Arianny Celeste at the 2009 World Mixed Martial Arts Awards at The Joint in the Hard Rock Hotel on Dec. 30, 2009. Photo by: Scott Harrison/Retna/www.harrisonphotos.com
Even in the face of record unemployment figures, the Playboy magazine job-placement program remains alive and well in Las Vegas. The past two issues have produced one Strip headliner and given a former model and current UFC octagon girl an important entry on her entertainment résumé.
Claire Sinclair, all of 19 years old, is the latest guest star in "Crazy Horse Paris" at MGM Grand. She graced the cover of the October issue of Playboy. She'll be in the "Crazy Horse" center role from Thursday through Oct. 28, joining such famous topless guest dancers as Carmen Electra, Pamela Anderson and Dita Von Teese.
And in the November issue of the magazine, 24-year-old Las Vegas native Arianny Celeste is featured in a gauzy photo spread that was released Friday. Such exposure, physically and promotionally, will only help her in her quest to become a model/actress/singing star. She's a UFC octagon girl now, and a fine one, and also hosts "UFC Ultimate Insider," which is a show centering on mixed martial arts that appears on UFC.com.
"To be offered a chance to pose for Playboy and not take it," Celeste says, "would be stupid."
Sinclair has learned as much. Up until November she held a series of odd jobs (including a stint at a mall in Manhattan Beach where she worked as an elf, taking photos of kids with Santa) while attempting to break into a career as a pinup model.
Over time Sinclair became a popular figure in the fashion industry, and it helped that she had been noticed by Olivia De Berardinis, who used the female form as her favorite subject.
It also helped that De Berardinis was friendly with Hugh Hefner, which is not surprising given that De Bardinis often painted several beautiful young women who were trying to make a career of modeling. De Barardinis brought Sinclair, who had turned 19 that previous May, to a party at the Playboy Mansion.
Many 19-year-olds would wilt in such an atmosphere. Sinclair nearly did.
"It was intense and I was very, very nervous," Sinclair says. "All of the photos form that meeting, I never show to anyone because I have these huge armpit stains because I am so nervous. So Hef is introduced to me, and a few minutes later he asks for my name and number. I had no idea what was going on, but he just smiled at me and said, 'You'll be hearing from us soon.'"
The next day a Playboy staffer called Sinclair and asked if she would agree to take part in a test shoot. The test shoot led to the magazine cover, which caught the attention of "Crazy Horse" producers, who are always looking for a distinctly attractive guest star who can also bring notoriety to the show.
"I love dance, and I love burlesque," Sinclair says. "The thing with burlesque I that I find is a lot of it is posing. It's kind of a dance with poses."
Poetically, Sinclair has used the name "Clair Sinclair" as her professional name because she once dated a guy named Oliver Sinclair and her friends dubbed the duo "Clair Sinclair." Her real first name is Clarissa; she declines to disclose her last name.
"My sister came up with it, actually," Sinclair says. "It kind of rolls off the tongue. That's why I like it."
Arianny Celeste's name is similarly memorable, and is her given name. She's been modeling since she was age 16 and attending Eldorado High School, where she was a cheerleader and a member of the Student Council.
Celeste was actually "discovered" at Galleria Mall, which has produced far fewer Playboy models than the Playboy Mansion.
"This photographer working at one of those photo kiosks came up to me and said, 'I want to take your picture. You could be a model!'" Celeste says. "I was about 15 years old."
In 2006, Celeste beat out between 30 and 40 competitors to secure a spot as a UFC octagon girl. She is the second UFC girl to be featured in Playboy. Rachelle Leah was photographed for the November 2008 issue.
In four years, Celeste has ascended about as far as a young woman can as an octagon girl.
"I know I'm not always going to work in the UFC and, yes, I want to move on and head toward a career in entertainment," Celeste says. "I'm building a brand for sexy, beautiful fit women. I don't want to go into an (acting) audition and play a super-serious role. I'll play a sexy role. I'll even play a sexy-dumb role. Carmen Electra did that and has made a lot of money doing it."
Celeste has cut a single, a song called "Fight to Love Me."
"There is a lot of fighting in it," she says," but it is a love song."
And as Hugh Hefner himself would say of his Playboy graduates, what's not to love?