5 Minutes with Ricky ‘Rachel’ Basnett

The Zag Web Monkey was surprised by a new contestant who’d signed up to Miss Zag over the weekend in the hopes of clinching the title of South Africa’s Sexiest beach babe. She called herself ‘Rachel’ and she looked nice from far. However, on closer inspection it was discovered that she was far from nice – but she did look familiar.

We caught up with the culprit to find out more:

Zigzag: Hi Ricky, nice pics, but why?
Ricky / Rachel: I guess we all know that sex sells. I’ve started A BLOG and needed to do some shameless self promotion. Wok has the blog party promos down, and I always end up getting too pissed at those kinda things. I thought I’d take a more professional route.

Unfortunately we had to delete your entry into the Miss Zag competition – sorry, but it had something to do with the fineprint claiming that all entrants needed to be female. How does this make you feel?
I am dissapointed, I worked really hard on that shoot and think that given the opportunity ‘Rachel’ could’ve taken it down. I do however understand that the package between my legs and seductive facial hair was a bit of a hinderance in this competition.

Sadly, despite the belly and that beard, you look quite good. Who was helping with your poses?
Of course that sort of magic doesnt just happen. I enlisted the help of one of Durban’s top stylists, Miss Buttons, and the ever creative Justin McGee.  I just kept my head down and trained a lot. The work paid off it seems.

Do you have a secret diet you use to keep your shape?
I try to follow the Dan Redman diet and eat whatever comes my way. I reckon I’ve become quite a connoisseur, you can check out some of my recipes on my blog – That is if Rachel Basnett doesnt make you too quesy…

On a more serious note, you’ve just returned from a Zag trip with Chad, the Sheriff and Andy Davis to Portugal. What was that like compared to your last Zag trip to Nigeria?
The trip was amazing, Portugal was the sickest place to go check out, the waves are too fun and the food is off the hook also. You can’t compare it to a place like Nigeria though, there definitely werent any AK’s on the beach there.

Ricky goes hard in Portugal during a recent Zag trip. Check out issue 37.1 (on sale in December) for the full feature.

Ever since your record-breaking final year on the world tour you’ve still been absolutely shredding – albeit with slightly more facial hair and a hint of a belly compared to then. What’s been the highlight for you since then?
I think getting 300 000 odd views on my Nigeria footage on YouTube was a pretty big high. Waking up every day and getting to plan more trips like these and not being on tour is pretty much the biggest highlight though. I’m effing lucky to be paid to free surf.

Any plans for the holidays? Zag needs a date for our annual xmas party…
Staying home this season and cooking my family Christmas lunch, which should be interesting. I’m busy planning a surf trip for early next year, once all you people go back to the office. I hate surfing in crowds. Hahahahaha. I’ll ask Rachel if she’d like to join you boys at your Xmas party, but I reckon she’s still a bit cut up after you dumped her off your Miss Zag site.

Ha, we tried. Anyways, shot Rachel, erm, Ricky, catch you in the lineup at Cave.
Catch me if you can…

* Modelling photos by Justin McGee, Captions by Rachel Basnett

If you’re brave, see more of Ricky being Ricky by checking out his blog here>>

I looooove throwing a bit of animalistic rawness into my work. Whenever Justin McGee and I work together he always gets the best out of me.

This is my cheeky look.

Shoots like this don’t just happen. This is me training hard with my coach, stylist and overall inspiration, Miss Buttons.

The tried and tested pose – every model should have this in their arsenal. An ‘accidental’ nipple slip is never a bad thing either.