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Who really said it

It's not quite true that I had nothing on. I had the radio on

Attributed to Marilyn Monroe 1926–1962 · American actress and model
Attributed — the joke is documented from Monroe in 1952 and 1953, but this exact wording is a later splice of two of her own versions. In copyright

Monroe really did make this joke, and the paper trail is unusually good for a movie-star quip: it was in print by 23 June 1952, in Sheilah Graham’s syndicated Hollywood Diary, and she used it again for Bennett Cerf in Esquire in July 1953. What no source contains is this sentence pair. The 1952 columns print only the punchline, “I had the radio on”; the 1953 Esquire version runs “it’s not quite true I had nothing on: the radio was on.” The popular wording splices the two halves together.

Last verified 17 Aug 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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Unconfirmed quote & credit

“It's not quite true that I had nothing on. I had the radio on” Attributed. Marilyn Monroe did make this joke, but not in this wording. Earliest documented printing: Sheilah Graham, "Hollywood Diary," Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), June 23, 1952, p. A-13 — "No," said our Marilyn, "I had the radio on." The longer phrasing, "it's not quite true I had nothing on: the radio was on," comes from Bennett Cerf, "The 'Altogether' Girl," Esquire, July 1953, p. 93. The popular sentence pair splices the two. — Quotle.info · Verbatim: “Sure, I posed that way. I needed the money. And it's not quite true I had nothing on: the radio was on. Besides the artist's wife was in the room all the time.”

Can you use it?

Still under copyright (rights held by The Evening Star / North American Newspaper Alliance (1952 column); Esquire Magazine Inc. and the estate of Bennett Cerf (1953 article)). A short, credited quote is generally fine for talks, teaching, and internal decks; for commercial, published, or large-scale reuse, get permission.

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In context

Evoking the world of Marilyn Monroe — American actress and model. Theme: "It's not quite true that I had nothing on. I had the radio on". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Minimalist

Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "It's not quite true that I had nothing on. I had the radio on". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Provenance

What the record actually contains

Earliest known printing
Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), 23 June 1952, p. A-13
Column
Hollywood Diary
Wording there
“I had the radio on” — not the popular sentence pair
Fullest version
Bennett Cerf, “The ‘Altogether’ Girl,” Esquire, July 1953, p. 93

A pompous visitor asked Marilyn Monroe at Niagara—“Is it true that when you posed for that famous calendar photograph, Miss Monroe, you had nothing on?” “No,” said our Marilyn, “I had the radio on.” ↑ the popular version splices this punchline onto the 1953 Esquire clause

Sheilah Graham, “Hollywood Diary,” Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), 23 June 1952, p. A-13, released by the North American Newspaper Alliance. Note what it does not contain: there is no “it’s not quite true that I had nothing on” clause anywhere in the item. That exact clause only appears a year later, in Esquire, and in a different form; the nearest earlier pairing of a denial with the punchline is Louella Parsons’s column of 2 February 1953 — “Of course, it isn’t true … I had the radio on.”

Newspaper page scan, 1952
Read the Evening Star for 23 June 1952 at the Library of Congress
Quote Investigator: It’s Not Quite True I Had Nothing On: The Radio Was On

How we verified this

  • Quote Investigator credits Monroe, with a caveat. Its survey of the quip ↗ traces versions through 1952 and 1953 and concludes that “Marilyn Monroe should receive credit for this quip,” naming Sheilah Graham’s June 1952 column as the earliest evidence known to QI. It also allows that a studio humorist may have crafted the line for her — while recording that she “definitely employed the quip” in the 1953 Esquire interview.
  • We pulled the 1952 newspaper page itself. The Library of Congress scan of the Evening Star for 23 June 1952 ↗ carries Sheilah Graham’s “Hollywood Diary” on page 13, and the item’s text ends on the punchline “I had the radio on.” That is the whole of the documented joke in its earliest form.
  • Wikiquote sources it — to the short form. The Marilyn Monroe article ↗ lists the quote as simply “I had the radio on,” citing “Something for the Boys,” Time 60, no. 6 (11 August 1952): 90. The longer sentence pair is not listed there either.
  • The popular wording is a splice. Comparing the printings side by side, its first half follows the July 1953 Esquire profile and its second half follows the 1952 newspaper columns. Every word is Monroe’s; the combination is not from any source we or Quote Investigator ↗ could locate.
In copyright

Monroe’s remark survives only through what other people printed, and both key printings fall well after 1931: Sheilah Graham’s syndicated column of 23 June 1952 and Bennett Cerf’s Esquire profile of July 1953. The Library of Congress serves this Evening Star issue under a statement that it believes its newspapers are “in the public domain or have no known copyright restrictions,” but that same statement warns that issues published less than 95 years ago “may contain some copyrighted third party materials” — which is precisely what a syndicated wire column is. We therefore treat both printed texts as in copyright and quote only the short passages at issue.

Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.

Fact-check

The right person, the wrong sentence

Nobody seriously disputes that Marilyn Monroe made this joke — Quote Investigator credits her, and it was in print within months of the calendar scandal breaking. What travels online is a tidied-up wording that no 1952 or 1953 source actually prints, plus a set of confident assumptions about where and when she said it.

“It’s not quite true that I had nothing on. I had the radio on” composite

The first half tracks the July 1953 Esquire profile — “it’s not quite true I had nothing on: the radio was on” — while the second half is the newspaper punchline, “I had the radio on.” Both halves are Monroe’s, but QI, which reproduces both ↗, prints no version that joins them this way.

