Hugh Hefner's ex Holly Madison shares dark side of the Playboy Mansion
The Playboy Mansion is proof that all that glitters is not gold, according to Hugh Hefner's former girlfriend Holly Madison.
The 46-year-old, who was involved with the Playboy tycoon from 2001 to 2008, has revealed that what went on behind closed doors was actually 'a little bit scary' at times.
Although a lot of people are under the impression that the plush pad in Los Angeles was a celebrity hub where lavish parties were hosted and scantily-clad bunnies ran amok - Madison says that wasn't the case.
She has opened up about the tense environment in the plush property that she called home for several years, where people would 'turn on each other, quickly'.
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Madison, a mother-of-two, has been vocal about what went down during her time at the Playboy Mansion since the death of magazine mogul Hefner in September 2017.
He died at the age of 91 at the huge house in Holmby Hills where he lived alongside dozens of women. Hefner is buried in the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery, beside Marilyn Monroe.
Madison has previously compared living at the Playboy Mansion to being in a 'cult', revealing that the Bunnies quickly became 'isolated from the outside world'.
She was just 21 when she started dating Hefner, who was 75-year-old at the time. She previously claimed that the businessman had a 'little black book' where he would 'keep track' of how sexually active he was with each Playmate.
Madison also claimed that Hefner used 'control tactics' to keep the women in line - and she's not the only one who has made these sort of claims, as a host of other former Bunnies have also spoken out.
The model and reality TV star has now shared some more details of how she was lulled into a false sense of security about the Playboy Mansion - admitting she first saw it 'as a safe harbour'.
"And, of course, it turned out to be so much more complicated than that," Madison told Page Six.
She claimed that in LA, she would often witness 'a lot of predatory people' in the entertainment industry who were on the hunt 'for young women who aren’t that sophisticated'.
Madison said that although she was only 21 when she moved into the Playboy Mansion, she was 'aware of the dangers out there'.
She therefore believed that Hefner's home 'would be a safe place to go' under these circumstances - but soon learned that it was somewhere where people could 'turn on each other so quickly'.
"It was very much an ‘everybody out for themselves’ kind of environment," Madison recalled, before going on to discuss how she was painted out as a 'gold digger out to steal all of [Hefner’s] money'.
She went on: "While living in a nice house is nice, it was never really like that. It was more that I was fascinated by him."
Madison said she simply wanted to capitalise on the potential 'opportunities' that 'being part of his world could provide'.
However, Hefner's ex insisted that she had never intended to head down the aisle with him, or fleece him for cash.
Madison said she was 'never that person who was trying to get married and steal money or anything like that' and claimed she 'never got any residuals' for appearing on the series The Girls Next Door from 2005 to 2009.
The mum said she is now at 'peace' with what happened during her Playboy days - but admitted she does get 'annoyed' when she sees headlines about her and Hefner's sex life.
"I just didn’t really think anyone would care" Madison added. "And because my kids are getting a little bit older, I kind of have to stop talking about that."
What else have Playboy Bunnies said about sex with Hugh Hefner?
Hefner was married three times and had several girlfriends, with three of those, Kendra Wilkinson, Holly Madison and Bridget Marquardt, all rising to fame with their reality TV show, Girls Next Door.
A number of former Playboy Bunnies have opened up about intimacy with the late businessman.
Hefner's former partners have dished the dirt on what went down in his bedroom (Carlo Allegri/Getty Images)
'Contaminated' music
In her 2024 biography, titled Only Say Good Things: Surviving Playboy and Finding Myself, Hefner’s third and final wife, Crystal, described sex with him alone as being 'blue little pill nights' due to the medication he needed to get jiggy between the sheets.
She also claimed that she'd played the same Madonna track every time so that 'no other music [would] be contaminated by this place' for her.
'Odd and robotic'
Elsewhere in the book, Crystal called their sex life 'odd and robotic', as she penned: “This was a well-oiled and well-practiced sequence of events. One that went the same exact way every time.
"Picking some girls from the party and bringing them up. Changing into the uniform for the job: silk pajamas. The dimming of the lights. The music. The porn. Passing the pot. And then the sex.”
She described the experience as if Hefner 'was just going through the motions of something that had once been fun and sexy’.
Crystal added: “Or maybe it was never fun and sexy.”
The magazine boss always had several women on his arm (M. Tran/FilmMagic)
'Black book'
While speaking on her and Madison’s Girls Next Level podcast, Marquardt claimed Hefner had a journal, which detailed who had been having sex with him and when.
“The black book kept track of a few different things,” she explained. “It kept track of when somebody collected their allowance. He would mark it off so you couldn’t ask for it twice. It also kept track of who slept with him and when.”
'Almost comical'
Madison also published a book on her time in the Playboy Mansion, called Down the Rabbit Hole: Curious Adventures and Cautionary Tales of a Former Playboy Bunny.
Recalling how she was told to put on pajamas when she was first asked to live in Hefner's estate, she wrote: “When I think about it now, it’s almost comical. Every red-blooded American male has no doubt fantasized about what went on in Hugh Hefner’s bedroom with his harem of blond bombshells. The answer? Not a whole lot.”
She added: “My turn was over just as quickly as it had started.”
'Nobody knew the hell'
Another of Hefner's girlfriends, Sondra Theodore - who dated the magazine publisher for five years between 1976 and 1981, opened up about their time together during an appearance on A&E's Secrets of Playboy.
“He scared me a lot at the end because you couldn't satisfy him — he had to have more and more and more,” Theodore recalled.
“I might as well have been a vibrator, I might as well have been a sex toy — because that's what it was. And nobody knew the hell I was in.”
Like having 'sex with your grandpa'
Twins Karina and Karissa Shannon, seen either side of Hefner, shared a graphic account of what intercourse with him was like (Michael Bezjian/WireImage)
Twins Karina and Karissa Shannon also spoke about how their 19th birthday was ruined after they were invited to Hefner's bedroom.
While being interviewed for the A&E docuseries, Karissa claimed that they were both offered a pill that made them 'the most inebriated we've ever been', before having sex with the then 86-year-old.
“We had never done a threesome together before, we would never want to,” Karina said.
Meanwhile, Karissa added: “And that was our 19th birthday. You're never going to forget that. He didn't even finish. Just imagine this, just his old hand kind of shakes [as he's] touching your boob.
“It's like you're having sex with your grandpa. And he laid there, looking up, and he was like, 'My babies, my babies. You love me.'”
Karissa continued: “We ran down the hall to the spare bedroom we were staying in. We hit the shower, steaming hot. Our skin was red from just trying to, like, sterilize.”
Topics: Playboy, Hugh Hefner, US News
Olivia Burke