“You don’t need to be shy”: Why Bottas launched a nude calendar for charity

Valtteri Bottas has launched his own calendar – ‘Bottass 2024’ – and the extra ‘s’ gives a clue what it contains.

Indeed the nine-times grand prix winner, who caused a stir by publishing a naked photograph of himself on social media last year, has gone a step further and released a calendar of nude portraits of himself.

He launched the calendar a week ago at an art gallery, with attendees of the launch able to see scaled-up prints of the photos being used. Bottas said the reaction to the first photograph inspired him to create the calendar for charity.

“So last year when I launched that one photo in Aspen, it was quite popular,” he told media including RaceFans at last weekend’s Las Vegas Grand Prix. “And we actually raised quite a bit of funds.

“I did quite a bit of stuff with Paul Ripke, he’s a good friend, the photographer. We started to joke about the idea, imagining if there’s like a full calendar.

“Then closer to November – ‘Movember’ month – we started to think actually that’s something we could do, something really, really good, and decided that ‘yeah let’s do it, but for charity’.”

Bottas is selling his calendars via Bottass.com. They’re priced at £18, with £5 from each sale going towards prostate cancer research.

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“Since the launch, which was a couple of days [ago], it’s about €50,000 we’ve raised and counting,” said Bottas last week. “The aim is to get €100,000 for charity, and it’s mainly for prostate cancer research. So I think it’s for a good cause.”

He initially ordered 10,000 calendars from the printers “but now we had to order more” due to their popularity. The release was timed to coincide with other ‘Movember’ charity activities to raise awareness of men’s health issues.

“Movember is focusing on [prostate cancer] quite a lot,” explained Bottas. “I know some people who’ve had close people to them who’ve had issues with that kind of thing.

“I think with men as well, like Movember focusing on men’s health, many people get quite afraid of speaking about those kind of things. And I went all out showing myself, trying to be an example. It’s a human body, you don’t need to be shy.”

However he admitted some friends and family members – including his mother – expressed concern over his nude pictures being seen and bought all over the world.

“I did get a message from my mum that was like ‘what is this?’. She doesn’t really understand English either that well, and she saw some of the videos that I posted and was quite confused and protective. Like: ‘are you sure that’s the path you want to go?’

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“Then I explained the charity thing, so it’s fine. Everything’s been positive. I’ve had questions, people asking ‘why did you do that? Why do you want to show your ass?’. But then when I explained the charity aspect, then people kind of get it. And we had so much fun, you can imagine, making that, taking those pictures.

“We had this art gallery on Monday and people who came here, they had no idea what was going to happen. And they were so confused when we started to show every print, step-by-step. They were like ‘what’s happening here?’. But then they kind of got the idea that it’s funny and charity, and it was good fun.”

• Buy the Bottass calendar here

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