The pop star-turned-TV talent show host had racked up stg150,000 ($NZ343,170) worth of debts after her marriage to actor Julian McMahon crumbled in 1995.
Not wanting to ask her pop princess sister Kylie to bail her out, Minogue decided to bare all for the men's magazine.
"My parents didn't want me to do it," she told celebrity interviewer Piers Morgan in a program due to be aired on Britain's ITV1.
Minogue, whose comments were published in The Sun newspaper, said she had no regrets about posing naked for the raunchy magazine shots.
"I don't regret it, but I feel relieved that people know why I did it - it's a huge weight off my shoulders," she said.
"It was actually fun and I did feel liberated. I looked at the pictures and thought, 'I look all right!'.
