12 People Who Made Pimping Mainstream - Page 11

It should come as no surprise an album with the word “pimp” in the title is dominating the charts. Pimping is just another facet of the world’s oldest profession.

By now we all understand Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp A Butterfly is more of a metaphor. Nobody thinks K.Dot is whipping tricks with a coat hanger. Maybe a debt of gratitude is owed to these 12 people who made pimping mainstream.

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Photo: Top Dawg Entertainment/Interscope/Aftermath

Snoop Dogg

Before he was a football coaching family man, Snoop could regularly be seen with a French manicure and a few females on a leash. Go back and check 50 Cent’s “P.I.M.P.” video if you need a refresher.

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Hugh Hefner

Playboy magnate Hugh Hufner blurred the line between pimping and entertainment. Technically, none of the three women he simultaneously dated had to give him their money. Hef had enough of his own already. But membership at the Playboy Mansion definitely had its advantages.

DJay From Hustle & Flow

It was hard out here for a pimp with aspirations to rap. Much like his Lucious Lyon character, Terrence Howard perfectly played the role of a dandy egomaniac despite not seeming particularly gully.

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Bishop Don Magic Juan

The green is for the money, and the gold is for the honey. When he made himself more of a caricature, Bishop Don Magic Juan cashed in from his influence on Snoop Dogg and others.

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Dennis Hof

Now we’re getting into the true science of pandering for pleasure. Paying for thrills is legal in Nevada, and at Dennis Hof’s Moonlite Bunny Ranch, the stable of women have to kick in some earnings from every trick they turn. Hof pockets the profits from both the business and the HBO reality show Cat House.

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Heidi Fleiss

Like ‘Hov said, “Ladies is pimps too.” In the late ‘90s, Fleiss served 20 months of a 37-month sentence for tax evasion and attempted pandering in a high-profile case that involved celebrity johns like Charlie Sheen.

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Ice T

Before he picked up the mic full time, Ice-T was putting his pimp hand down. During his pre-rap days, Ice did everything from robbing banks to pimping to keep the dough coming.

Kristin Davis

Former “Manhattan Madam” Kristin Davis claims she was calling the shots when disgraced, former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer got caught tricking off with Alexandra Ashley Dupre.

Fillmore Slim

Despite a promising career as a musician, Clarence Sims says he was so drawn to the lure of breaking a broad he allegedly built up a stable 9,000 strong during his lifetime.

Iceberg Slim

Any talk of mainstream pimping begins and ends with Iceberg Slim. The man born Robert Beck allegedly pimped into his 40s, when he decided to put his chronicles into book form. The game isn’t to be told, it’s to be sold.

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Thomas Jefferson

While historians may take offense at Jefferson being included in such as list, the facts don’t lie. Sneaking into the slave quarters to illegitimately father their children and still making them work sure sounds a lot like pimping. It’s the American way.

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James Lipton

Yes, it’s true. Both in his memoir and during an appearance on Today, Lipton says he was a “mec” during his formative years in Paris. When prostitution was legal in post-WWII France, Lipton acted as more of a manager for a bordello of women for about a year.