Former Playboy Playmates have broken their silence about the grim reality of life inside Hugh Hefner's infamous mansion, with his ex-wife Crystal Harris describing feeling 'imprisoned' by the late media mogul.
The Dark Side of the Playboy Dream
Crystal Harris, who married Hefner when she was just 21 and he was 60, has revealed shocking details in her autobiography published after his death in 2017. The millionaire founder of Playboy magazine died from a sepsis-triggered cardiac arrest at age 91, but his former partners are now exposing what they claim was the disturbing truth behind the glamorous facade.
Multiple former Playmates have corroborated Harris's account, describing their experiences living with Hefner as 'hell' and revealing uncomfortable group sex sessions, secret recordings used for potential blackmail, and degrading household chores in what they called his 'hoarder' home.
A Mansion of Mould and Surveillance
In her memoir, Crystal portrayed intimacy with Hefner as 'odd and robotic', claiming he was 'less sex-savvy than some of the teenage boys I'd been with years ago'. She revealed she would play the same Madonna song during their encounters so that 'no other music would be contaminated' for her.
Beyond the disappointing intimacy, Crystal alleged the Playboy Mansion was far from luxurious. 'Everything was mouldy and dusty and it was just hoarder central in the mansion,' she stated.
Former girlfriends Holly Madison and Bridget Marquardt, who co-host the Girls Next Door podcast, painted an equally grim picture. Bridget described the private hot tub area known as 'the cave' where 'the lights were out, but there were two giant TV screens in there that were playing porn.'
Holly compared the environment to 'the weird eccentric millionaire version of the guy with the mattress on the floor and a Pulp Fiction poster.'
Former valet Stefon Tetelbaum provided a stomach-churning account of the mansion's state, revealing he had to wear rubber gloves to pick up dildos from the floor for sterilisation before returning them to the headboard.
Control, Surveillance and Group Sex Sessions
Despite the chaotic environment, Hefner maintained strict control over everything that happened in the mansion. Bridget claimed he kept a 'black book' tracking how much each Playmate had been paid, who had slept with him and when.
'He'd be like, 'Oh, you've been on your period for three weeks,'' Holly recalled, describing how Hefner would use the book to call out women who hadn't been intimate 'enough' with him.
The mansion was under constant surveillance, with recording equipment capturing footage in every room - even when Playmates begged for them to be switched off. 'Hefner taped everything in his bedroom and many men and star athletes came into the bedroom and had sex with these girls,' Stefon revealed.
Crystal later tweeted that she found 'thousands of those disposable camera photos' and 'immediately ripped up and destroyed every single one of them.'
Group sex sessions were described as particularly degrading. Holly called them 'disgusting', explaining: 'He wouldn't move. He would be like a bump on the log in the middle of the bed. You're literally sitting there naked having sex in front of a group of people who hate you and talk sh*t about you while you're having sex.'
'Like Having Sex With Your Grandpa'
Twin sisters Kristina and Karissa Shannon claimed they were pressured into a threesome with Hefner on their 19th birthday when he was 82. They alleged he gave them a tablet that left them feeling 'the most inebriated we've ever been' before being propositioned.
'It's like having sex with your grandpa,' Karissa confessed, adding that afterwards they 'ran down the hall... We hit the shower, steaming hot. Our skin was red from just trying to sterilise.'
The sisters also claimed women endured frequent chlamydia infections as Hefner refused to use protection. They described a system where butlers would provide a bowl of hot water with rags for cleaning between partners.
Another former girlfriend, Kendra Wilkinson, remembered: 'I had to be very drunk or smoke lots of weed to survive those nights - there was no way around it.'
The testimonies from multiple Playmates paint a disturbing picture of life inside what was once considered the ultimate fantasy destination, revealing a dark reality behind the glossy Playboy image that dominated popular culture for decades.
