Between talking about her high-profile split from Danity Kane and addressing the recent rumors about her sexual preferences, Aubrey O’Day has been all about displaying her personal life in a very public fashion lately.

But for the singer who was kicked out of the group for allegedly hogging the spotlight with her over-the-top antics, those mini-dramas pale when compared with her upcoming photo spread in the March issue of Playboy magazine.

While spokespeople for the magazine refused to confirm the shoot when news about it first broke in late November, O’Day spoke freely with MTV News about the images.

“I’ve done the cover of Playboy,” she said late in December. “You know, I think thatPlayboy for me was one of the most liberating things that I’ve done as a woman.”

Scanning the pics on her Macbook laptop while chilling in Costa Mesa, California, O’Day showed off the results of her session with photographer Markus Klinko, who has done portraits of Mariah Carey and Pamela Anderson in the past and who shot the cover of Beyoncé’s 2003 album, Dangerously In Love.

“You could never imagine how empowering it is to be nude in front of cameras and have people looking at you in that way and seeing you as beautiful,” she said. “A lot of the times I think I’m seen as a bad girl and I think that’s because I’m so open.” O’Day said she only agreed to the shoot because Klinko was involved and because they both wanted something that was “classy, iconic and truly beautiful.”

Taken amid sessions for her solo debut, O’Day said she was surprised at the negative repercussions from her earlier, revealing shoot for Complex magazine, which is reported to have played a role in Diddy’s decision to drop O’Day from the group. O’Day said she was merely playing a character in the pictures, in which she’s seen hugging (and, er, licking) a stripper pole while topless and modeling underwear in various stages of undress.

“I mean, I think a lot of the type of way I’m portrayed in the media isn’t always the way … the way I am in my heart,” O’Day said about the negative stories about her exploits in the press. “And so I think that we were able to capture that. … I think in society we tend to put ourselves in boxes and corners and restrict ourselves, and we constantly feel the need to not say this or not wear this or do that.

“Taking it all off and being nude is the most natural state that you can be in,” she continued, “and being able to feel comfortable with that and show that sex can be beautiful, comfortable … is going to be empowering for people.”

cred: MTV