Hugh Hefner: I Pushed Lindsay Lohan to Go Fully Naked for Playboy

What Hugh wants, Hugh gets.

When Lindsay Lohan signed on for a cover shoot for Playboy magazine, the 25-year-old star and her team blanched at the prospect of going all the way.

PHOTOS: Playboy's sexiest celeb models

"I think it was essentially mama [Dina] and the folks around her that kept pushing for less nudity," the mag's founder, Hugh Hefner, told E! News of rumors that he convinced Lohan to go fully naked.

And I said, 'We're doing a nude pictorial here. We're going to do it in a very classy way and we're going to do it in a way in which it will not be forgotten.'"

PHOTOS: How Lindsay's face has changed

And indeed it won't. In a tribute to her idol Marilyn Monroe's iconic Playboy pics, the blonde-again star posed against a red-velvet background with bright-red lipstick and a sexy pair of pumps. "The pictorial and the concept ...came from me," Hefner said.

Still, even Hefner himself initially worried about featuring the erratic star who's been infamously plagued by legal problems and drug and alcohol struggles.

PHOTOS: Hugh's broken engagement in 2011

"It really came as a surprise to me," he said. "I kind of had mixed emotions about it initially ...I wasn't quite sure where she was at in her life, obviously. It depends on whether it's Tuesday or Thursday."

MORE FROM WONDERWALL:

Titillating, Tired or Tragic? Lindsay's Butt-Nekkid Playboy Pics Leak

Best Celeb Mug Shots

Lindsay Lohan's Path to Playboy