A burlesque dancer who cavorted and shimmied in Sunderland nightclubs has just been paid a six-figure sum to pose for Playboy. Reason? Katrina Darling, 22, is a cousin of Kate Middleton, the Duchess of Cambridge and wife of Prince William!

The adult magazine, whose September cover features the sultry looker, has dedicated eight pages inside to Katrina, in one of which she poses topless on a sheepskin rug. The banker by day and dancer by night has apparently also given a full-length interview to Playboy claiming that she had no idea that she and Kate were cousins, till the British press raked it up last year just before the royal wedding.

“It was the most ridiculous thing I ever heard. It’s not every day something like that happens,” Katrina — who has never met Kate or her sister Pippa — was quoted as saying. Katrina’s grandmother is the sister of the Duchess’s great-grandfather Thomas Harrison, making Katrina and Kate second cousins, once removed.

Darling, who has never tried to contact the Middletons, insists she has been a burlesque dancer for years and all the recent attention — and that huge paycheque — have nothing to do with her new-found royal connection.

But that hasn’t stopped her from flaunting her Buckingham Palace ties. Recently, Katrina choreographed a burlesque routine titled God Save the Queen — to celebrate Elizabeth II’s golden jubilee — where she stripped off her corset and Union Jack skirt to reveal red nipple tassels and a thong.

The royals reportedly had a fit when pictures of Pippa dirty dancing with a male friend hit front pages shortly after the wedding. Wonder what the queen will have to say about daring Darling!