I had the radio on.

TIME’s profile reports the controversy over Monroe’s nude calendar photograph, taken in 1949, and says she admitted posing because she needed to pay overdue rent. Asked whether she really had nothing on in the photograph, she gives the radio answer. This is a reported personal reply, not a line spoken by one of her film characters.

She turns a question about wearing nothing into a joke about having the radio switched on.

The profile was published in 1952; 1949 dates the photograph, not a documented occasion for the reply. The longer wording that begins by denying she had nothing on is not what this TIME article prints.

• I sleep in Chanel Number Five.
• I have nothing to declare except my genius. (not found) Oscar Wilde
• Either that wallpaper goes, or I do. (not found) Oscar Wilde
• Yeah, but you can’t prove it. Mae West
• The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated. (paraphrase) Mark Twain

• en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Marilyn_Monroe

Marilyn Monroe, TIME, “Cinema: Something for the Boys,” 11 August 1952, publisher’s online archive. Checked at Quotogeny, https://quotogeny.com/q/i-had-the-radio-on/ (23 October 2026).

Have a different wording, or a source we missed? Check it or submit it.

Do you hold the rights to anything on this page? Tell us.