Jaylene Cook is a model who posed for Playboy earlier this year. Oh, and also last week she caused a bit of a firestorm when she took a picture for herInstagram page on the top of an active New Zealand volcano (named "Mount Taranaki"), which also happens to be considered sacred by the indigenous locals, the Maori.
The uproar over Cook seemed to have gone away (at least I know I forgot about it) even though her picture still stands. But Cook found a way to create an issue once again by responding to somebody in her comments who told her the little stunt will now lead to a curse for life. Dang.
Note that it's probably good advice not to read the comments section, for any number of reasons (trolling, people you're not going to convince anyway, there's only so many minutes in your life, etc.) but if you have nearly 400k followers, it's definitely not advisable to call someone an "ignorant twat." Especially when they're part of the group that you've already been accused of offending. The comments have since been deleted, but not before they were screen-capped (of course):
Although there actually seems to be some dispute over whether the Maori are indeed indigenous, Cook told radio station Newstalk ZB that the very negative reaction to her post "surprised" her. She claims that both she and her boyfriend had done research before making the 9,000-foot climb.
She did admit that stripping nude for the picture was an improvised move, meaning she didn't clear it with locals first. "It was something that just happened. There was nowhere that we read, or were told that it was a bad thing to do—and we believe that it still wasn’t. We see nudity as art and natural."
Asked if she regrets taking the pic due to the backlash, she said, "No. because it doesn’t change my beliefs and my feelings towards the photograph. We have had overwhelming support from local Maori."
For the unaware *cough* me *cough* the Maoris, who are of Polynesian descent, have resided in the Southwest Pacific nation since the 13th century, which precedes British settlements by more than 500 years.
