Stephen Merchant rejected the opportunity to model totally in the buff for Cosmopolitan, because he was afraid that chiefs at the women's publication were ridiculing him.At six foot seven inches (2.1 metres) tall, the writer/comedian has never thought of himself as a sex symbol and can't imagine anyone wanting to pay to see him naked in one of the magazine's famous male centrefolds. Merchant tells London radio station Heart, "I don't know what the pose was but I got the feeling they were taking the mick a bit. "They said, 'We've had a survey of our readers and you're one of the top choices.' Yeah right, like the readers of Cosmo have rushed out thinking, 'We've gotta get the lanky guy out of Extras. He's the man for me.' "I think it's the fear that it'll be out there then and it'll follow you around for years. I don't want to ever look back at myself naked."

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