

The 22-year-old has never dyed her brown hair and, before becoming Miss September, had never ventured far from her native Southern California.

The Corona, Calif., native went to Chicago when she was 8 years old but since then she’s been a California girl to the core.

For her, posing for Playboy has been a gift.

Her month in the spotlight will see her return to Chicago and visit a handful of other cities, including Atlantic City, Seattle and, this past weekend, Las Vegas.

She did an in-store appearance at the Playboy store at the Forum Shops and attended the Midsummer Night’s Dream party on Saturday, too, before hosting at Playboy Club on Sunday.

Phillips’ weekend adventure also included a swanky suite in the resort’s fantasy tower and a chance run-in with Good Charlotte guitarist Benji Madden.

The Playboy experience has been a non-stop gift for the brunette beauty.

Ironically enough, it was a gift – two of them, in fact – that helped set the Playboy ball in motion.

While Phillips is a college graduate and had worked in her field, at a Montessori school, she was working at a restaurant when she met a man named Gary.

Gary became a regular of hers and they soon became friends.

“There was nothing going on,” Phillips says, stressing there was nothing more to their friendship.

One day Gary returned from a gambling getaway and made good on a promise he had made prior to the trip.

Before he left, he told his favorite waitress that if lady luck was with him on his trip, he’d buy Phillips a new set of girls when he got back.

“I told him that if he was expecting something in return or anything like that, that I wasn’t interested,” Phillips said. “I made that very clear.”

And when Gary returned, he reminded Phillips of his promise and offered to finance the surgery.

Phillips graciously accepted the gift.

“My brothers were furious,” she recalls. “They thought I slutted myself out or something.”

She insists she did nothing of the sort and that Gary was just a nice guy who helped her out.

The two actually lived together for a time – though Phillips insists they were “just friends.”

“I rented a room of his house,” she says.

Though she didn’t pay rent per se, she did pay for her utilities and cleaned as part of what she says was a platonic agreement.

“I was basically like the maid,” she says.

Gary’s gift not only changed Phillips’ physique; they also changed her life.

She went to her best friend’s house one day and together, the two staged a photoshoot and sent the pictures to Playboy.

“I knew I wanted a change,” Phillips says, “and I thought I was cute enough.”

She laughs as she recalls how she and her friend went to pick up the prints from a local drugstore.

“We went to Walgreens all incognito,” she says.

Phillips then had the same girlfriend send the pictures to the infamous pin-up magazine for consideration.

Despite her natural and surgically-enhanced beauty, the model says she was “insecure” about putting herself out there.

“I had (my friend) send them for me, using her address and everything,” Phillips says. She worried she would be rejected and didn’t want to get a thanks-but-no-thanks letter in the mail.

That letter never came.

Instead, Hugh Hefner’s people called Phillips people (her best friend since fifth grade-turned-photographer) two days later.

And the rest, as they say, is history.

Her photos were selected for the cover of the September issue of Playboy, which recently hit newsstands and subscribers’ mailboxes.

Phillips also moved into the so-called “Playmate House,” which is owned by Hugh Hefner and is located across the street from the infamous Playboy Mansion.

She shares the abode with five other women and says living there is “so much fun.”

Life in general is a lot of fun for Phillips these days.

And yes, through it all, she and Gary are still on good terms.

“We kind of fell out of touch for a while,” Phillips admits, but they always remained on good terms.

“I e-mailed him last week,” she says. “We’re still friends.”