Britney Spears was shot in her teenage boudoir, Angelina Jolie got her tatts out in a hotel room, Cameron Diaz went skinny dipping, Kathy Burke ’ad a fag and David Beckham was put on the back-burner in favour of a model called Christina Estrada. Welcome to part two of Loaded’s greatest covers.
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Cindy Crawford
March 1997
Cin city
A Who’s Who of ’90s models, this issue had Crawford on the cover with the innards featuring Claudia Schiffer, Eva Herzigova and Helena Christensen. The edition also saw Howard ‘Mr Nice’ Marks, in his regular column, declare his plan to run for parliament – prompting the headline: ‘That’s all we need, another dopey MP’. Loaded had reached such a peak Vanity Fair announced it was a vital part of Cool Britannia – in its issue splashed with the words ‘London Swings! Again!’ above a picture of Liam Gallagher and Patsy Kensit in bed under a Union Flag duvet.
27
Judge Dredd
April 1997
Dreddful
The Mega City One lawman created to satirise creeping state authoritarianism in pre-Thatcherite England celebrated his 20th birthday by landing a Loaded cover. The bargain cover price of £2.60 was hailed by the magazine as ‘cheaper than acid’.
28
Jo Guest… again
May 1997
Huh-uh-huh
The issue was put together just before New Labour’s landslide win on May 2, 1997. John Major and Tony Blair are cast here as Beavis and Butthead (Major as Butthead; Blair as Beavis) to mark the occasion, with Loaded’s incisive political analysis summed up by the cover line, ‘Uh-huh, you said election’. Jo Guest lowered the tone by sitting on a chair in suspenders, but inside Helen Mirren did her bit and spoke up for feminists.
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Harry Hill
June 1997
Fresh lunacy
The former doctor’s cover repeated the enquiry used to introduced the magazine: ‘What fresh lunacy is this?’ Along with Hill riding a badger, the issue saw the formation of Loaded’s first AA group – the Arses Appreciation society.
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David Beckham
September 1997
Beck of the cover
Sorry, Dave. Your interview was just too boring to land you on the cover alone. The first time Loaded interviewed Goldenballs they decided he wasn’t forthcoming enough, so as punishment they superimposed a picture of model Christina Estrada over his curtained face. Becks’ biggest revelation inside was that he and Posh Spice were like “Liam (Gallagher) and Patsy (Kensit) – but for the kids”. In case you were wondering what became of her, Estrada is currently minted after she divorced a Saudi billionaire.
31
Kathy Burke
October 1997
Deja vu
Burke’s pose with a fag echoed the shoot on the cover of Issue 1 featuring Gary Oldman. The Oldman shoot was a pastiche of photographer Brian Duffy’s iconic Sixties portrait of Michael Caine, and Burke takes the parody further. She ’as a fag, with Waynetta Slob’s catchphrase splashed across the image. Inside, Burke continued to have several more fags and glasses of wine while saying things such as, “I’m not Pamela Anderson, I’m Kathy fucking Burke and if people don’t like it, they can fuck off.”
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Ian Brown
February 1998
King monkey
Brown’s pet primate Billy Bean spent the singer’s cover shoot shitting on his shoulder and scratching his skin so badly he drew blood. Brown shrugged off the shit while mouthing about how he was on a “one-man crusade to destroy cocaine” because “coke users are pussies”. According to Brown, Oasis were piss-poor, boring and no better than Status Quo.
33
Dennis Hopper
March 1998
Queasy rider
Hopper was holed up in a bomb-proof metal shed in LA when he met Loaded, drinking green tea with his fifth wife. Then aged 62, Hopper spoke of his long battle with alcohol, but added he never regretted his life and ended the chat with his two-word philosophy: “Fuck you”. He lived for another 12 years after giving this interview.
34
Ulrika… Ka Ka
May 1998
Cuff justice
Apparently Jonsson acted ‘fucking mental’ in her chat about sex, drugs and the benefits of having “massive tits”. Maybe that’s why the photographer decided to chain her up. The magazine also dispatched a team to spend time at Jamaica’s nudist resort, Hedonism II. And the daddy of Gonzo, Hunter Stockton Thompson, started to write for the mag, after ringing the office to say he loved it.
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Mel C
July 1998
C-cup
Football got an intellectual treatment again as France hosted the World Cup, with Sporty Spice covered in gold paint to mark the tournament. Further in, Rod Stewart admitted to pleasuring himself to his own songs. (No need for a Handbags and Gladrags joke.) At this point, Loaded was shifting more than 450,000 copies a month.
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Alan Partridge
October 1998
Uh-huh
Steve Coogan’s first appearance in Loaded was much like his second. This time he appeared as his alter ego Partridge, book-ended by showgirls. When he later fronted the comedy special in 2011, aged 45, he was photographed putting his hands over then-21-year-old Page 3 girl Elle Basey’s breasts. He ended up going out with Basey for a while. Ah-urgh.
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Cameron Diaz
February 1999
Cam on
Five months before There’s Something About Mary came out, Diaz did her first and, as far as we know, only fully-frontal magazine shoot. She paddled naked in a swimming pool while chatting about how she liked it rough, loved guns and nearly died after a night drinking 30-year-old sake.
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Pamela Anderson
March 1999
Pammy’s back…
This appearance was inevitable, what with Baywatch, her sex tape and Playboy shoots. Regular feature Dice Man was also introduced in the issue. It was based on Luke Rhinehart’s 1971 novel The Dice Man, about a psychotherapist who casts dice to make decisions. Loaded called it “the novel of the century”, and the adventures of their own “dice man” saw reporter Ben Marshall rolling dice to determine where his life would go. He went as far as taking heroin and persuading a girlfriend to audition as a stripper.
