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I’ve always despised Hugh Hefner, but I have an odd fascination with his girlfriends and with the cultural impact of Playboy overall. For better or worse, that girl-next-door “bimbo” archetype has always had a huge influence on me–maybe because I was in middle school when the Playboy brand experienced a huge comeback thanks to The Girls Next Door reality TV show, which was about Hef’s three live-in girlfriends. Holly Madison and Bridget Marquardt have a rewatch podcast now  that I listen to, and it’s fascinating to hear the truth about what life at the Playboy mansion was really like. It’s presented as glamorous on the show but it…really was not. Crystal Harris was one of Hef’s live in girlfriends after The Girls Next Door show ended, and she married him in 2012. She has a memoir coming out about her time at the Mansion called Only Say Good Things, and she talked to the Daily Mail about it and gave them some excerpts. The title of her book is what Hef told her–only say good things about him, but she’s not holding back. She spent a decade at the mansion and it sounds even worse than what Holly and Bridget describe. They had a nine o’clock curfew each night, but Crystal had to be home by six. He was in denial about how old he was getting, and he clearly chose young women to date who were insecure and easily manipulated.

A 6PM curfew, compulsory group sex, and chicken soup every night: Her husband, whom she met when she was 21 and he was 81, dictated precisely what shade of nail polish she should wear (pink, pale and sheer, never matte) and gently tapped her on the head when her roots were showing.

When he was in residence, he issued a 6pm curfew ensuring his young wife was home to share his dinner (always chicken soup with cream cheese and crackers) and watch his favourite movies. Then, after dark, she was expected to participate in the group sex for which Hefner was famous.

‘It was embarrassing. I don’t know the most people there’d been in our bedroom at one time but – a lot. Pretty bad. We were like, ‘Oh, now it’s your turn.’ Nobody really wanted to be there but I think in Hef’s mind, he still thought he was in his 40s, and those nights, the people, the mansion, solidified that idea. He felt, ‘I’ve still got it.’

Crystal’s childhood issues made the mansion environment seem safer than it was: When your family is broken you feel like you don’t really belong anywhere. You depend on the kindness of others and you make yourself small to try to fit in. You have no power. Then I met Hef. He lived how the other half lives. You feel, ‘Wow, I could belong here too.’ At first, the Playboy Mansion felt like a sanctuary. It wasn’t. But then you either abide by it or you leave, and I didn’t feel like I had anywhere else to go or that I could make anything of myself.

Viagra made Hef partially deaf: There were also the famous ‘Sunday Fundays’ when 200 young women would descend on the Playboy mansion. Its octogenarian owner took so much Viagra that it made him lose his hearing on one side (a recognised side effect of the drug). ‘Hef always said he’d rather be deaf and still able to have sex. Weird,’ says Crystal.

Her decision to marry him was the result of Stockholm syndrome: ‘Looking back, I think I had a kind of Stockholm syndrome,’ she says of a marriage which began when he gave her a box containing a 3.5-carat diamond engagement ring, saying ‘I hope it fits’. ‘There was part of me that always thought if this was real love, there wouldn’t be other women in the bedroom. I reconciled myself to it by trying to believe that Hef loved me as best he knew how.’

[From the Daily Mail]

Like I said, a lot of this echoes Holly Madison and Bridget Marquardt’s experience, and Holly’s experience in particular. Holly was the “Number One” girlfriend for most of the seven years that she was living at the mansion, but being ranked “Number One” also came with more pressure and more rules. I know a lot of people blame Holly, Crystal and his other girlfriends for ending up with Hef for so long. People wonder why they didn’t leave if things got so bad; or how bad things could really be at a cushy place like the mansion. But once they moved into the mansion, his girlfriends were all subject to constant surveillance, financial control, and mountains of blackmail–it was harder for them to leave than people might think. Crystal actually said last year that she had found thousands of explicit photos of Hef’s ex girlfriends when she lived at the mansion, many of which were taken without their consent. She says she destroyed them. Good for her. My point is, Hef was controlling and abusive, even if a relationship with him came with a lot of material perks.

Also, if anyone accuses Crystal and Holly of “profiting off of Hef” as if it’s a bad thing, I say, fair play to them. Hef’s entire media empire came from his shrewd decision to publish nude photos of Marilyn Monroe in the first issue of Playboy back in 1953, capitalizing on Marilyn’s star power at the height of her fame. That’s why the first issue of Playboy sold out–it’s because Marilyn was in it. Marilyn took those nude photos in 1949 only because she was broke, and desperately needed $75 to keep her car from being impounded. Hef never got Marilyn’s permission to use those pictures of her and make her the first Playboy centerfold, and she never made a dime off of being featured in Playboy, either. But Hef built the whole brand around Marilyn.

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