Never-before-seen nude photos of former “Dancing With the Stars” host Brooke Burke went on display at a Manhattan art gallery Thursday night — but not before the space received urgent messages from Burke’s legal team a day prior to the opening and assumed the babe’s barristers were trying to block the show.
The racy images, taken in 1995 by German photographer Andre Plessel, show an eye-poppingly buxom Burke in her early 20s at an old-timey, abandoned filling station along famed Route 66. In one pic, she wears no top with her arms aloft. In another, she sits in a giant tire with nothing on but a skimpy thong (as one does).
The show also features images of models Karolina Kurkova, Adriana Lima and Laetitia Casta. But before opening night at Lilac Gallery on Fifth Avenue, Burke’s legal team reached out to the Flatiron gallery to say they were searching for Plessel but hadn’t been able to track him down.
“They wanted to see the original releases Brooke signed to do this shoot,” said a source of the images, which had not seen the light of day for nearly 20 years. Plessel’s reps then consulted their own attorney, we hear, to confirm the artist legally owned the rights to the photos, which were originally taken for a German auto parts catalog (hence the charming gas station setting). The auto catalog, D&W, never used the images and the rights reverted to Plessel.
Her rep told The New York Post that Burke’s attorney, Loan Dang in LA, was calling Plessel simply to update her files.
“Since this [shoot] pre-dated Brooke’s legal team, they were inquiring about a release for their files,” said the rep, adding they have “no issue.”
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