Your trusted source

Hugh Hefner, American founder of the international adult magazine Playboy, has died at the age of 91, BBC reported.

Playboy Enterprises Inc said he passed away peacefully at home in Los Angeles, from natural causes.

Hefner began publishing Playboy in his kitchen in 1953. It became the largest-selling men's magazine in the world, shifting seven million copies a month at its peak.

With a bon vivant philosophy, urbane sophistication and sheer marketing brilliance, Hefner was an icon for the sexual revolution of the 1960s, the man-about-town embodiment of the lifestyle he promoted with gusto and a sly wink to readers, Fox News reported.

Hefner's trailblazing magazine helped make nudity respectable in mainstream publications, despite emerging at a time when US states could legally ban contraceptives.

It also made him a multi-millionaire, spawning a business empire that included casinos and nightclubs.