When Playboy Club creator Riley_x isn’t cooking up a storm in her kitchen, she’s got her nose buried in some very tasteful smut—preferably the kind with faeries. She sat down with us to chat about her Austrian roots, being inspired by Taylor Swift, and why she’s a “big time cat lady.”

PLAYBOY: To start us off, where are you from?

Riley_x: I am originally from Austria, born and raised. My entire family lives there. We moved around a lot when I was a kid, so I can’t really tell you a specific place in Austria that I’m from. but I moved to the US right after high school. I lived in New York for four years, went to school there, and now I’ve been in LA for five years. The pandemic sort of has my timeline all messed up.

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PLAYBOY: Yeah, those years don’t count. How was growing up in Austria?

Riley_x: Really good! It’s a very small country, one of the wealthiest countries in the world. So, you grow up with a lot of safety, really good schools, really good healthcare. And I spent a lot of time as a gymnast when I was growing up, a lot of time outdoors. It’s a really beautiful place.

But as I got older, I felt like I couldn’t be who I wanted to be there. Hence, the American dream of coming over here. But Austria is beautiful. I would highly recommend if you ever wanted to visit.

PLAYBOY: How did your Playboy Club journey start?

Riley_x: I had a friend who recommended it to me about a year ago, and I didn’t really know what it was at first. And it was kind of a difficult point in my life where I felt like I was very stuck in my career and what I’d been working towards my entire adult life. I had four roommates at a time, and a really bad existential crisis.

Within a month of being on PLAYBOY, I was like, “Wow. This is amazing.” It was the first time that I felt like I had a grip on my life. PLAYBOY really changed my life in the sense where it’s given me such financial freedom to create my day how I want to create it. I live alone. No more sketchy day jobs, I get to be home with my cats.

PLAYBOY: Speaking of, you’ve described yourself as a “big time cat lady.” Can you speak to that?

Riley_x: [Laughs] So, most of the time I like cats more than people. I just always felt a weird connection to cats. They’re truly who they are, and they don’t pretend for anyone. If they like you, they really like you. And that’s how I am, too. I have my special people in life that I’ll do anything for. I’m super loyal. I have two cats right now. They’re both senior cats, named Olive and Miyako. I really want to open a cat shelter some point in my life when I’m a little bit more stable.

PLAYBOY: That’s awesome. What do you obsess about?

Riley_x: That’s such a funny question because I just performed in a comedy show two nights ago that was about people’s obsessions. And my whole part of the show was romance books—specifically smut. I am a big reader. I read 107 books last year.

But I specifically love romance and it brings me so much joy. It’s so broad. There’s dark romance, there’s really cutesy romance. So, that was sort of what my comedy show was about. It was really fun and I’d love to write a romance book one of these days. I feel like I have so many ideas, and I just like the idea of men written by women.

PLAYBOY: Well now you definitely have to tell us one of your ideas.

Riley_x: I want to write this book about the small town mortician. She is sick of society and she just decided to spend the rest of her life just taking care of dead bodies. And then she meets this guy who is a client. They meet, and obviously, they eventually fall in love. But I want to call it “Embalmed By You.”

PLAYBOY: That sounds amazing. I love how specific it is. Speaking of romance, what would make you ghost a potential suitor?

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Riley_x: If they have bad manners, if they’re disrespectful, just unkind. I don’t have time in my life for people that aren’t nice. If we go to a restaurant, you don’t tip the servers, for sure I’m going to ghost you.

PLAYBOY: Yeah, that’s a pretty good indicator of whether someone’s evil or not.

Riley_x: I think so, too. If you don’t appreciate service industry staff, then I’m sorry. We can’t even be friends.

PLAYBOY: Who is a woman that inspires you?

Riley_x: As someone who’s a big procrastinator, I really admire Taylor Swift. This woman doesn’t care if people like her music or not. She is bringing out creative projects nonstop, and has been doing it for the past 15 years. She just turns everything in her life into positive material for her art.

I think I always admire people that don’t seem to have creative blocks. Or if they do, they’re really good at getting around them. And that’s what I want to do in life. I just want to keep creating without the insecurity of “Is this going to be good enough? Are people going to like it?”

PLAYBOY: You can’t argue with her work ethic. If we can get back to books for a second, are there any titles you’d recomend?

Riley_x: Anything by Sarah J. Maas. She’s like the queen of fairy smut. Something about men with wings…I think that’s super hot. So, her series like A Court of Thorns and Roses and Throne of Glass. I’ve read those multiple times, and I’ve even talked about them on my PLAYBOY streams and I’ve gotten my subscribers into it, too. I’ve done little readings on my streams from the books.

PLAYBOY: What quality do you think is most desirable in a person?

Riley_x: I would say empathy for not just people, but also…just taking care of others. Being able to put yourself into somebody else’s shoes without judgment. I think the world will be a much nicer place if people had more understanding and empathy for each other.

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PLAYBOY: What was the last thing you Googled?

Riley_x: Kendrick Lamar’s height. I had to know from the Super Bowl performance. It seems like he’s not tall. And I was right! He’s my height, 5’5. And just from the jeans… I could tell he was a short king.

PLAYBOY: What’s the best piece of advice you were ever given?

Riley_x: A few years ago, I attended a talk by Sally Field. She said this one thing in her talk that always stuck with me which was “You are where you’re supposed to be.” And I’ve always been a daydreamer, and always wishing for my life to be different.

So I was never really in the moment. And to me it was like…we can still focus on our goals in the future, but where we are right now is such an important milestone in our life. Sometimes, it’s nice to be where I am at the moment. That’s more than good enough. And I’m grateful for it.

Riley_x is on The Playboy Club. Talk to her now.