“She said it at a press conference” unsettled

The versions disagree about who did the asking. Graham has “a pompous visitor” on the Niagara location in June 1952; Louella Parsons, in February 1953, has a curious nurse asking while Monroe was ill with flu; Erskine Johnson merely says she was “asked just the other day.” QI prints all three ↗ and concludes she probably used the line on multiple occasions, so a single definitive occasion may not exist.

A studio publicist or gag writer possible, unproven

Quote Investigator raises this itself: “It is conceivable that this tale was crafted by a humorist on behalf of Monroe and her studio; the zinger was then given to Graham for publication.” It immediately adds that Monroe “definitely employed the quip” when interviewed for the July 1953 Esquire profile — so even if the line was written for her, she used it in her own voice. Read the full finding ↗

The joke is genuinely Monroe’s. The earliest evidence known to Quote Investigator ↗ is Sheilah Graham’s column of 23 June 1952, where the punchline reads simply “I had the radio on” — and the fuller “it’s not quite true I had nothing on” phrasing comes from Bennett Cerf’s Esquire profile of July 1953. Quote either one. The spliced version belongs to nobody.

Context

Why the joke mattered

In 1949, before anyone knew her name, Monroe posed nude for photographer Tom Kelley and the images ran on John Baumgarth calendars under the pseudonym “Mona Monroe.” When the connection surfaced in 1952, with Niagara in production, the studio’s instinct was containment: Louella Parsons reported in January 1952 that one of Monroe’s bosses was so alarmed that “an order was given to buy them up.”

Monroe refused the containment strategy. Her argument, Parsons wrote, was “art for art’s sake”; her answer in public was the radio line, which was circulating in the gossip columns by that June. Bennett Cerf’s Esquire profile recorded the outcome plainly: “The unpredictable public sided wholeheartedly with Marilyn in the ensuing hullabaloo.” Niagara was released in January 1953.

“No,” said our Marilyn, “I had the radio on.”

Every documented version, in order

23 June 1952 — Sheilah Graham, “Hollywood Diary,” Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), p. A-13. A “pompous visitor” asks her on the Niagara location; she answers “No … I had the radio on.” This is the earliest evidence known to Quote Investigator.

24 June 1952 — the same exchange runs as a filler item, “Day Brightener,” in the Minneapolis Morning Tribune, p. 27.

2 August 1952 — Erskine Johnson, The Daily Chronicle (De Kalb, Illinois), p. 6: “Sure, I had the radio on.” The same column puts her calendar fee at $50.

11 August 1952 — Time, “Something for the Boys,” p. 90, which Wikiquote cites for the short form “I had the radio on.”

2 February 1953 — Louella Parsons, The Philadelphia Inquirer, p. 15. A nurse asks her during a bout of flu; Monroe, “now thoroughly bored with this subject,” answers “Of course, it isn’t true … I had the radio on.”

July 1953 — Bennett Cerf, “The ‘Altogether’ Girl,” Esquire 40, no. 1, p. 93: “Sure, I posed that way. I needed the money. And it’s not quite true I had nothing on: the radio was on. Besides the artist’s wife was in the room all the time.”

None of the six is the sentence pair that circulates today.

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Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

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Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Quote Origin: It's Not Quite True I Had Nothing On: The Radio Was Onquoteinvestigator.com

The anchor investigation: dated citations across 1952 and 1953, and QI’s conclusion that Monroe should receive credit for the quip — with its own caveat about a possible studio humorist.
Evening Star, 23 June 1952 — page 13www.loc.gov

The earliest known printing, in Sheilah Graham’s “Hollywood Diary.” Free page scan and searchable OCR text from the Library of Congress.
Marilyn Monroe — Wikiquoteen.wikiquote.org

Lists the quote only in its short form, “I had the radio on,” sourced to “Something for the Boys,” Time 60, no. 6 (11 August 1952): 90.
Marilyn Monroeen.wikipedia.org

Biography, and the account of the 1949 Tom Kelley nude session for John Baumgarth calendars shot under the name “Mona Monroe,” plus the January 1953 release of Niagara.
Tom Kelley (photographer)en.wikipedia.org

The photographer of the 1949 session. States that he paid Monroe $50 for the shoot — the same figure Erskine Johnson printed in August 1952.
Evening Star (Washington, D.C.) 1854–1972www.loc.gov

The full digitised run of the paper in Chronicling America, carrying the Library of Congress rights statement quoted in our note below.

The speaker

Who she was

Marilyn Monroe

1926–1962 · American actress and model

Born Norma Jeane Mortenson in Los Angeles on 1 June 1926, Monroe went from photographic model to the most famous woman in American film, and was dead at 36 in August 1962. In 1949, years before the fame, she posed nude for photographer Tom Kelley — for a fee of $50 — and the images ran on John Baumgarth calendars under the name “Mona Monroe.” When the connection surfaced in 1952 her studio expected it to end her career; she declined to be embarrassed, and the line on this page is the form that refusal took.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Earliest documented printing

Sheilah Graham, “Hollywood Diary,” Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), 23 June 1952, p. A-13, col. 4, released by the North American Newspaper Alliance — the earliest evidence known to Quote Investigator, where the punchline reads “No,” said our Marilyn, “I had the radio on.” The fuller phrasing appears in Bennett Cerf, “The ‘Altogether’ Girl,” Esquire 40, no. 1 (July 1953): 93, as “it’s not quite true I had nothing on: the radio was on.” The popular sentence pair combines the two and is documented in neither.

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘It's not quite true that I had nothing on. I had the radio on’?” Last verified 17 Aug 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/its-not-quite-true-that-i-had-nothing-on-i-had-the-radio-on/

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