(Image source: The Insider)

BY CHRISTINA MARTIN

ANCHOR JIM FLINK

You're watching multisource global video news analysis from Newsy.

Hollywood’s worst kept secret surfaced on Twitter Wednesday. KITV has the details.

YASMIN DAR: “We’ve known for a couple of months that Lindsay Lohan was gonna try to revive her image by posing for Playboy. For the first time, people actually got a chance to see it. The cover of the January-February issue leaked online and quickly went viral. No, we’re not going to show you; this is a family show.”

KITV might not want to show you, but we will. Here it is, courtesy The Insider.

This isn’t the first time LiLo has graced the cover of a magazine sans clothes--her first time was the cover of New York Magazine in 2008. A writer for ABC News points out the first time didn’t help her career--so how can the second?

“The magazine's online traffic jumped significantly, but Lohan didn't see much improvement in her career and her negative rating for celebrity likability actually increased. Other than easing her financial situation ... it's not clear how a Playboy spread will help her.”

But an Entertainment Weekly writer disagrees, wondering if a Playboy cover could push her career in a different, more profitable direction.

“Lohan could use this opportunity to transform from good-girl-gone-bad to bad-girl-gone-entertaining. In this day and age — when audiences can’t get enough of booze-fueled disastrous antics of the Jersey Shore cast — it’s not unthinkable that Lohan could carve out a fruitful career for herself as a professional trainwreck.”

Finally - a writer for The Globe and Mail says the leak might be planned.

“What no one is yet admitting is whether this apparent leak is actually some official, premeditated, milk-the-Internet-for-all-its-worth publicity stunt.”

Before the leak, Lohan was slated to unveil a sneak peek of the spread on the December 15th episode of The Ellen DeGeneres Show.