Playboy model angers tribe by posing naked on sacred New Zealand mountain

Model Jaylene Cook posted the picture on Instagram earlier this week
Instagram (Jaylene Cook)

A playboy model has been blasted as “culturally insensitive” after posing fully naked on a sacred Maori mountain in New Zealand.

Model Jaylene Cook stripped down to nothing but her trainers, gloves and a hat on top of New Zealand's Mount Taranaki for an Instagram photo.

But the picture has been branded “disrepectful”, with the volcano considered sacred by the local Maori tribe.

It was taken when Ms Cook, who is from New Zealand, climbed the mountain with her photographer boyfriend Josh Shaw earlier this week and was posted to the model’s 300,000 followers on Instagram.

Ms Cook has defended the picture, sayings she was aware of the mountain’s cultural significance and did not believe it to be offensive.

Model Jaylene Cook has almost 300,000 followers
Instagram (Jaylene Cook)

Maori academic Dennis Ngawhare told Stuff.co.nz: “I’d imagine you will be getting a few comments from people saying, ‘What’s wrong with that? Who cares?’

“But I also know cousins and relatives who will be quite upset about it. They would consider it as being disrespectful towards the mountain.”

Local Maori consider the volcano the burial ground of the tribe's ancestor and is itself seen as an ancestor.

Alongside the photo, the model posted: “This climb has forever changed me. I proved just how far I could push myself and I am truly proud of my accomplishment.

“This mountain was steep, rugged, ever changing and just pure brutal! Safe to say, I will never do it again.”

After criticism emerged she told the Sun: “[The photo’s] not crude or explicit in any way. We made ourselves knowledgeable on the history of the mountain. We were quite respectful.”

Fans have jumped to model’s defence on social media, with one Instagram user calling for critics to “get off her back” over the “completely normal photo".

In 2015, a group of travellers were arrested and thrown in a Malaysian prison for stripping naked on top of a sacred mountain.

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