Rupert Murdoch's Sun tabloid 'quietly' drops topless women from Page 3

The U.K. paper's bare-breasted Brits are getting covered up after 44 years, Times of London reports

Yahoo News
Murdoch holds a copy of The Sun, Feb. 25, 2012 (Getty Images)
Murdoch holds a copy of The Sun, Feb. 25, 2012 (Getty Images)

The Sun, the U.K.'s top-selling newspaper, appears to have stopped publishing its topless "Page 3" models.

The Rupert Murdoch-owned tabloid has not featured the topless models since Jan. 16, directing readers looking for bare-breasted British women to its website instead.

Page 3, Jan. 20, 2015 (The Sun)
Page 3, Jan. 20, 2015 (The Sun)

Their absence in the print edition comes after a campaign of more than two years by women's rights activists asking The Sun to stop printing the photos — a fixture in the paper for more than 40 years.

"Boobs aren't news," the No More Page 3 campaign stated. "Stop conditioning your readers to view women as sex objects."

Through Monday, a Change.org petition launched by the campaign had gathered more than 200,000 signatures.

The Sun, which has long defended the controversial feature, would not confirm that the change is permanent.

"I am not confirming any change to Page 3," Dylan Sharpe, a spokesman for The Sun, told NBC News. "There will be no official comment."

But The Times of London, also owned by Murdoch, reported that the tabloid was "quietly dropping" the topless tradition.


On Monday and Tuesday, the women of Page 3 were clad in bikinis and lingerie.

"Page 3 will be in The Sun tomorrow in the same place it's always been," Sharpe tweeted, "between pages 2 and 4."


Meanwhile, the No More Page 3 campaign is cautiously declaring victory.

"This could be a huge step for challenging media sexism," the campaign said in a statement. "And we are so incredibly grateful to all of you who stood up and said No More Page 3."


Murdoch himself had hinted the paper might start putting clothes on its Page 3 models, soliciting feedback from readers on Twitter last fall.


According to The Times, the 83-year-old mogul was personally involved in the Sun's decision to drop the topless models.

For Murdoch, it may have been an easy one. In 2013, NBC noted, The Sun's Ireland edition dropped Page 3 girls "with no significant impact on circulation."

Not everyone is happy with it.

"I find it sad for the girls currently doing it," one former topless Page 3 model told NBC. "They're waking up today to news that they don't have a job."