39
Catherine Zeta-Jones
May 1999
Catty
The 61st issue featured a cover re-run of a Catherine Zeta-Jones’ photoshoot first printed in Loaded in 1995. Other Loaded picture sets revisited in the birthday issue included one showing Kate Moss holding a teddy bear and wearing just her pants. A pre-adulterous Tiger Woods also appeared.
40
Sara Cox
July 1999
Flaky
Sara Cox held a giant ’99 ice cream, because 1999 was melting away, we suppose. There were some planets in the background, perhaps because of the approach of the millennium. Inside, Howard Marks hit the road with fellow Welshmen Stereophonics and ‘Keananu’ Reeves was interviewed.
41
Jenny McCarthy
August 1999
Run for the hills
The Loaded Goes to Hollywood edition had a clear theme. Jenny McCarthy of Playboy fame fronted the edition, and inside there was an interview with disabled porn mogul Larry Flynt. Flynt told the magazine he was just nine when he decided to fuck one of his granny’s chickens.
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Tupac Shakur
January 2000
Thug life
The millennium was marked with 100 different covers, from Tupac Shakur and Steve McQueen to Mary Whitehouse, The Simpsons, Lara Croft and the late Roger Lloyd-Pack. Founding editor James Brown had left the title in 1997, fearing he’d become a drink and drug addict if he stayed. By this stage, at least two of the Loaded staff had gone into rehab.
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Britney Spears
June 2000
Brit pop
Britney was persuaded to do her best Lolita act at the age of 18 for this Loaded shoot in a mock-up of her bedroom, complete with cuddly toys. The magazine can’t be blamed – it was Spears’ idea to exploit her youthful sexuality by dressing as a schoolgirl in her video Hit Me Baby (One More Time.)
44
Angelina Jolie
August 2000
Jolie nice
This was Jolie before her damehood, global humanitarian campaigning, rainbow brood and Brad Pitt. In 2000, she was all about drugs, knives, hotel room nudity, tattoos, cars and the beauty of sex with anybody, anywhere – especially in trucks. The interviewer got in trouble with Jolie’s dad Jon Voight after the actor spotted him creeping into his daughter’s hotel room at night and mistook him for a drug dealer. Jolie also addressed the rumours she had an incestuous relationship with her brother, while she brandished a large knife.
45
Mel B
October 2000
Buzzing
Brown acted like her ‘Ya’ Bastards!’ caricature in Bo’ Selecta! by howling deafeningly during her interview about lesbian sex, oral sex, farting, multiple orgasms and kissing the Spice Girls. She also denied she’d ever shagged Geri Halliwell.
46
Al Pacino
November 2014
The reluctant don
Quite the gap in our covers coverage, but the tits ‘n’ ass years from 2000 to around 2014 are best glossed over. Loaded was bought by a series of companies (including one with a sideline in porn) who perpetrated misguided attempts to rival weekly “jazz mags” Nuts and Zoo. They forgot the quality writing and humour that defined the original magazine and packed covers with no-mark glamour girls. This edition, fronted by Al Pacino, was Loaded back to its roots. Pacino explained why The Godfather was the role he never wanted and how booze wiped out a decade of his memories. Kill Your Friends author John Niven started a regular column, Jack Dee took on his role as agony uncle and Julie Burchill was agony aunt. The magazine also sent female journalists to the frontline against ISIS, and they embedded themselves with a group of female fighters battling the fanatics.
47
Idris Elba
December 2014
The name’s Elba
The tone was now firmly raised. Actor, style guru and king of cool Idris Elba fronted The Icons Issue, talking about racism and how fame made him feel as if he was in The Truman Show. Loaded’s new Men of the Year poll launched, which saw tragic Philip Seymour Hoffman voted No 1.
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Ben Affleck
January 2015
Unmasked
New Batman Ben and his wife Jennifer Garner spoke in back-to-back interviews and hinted at strains in their family life. Five months later their marriage went the same direction as the reviews for Daredevil. Michael Caine told how Hollywood bosses once thought he was gay and Muhammad Ali’s daughters revealed they have already written their father’s epitaph.
49
Kasabian
February 2015
Eez-eh
Loaded celebrated its 250th edition with Kasabian, who helped design the cover. Christian Bale told the new-look title why he didn’t feel “likeable enough” to be a mainstream movie star while Carl Barât talked depression, drugs and Pete Doherty.
50
Léa Seydoux
March 2015
Double ooh
A Bond girl – and woman – special, with Spectre stars Léa Seydoux and Monica Bellucci both shot and interviewed exclusively for the magazine. Big names returned in droves for interviews, with Cameron Diaz, Jennifer Lopez, Patricia Arquette, Stephen Graham, Jamie Dornan and Eddie Redmayne also starred in the spring issue.
51
And finally…
Noel Gallagher
April 2015
Don’t look back in anger
It’s a brave new digital world, so this was the last print edition before Loaded relaunched here as an online magazine. The Gallagher edition, issue number 252, was on sale until the beginning of May, giving Loaded a 21-year print run. This final edition looked much like the Gary Oldman-fronted first issue, minus a cigarette in Gallagher’s gob. Old regular Irvine Welsh returned to Loaded to put questions to Noel about important issues such as pink jumpers and drugs. Gallagher revealed in a separate interview in the issue that he would like his epitaph to read, ‘Here lies Noel Gallagher. He had it more than you’ – much like Loaded magazine.