In 2018 a twitter user claimed that Jawahar Lal Nehru gave interview to Playboy magazine in 1963 after the 1962 war with China. The day was the birth anniversary of Nehru and soon there was an uproar on the comment on social media. There were comments from Congress and BJP and the Congress claimed that it was an attempt to malign the image of Nehru.
However later several News and Media companies did a Fact check and found there was indeed a printed Interview of Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru in October Edition of Playboy Magazine in 1963. A four page long interview was published by various news outlets from the playboy edition, that had questions ranging from Gandhi, issues of democracy, population, Cold war politics, World religion and others. It was a detailed interview and cannot be adjudged as a matter of imagination by the interviewer. The magazine had already done interviews of prominent world leaders like then President of US Jimmy Carter, Malcom X, Fidel Castro, The Beatles, Martin Luther King Jr., Jimmy Hoffa, George Wallace, Henry Miller and Cassisus Clay (who later adopted the name Muhammad Ali).
However the first interview for any head of state they printed was of Jawaharlal Nehru in their Oct 1963 edition and instantly that became a controversial issue. The Indian government banned the magazine in India immediately and then Indian embassy claimed there was never an interview for the magazine. They also claimed that the interview has information from what is available in public domain already.
The magazine refuted the claim of then Indian embassy and said the interview was submitted by a well-known journalist of that time who has done such interviews of world known personalities of that time. They claimed that the interview was received on recorded tapes with pictures of the journalist and Nehru together. Thus the interview was published in good faith. As the magazine was not able to reach the journalist again, so they published the statement of the Indian embassy also.
The interview was indeed published and the same is confirmed by various sources of World media; however whether the interview was really given for the magazine by Nehru, is never proven.
After the controversy and the ban on the magazine, the Oct 1963 edition was the most sought after smuggled goods in India at that time and sold at very high price. Later Rajiv Gandhi also had similar incident with another Magazine – Penthouse, and he also mentioned that he had no idea that the interview was for such magazine.