TMZ JFK Photo Hoax Not OK

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Gossip-meister TMZ, the Web site and cable tv uncoverer extraordinaire of celebrity scandals, this week saw its JFK risque photo exclusive dissolve into a hoax before its star-crossed eyes.

On Dec. 28, TMZ.com trumpeted an "Exclusive" black & white photo (http://www.tmz.com/page/3/) that supposedly showed John F. Kennedy sunning himself in a chaise lounge on a yacht that was overflowing with frolicking nubile naked young women (the best kind of nubile frolickers extant). The back story was that the photo was purportedly taken in the 1950s and in the Web site's words, could have altered world events had it surfaced before JFK's successful presidential run in 1960. Supposedly, the photo came into the possession of the son of an East Coast car dealer who kept the photo in his drawer for years. TMZ  was buoyed in its belief that it had a blockbuster scoop because it allegedly consulted with two JFK biographers and a forensic photo expert.

Alas, the "blue" black & white photo was actually another version of a color photo spread (no pun intended) from the November 1967, issue of Playboy. Larry Dale Gordon, the lucky photographer who shot the Playboy yacht photo, confirmed that a paid model, decidedly not JFK, appeared in the photo along with a variety of topless and bottomless young women.

TMZ ran a "Man in Photo is not JFK" item on its Web site once its "gossamer get" disintegrated.

Best to stick with Charlie Sheen, Lindsay Lohan, et al. and leave dead Presidents be.