A Playboy model who has posed naked at the Vatican while holding a large wooden crucifix in the latest of a series of controversial photoshoots has been arrested.
Belgian model Marisa Papens is seen dragging the cross across a street with St Peter’s Basilica visible in the background – while nude.
Another of the pictures shows Papen sitting naked on some bibles on the wet cobblestones of St Peter’s Square while other snaps show her tied to the cross.
Papens made global headlines when she was imprisoned after posing naked at the Karnak Temple Complex near Luxor, Egypt.
She also caused outrage in Israel when posing in front of Jerusalem’s Wailing Wall and in Turkey when she lifted up her burka inside Istanbul’s iconic Hagia Sophia, a former Byzantine church and Ottoman mosque which is now a museum, to reveal her genitals for a cheeky picture.
Papen and Australian photographer Jesse Walker, who runs the ENKI Eyewear brand and took the snaps in Egypt and Turkey, have reunited for another controversial photoshoot as part of an ENKI sunglasses campaign and for a soon-to-be-announced personal project.
Jesse told Central European News (CEN): “I have a talented friend, Lucas, in Bali that makes beautiful high-end teak furniture.
“He made it (the crucifix) so it comes apart and bolts together in three pieces. A life-sized collapsible teak crucifix.”Getting it in an out of Uber vans was hysterical, the drivers didn’t know what to make of it, but you know the Italians are lovely people, so it was no big deal to them.”
Unfortunately for Papen and Jesse, in St Peter’s Square they were chased by the Italian police who witnessed the photoshoot.
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The duo was taken back to the police station, but was eventually released some 10 hours after their arrest after police took their fingerprints and mugshots at the local courthouse.
