At the height of their fame, Red Hot Chili Peppers graced the cover of Rolling Stone Magazine for the first time on the June 25, 1992 issue. Famous for sometimes performing naked with only socks covering their private parts, it is not too shocking that Chad Smith, Flea and Anthony Kiedis are completely naked on the magazine cover.
At the time the really shocking thing about the photo was that guitarist John Frusciante was not on the cover. The reason behind the digital removal was that Frusciante left RHCP on May 7, 1992 and therefore had to be deleted.
Here is the same photo taken by Mark Seliger with Frusciante in it…
photo credit: Mark Seliger
Here’s another photo of the band from the same session.
It sucks when bands do this kind of stuff. In this case it was there was a good reason for the removal. Click the photo or link below to see when The Rolling Stones changed history by removing Bill Wyman from this “Rarities” album cover in 2005.