Valtteri Bottas has raised over $150,000 for Movember through the sales of his nude calendar.
The men’s health charity raises awareness and funds for men’s health and suicide prevention.
An initial 10,000 prints were quickly sold out, which helped contribute to building interest for the calendar.
The Finnish driver admitted his mother was reluctant to see him continue with the calendar until she knew the aim was to raise funds for charity.
Bottas revealed how successful the project has been.
“Thank you so much for all the support in November,” he wrote. “With the donations and with the calendars, we have together raised a substantial amount for Movember – meaning WE have helped and will affect and save many people’s lives.
“Final figures to be calculated in the next days, but we are talking around $150k of funds raised!”
Explaining how the calendar project came about, he added: “Last year, when I launched that one photo in Aspen, it was pretty popular.
“And we did raise quite a bit of funds. Because I do quite a bit of stuff with Ripke, he’s a good friend, the photographer, and then we started to joke about the idea, ‘Imagine if there’s the full calendar.’
“And then closer to November, Movember month, we started to think actually, that’s something we could do, something good.
“And we decided that yeah, let’s do it, but for charity. It’s mainly for prostate cancer research, so I think it’s for a good cause.”
The Alfa Romeo driver explained that his mother took some convincing ahead of the project.
“Well, I did get a message from my mum,” he said. “Like, ‘What is this?’ She doesn’t understand English that well, and she saw some of the videos I posted, and she was quite confused and protective. Like, ‘Are you sure that’s the path you want to go?’
“So then I explained the charity thing, and it’s okay. I’ve had questions, people asking like, why did you do that? Like why do you want to show your ass?
“But then, when I explained the charity aspect, people got it. And we had so much fun, you can imagine, making that, taking those pictures.”
Photo Credit: Alfa Romeo F1 Team Stake
