Jennifer Love Hewitt's raunchy new role (+trailer)

Jennifer Love Hewitt plays a massage therapist who gives happy endings in raunchy new show The Client List. Photo / Supplied

She may play a part-time call girl in her new TV show, but Jennifer Love Hewitt says she will never appear nude on screen.

Hewitt plays Riley Parks in the raunchy Lifetime network show, a struggling single mother who begins working in a day spa without realising staff offer more than just massages.

Despite the nature of the show, Hewitt says she wouldn't have taken on the role if it called for full frontal nudity.

"I wouldn't have done nudity, no. That's not something that I feel particularly comfortable with," Hewitt told People.com.

"I also think that it's sexier not to show everything. I feel like imaginations can do way more."

Only one episode of The Client List, based on a 2010 movie of the same name that also starred Hewitt, has screened in America - but it has already proved to be controversial.

Massage therapists joined forces to launch a petition against the show, saying it perpetuated misconceptions that massages included inappropriate sexual contact.

"Massage Therapists are trained healthcare professionals and in most states are licensed and regulated by state medical boards," the petition said.

"They adhere to a code of ethics and in some cases are under higher ethical standards than other healthcare professionals - because of these very same misconceptions."

And Hewitt has defended criticism of the show's raunchy themes after billboard ads featuring her wearing lingerie were digitally altered to reduce the amount of cleavage on display.

"It's a TV show," she told E! Online. "They're not offended by Dexter or Nurse Jackie, but they're offended by me giving a happy ending?"

Watch the trailer for The Client List:

- Herald online