Former Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown talks with media at Trump Tower in November. Photo / AP
Former Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown talks with media at Trump Tower in November. Photo / AP
The man tipped to be President Donald Trump's US ambassador to New Zealand is a former naked centrefold and supports the use of waterboarding.
Former US Senator and winner of "America's Sexiest Man" Scott Brown is being linked to the job by The Boston Globe, in a reportclaiming the 57-year-old is in line to "get the nod for Wellington."
Brown has a more colourful past than most diplomats.
In 1982 he nailed Cosmopolitan magazine's "America's Sexiest Man" competition, with the former Army man then turning his hand to politics.
His time as a senator included backing the use of "enhanced interrogation techniques" including waterboarding - the act of simulated drowning in order to get subjects to release information.
Last year avid cyclist Brown told GQ magazine "I've always wanted to go to New Zealand or Scotland or Wales and just ride 100 miles, hit a pub, drink, eat, sleep, do some exploring, and then get up, ride another 100 miles, do that for a couple weeks."
It's said Brown is likely to be dispatched by the Trump Administration to New Zealand to replace Mark Gilbert, who was US President Barack Obama's appointee but had to leave on January 20 after the incoming Trump administration ordered all politically-appointed diplomats out of their posts.
The Globe reported that Brown was considered for the veterans' affairs' Cabinet post in the Trump administration but had told associates he believed he would be asked to go to New Zealand.
As a 22-year-old in 1982 Scott Brown won Cosmopolitan magazine's America's Sexiest Man contest, posing nude in the centrefold.
It said neither the White House or Brown would comment and the decision could change as Trump went through his appointment processes, but four sources believed it would be New Zealand.
Republican Brown was a US Senator in Massachusetts from 2010 to 2013. He had endorsed Trump during the Presidential primaries and hosted a Trump fundraiser. In his time as a senator, he had voiced support for interrogation techniques such as water boarding.
Also a keen triathlete, he's filled in time after losing out on a further Senate bid by working as a bike mechanic.
He is also a Fox News contributor - Trump's channel of preference - and lists guitar playing on his Twitter biography.
