Luxe Life Blog
Carmen Electra ready to go topless in Crazy Horse Paris at MGM
Carmen Electra at MGM's Crazy Horse Paris.
Photo: Denise Truscello
The sexy and gorgeous Carmen Electra, who has shed all her inhibitions on the cover and inside the pages of Playboy, is definitely going topless again tomorrow night when she begins her guest-starring run in Crazy Horse Paris at the MGM. There were rumblings that Carmen would keep her bra or pasties on, but she promises that it’s all coming off!
“I wanted to go for it. I didn’t want to cheat either the audience or myself,” she laughed with me yesterday as we sat on the theater stage before her rehearsals. “I’ve built a career out of going nude, so I have to do it. At first, they thought I’d want a bra, so they kept one out for me, but I honestly just wanted to go for it.
“Anyway, it’s empowering to be naughty nude. I always used to be super shy, but today, with some lessons from my good friend Jenny McCarthy, that’s all gone, so this is fun!”
Despite seven brutal days of long rehearsals that have left her sore, bruised and aching, the 37-year-old beauty says: “Now I’m here. They won’t be able to get rid of me! I love this show so much. I want to really be able to give it my all with a great performance and bare it all. I am never going to leave!”
Carmen Electra at MGM's Crazy Horse Paris.
Carmen said she first saw the topless and near bottomless revue about four years ago when she was a judge with choreographer Jamie King on Dance Fever filmed here in Las Vegas. “I knew that moment that sometime I had to do it. Everything about Crazy Horse Paris is so spectacular: the stage, the show, the lighting and the costumes. It grabbed me, and I knew it was for me.”
When Carmen returned to Las Vegas and MGM to film her second aerobic striptease keep-fit DVD collection, she saw Crazy Horse again. “I was mesmerized by it. I talked with Dita (Von Teese) about her guest appearance in the show, and I watched her video of it and knew it was for me -- but I worried I couldn’t fill her shoes. She gives me chills with her perfection. She’s so into the art, she’s hands on and even sews her own costumes,” said Carmen.
Then out of the blue, Crazy Horse executives in Paris and Las Vegas called her, and she said an immediate yes. Now she will guest star in two solo erotic dance routines and the cast finale tomorrow night through next Monday.
Carmen revealed: “You are going to see the two sides of me. I’ll perform solo in the Chain Gang number, which is wild and animalistic. I go barefoot behind the bars, so it is quite a workout. Then the other number, A Lesson in Eroticism, is completely different. I perform it on heart-shaped red lips, and it’s very sexy and very girly. I really enjoy the art of undressing for the seductive striptease.
Carmen Electra and Robin Leach at MGM's Crazy Horse Paris.
“Sexy to me is about being bold and having confidence, but I’m learning now how to be more subtle with it. I’m taking that subtle away with me. I know, Robin, you think of me as all bad boys rock and roll sexy, but the lesson for me from eroticism is that I can calm it down and then pounce instead of pouncing all the time. I’m so used to being over the top that I’m calming that down. I’ve learned how to hold my body that special Crazy Horse way with the slightly arched back and slightly bent knee. I’m actually unlearning a little of the ballet lessons that I started out with. I’m now using different muscles, and I’ll admit with seven days of rehearsals, I’m sore from head to toe.
“There are moments doing Chain Gang, I flash back to my early days. I studied ballet from fourth grade to ninth grade, from ages 9 to 14, but then I quit. My toes were bleeding, and it was really intense. I reached an age where as I progressed up the levels, I lost interest as I discovered jazz and hip-hop. My body started to develop. I got curvier in my hips, my lines filled out and I became brasher, so I lost interest in classical ballet. It just got to the certain point where it wasn’t my thing.”
I asked Carmen if she was more nervous about the dance moves or what to peel off and when! She laughed and said: “Once I knew the music, it was just learning how to hold my body in a different way. Getting onstage and really taking it off for an audience is so much different than going nude for a photographer one-on-one in a studio. This is the first time I’m going nude in public and for an audience. I love the intimacy of this theater because everyone is right there in front of me. I can almost reach out to touch them. That’s exciting to see them and make eye contact and get that response.
Carmen Electra stands on the judges' table on Dancing With the Stars.
“Even performing in the Pussycat Dolls, we would peel off a bra, but there’d be something less on underneath, or we’d take off the skirt but underneath we would have stockings on. I did Boom Boom Cherry with a group of dancers for a routine recently on Dancing With the Stars. It was more cabaret than stripping because we couldn’t be as sexy as we wanted having to stay covered up.
“So this time because I love the show and really respect everything about it, especially the ballet backgrounds of all the dancers, I’m just going to fulfill the fantasy. There’s not much to the costumes anyway, but watch in the finale when I’m with all the girls. It’s literally just a string of diamonds that hang right there in between.
“One of my girlfriends and I were like a couple of teenage boys peeping through the curtain backstage when I watched the dancers rehearsing for the first time. I hope I can look as beautiful and as perfect as they are.”
Five of the dancers from Paris have flown in for Carmen’s run. The Las Vegas lineup now also includes hometown hottie Krystal D’Arc, who won the first-ever Vegas audition for U.S. dancers in March 2008. She won the right to rehearse with the French troupe and then returned here to join the lineup in January.
Here’s the YouTube video of Carmen showing how she keeps that body so beautiful with her stripaerobics:
Carmen Electra's stripaerobics - from YouTube.com
I had to be cheeky and ask Carmen about the status of her engagement to Korn guitarist Rob Patterson. She was previously married to bad boy basketball star Dennis Rodman and rocker Dave Navarro. Carmen said: “We’re very happy. We’re taking it slow. We’re not in a hurry to change what we have, and I’m not dashing off to a Vegas wedding chapel again while I’m here!”
Rob Patterson and Carmen Electra at Wet Republic.
She summed up: “I want to really give a great performance. I’m so enjoying this, I’d love to stay here. I could happily live here, so I hope it winds up being much longer.”
We’ll watch the show, be with Carmen at her red carpet gala party Thursday and post Friday, so be sure to click back then for the titillating photos and report.
Robin Leach has been a journalist for more than 50 years and has spent the past decade giving readers the inside scoop on Las Vegas, the world’s premier platinum playground.
Follow Robin Leach on Twitter HERE.
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