The Real Reason Farrah Fawcett Never Wore A Bikini

Farrah Fawcett was one of the biggest stars of the 1970s, but it wasn't just due to her hit TV show, "Charlie's Angels." The blonde beauty, who died on June 25, 2009, at age 62, actually only starred in the ABC crime drama series for one season, playing gorgeous detective Jill Munroe alongside co-stars Jaclyn Smith and Kate Jackson.

While the show about three female detectives was an instant smash, Fawcett herself reached superstar status with a famous swimsuit poster that dropped in 1976, the same year "Charlie's Angels" made its debut on ABC. The pinup, which featured Fawcett with her head thrown back as she posed in a red bathing suit, sold millions of copies and became the best-selling poster of all time, according to Vanity Fair. But, one of the most surprising things about Fawcett's poster was that the swimsuit was a one-piece, not an overtly sexy bikini. And that move was all Fawcett's idea.

When photographer Bruce McBroom was commissioned to create Farrah Fawcett's poster, he was given strict instructions from the poster company, ProArts. McBroom revealed to Entertainment Weekly that he was told, "It's gotta be her great hair, she's gotta be smiling, she's gotta be in a bikini and they've gotta be drop-dead, sexy pictures." But, when Fawcett arrived for the shoot, she informed McBroom she didn't own a bikini. Instead, she appeared with her red one-piece, and he was forced to work with it. Luckily for all, it worked out.

In a 1984 interview with ABC News' Barbara Walters, Fawcett revealed she was "happy" she was able to pull off the shoot in a one-piece suit instead of a skimpy bikini. "I mean, certainly it's sexy because that's my figure, and my nipples were showing," she said. "But, that's me."

But there was actually a serious reason why Fawcett didn't want to wear a bikini. According to OK!, on the REELZ docuseries, "Autopsy: Farrah Fawcett," forensic pathologist Dr. Michael Hunter revealed that Fawcett suffered from "a little-known medical condition" — Pyloric stenosis — which resulted in surgery on her stomach at age 28, just one year before she posed for the poster. A source in the docuseries noted that Fawcett was "very self-conscious" about the large scar on her stomach from the surgery, which is why she refused to wear a bikini for the poster that would ultimately be seen around the world.

While millions of fans flocked to buy Farrah Fawcett's swimsuit poster (above), the creator of the red one-piece, famed designer Norma Kamali, was mortified. In an interview with Women's Wear Daily, Kamali revealed that the suit Fawcett wore was a "prototype" that was not properly tailored at the time. In a June 2021 interview on the "Behind the Velvet Rope with David Yontef" podcast, Kamali said Fawcett was a regular customer of hers, but she admitted that when she saw the poster, she couldn't believe the starlet had picked that particular swimsuit style for such an important photoshoot. 

"When I saw the poster, I was horrified because I did a lot of testing and I tested that style," Kamali revealed on the podcast. "I did six swimsuits, and I put it in the store and I thought, 'I'm not going to make that one again...it's not good. It's not. I don't like what I did.'" The fashion designer admitted she wondered why "out of all the suits" available did Fawcett choose that one. In the end, fans began requesting copies of the suit, so Kamali "fixed" the design to make it more flattering before releasing it for sale to the public.