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Playboy playmate under fire for posing nude on sacred New Zealand volcano

By Shelby Lin Erdman, Cox Media Group National Content Desk

The summit of New Zealand’s Mt. Taranaki, a cone-shaped dormant volcano, is pictured here above the clouds. A Playboy playmate is at the center of a controversy for posing nude on the volcano because it’s considered a sacred place by the Maori tribe.

By Shelby Lin Erdman, Cox Media Group National Content Desk

A Playboy model is taking heat for posing nude on a sacred volcano in New Zealand.

Playmate Jaylene Cook, 25, climbed to the top of Mount Taranaki last week with her photographer boyfriend and posed for photos in the buff.

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Cook, who is from New Zealand, told the Taraniki Daily News that she didn't think she did anything wrong, but the Maori tribe and others said the act "disrespected the mountain."

"It's culturally insensitive and not what I would expect someone to do on the summit of Mt. Taranaki," Stratford mayor Neil Volzke told the paper.

He said he doesn’t believe the pictures, which are posted on Cook’s Instagram account, are “offensive or obscene,” but that it was inappropriate because of how important the volcano is to the tribe.

The top of the mountain is a sacred place to the New Zealand Maori.

"It's like someone went into St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican and took a nude photo," Maori tribe spokesman Dennis Ngawhare told the BBC.

The mountain itself is seen as an ancestor to the tribe because it's considered the burial ground of the tribe's ancestors, the BBC reported.

Cox Media Group

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