February 2, 2024 • 54 mins
You’ve heard stories before, but nothing has ever put it all in perspective like this. The tables are officially turned and this time, it’s Playboy that’s exposed for all to see.
Joined by Crystal Hefner, Bethenny gets the most in depth look ever into life in the Playboy mansion and beyond.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
My guest today is American model Crystal Heffner, who is
best known as two thousand and nine's Playboy Playmate of
the Month for December, as well as being the third
wife of Playboy publisher Hugh Hefner. Crystal's brand new book
Only Say Good Things Surviving Playboy and Myself has been
making headline since it's released last month as she opens
up about her life in the Playboy mansion. This is
(00:33):
just me with Crystal Hefner. Let's get into it. Well,
very nice to meet you. So I had a holly on.
I just thought that would be a good idea and
a good conversation. And I used to have an agent
that also represented Kendra, So like your, your world was
(00:55):
peripherally in my in my vision, very peripherally. And I
did live in la and was a hostess a La
Scala in my twenties and some of thirties, and I
used to hear about the Playboy parties. So but I
was yeah, and I would I would have died to go.
(01:16):
And I was never invited. I wasn't part of that group.
I don't think I added any value or anything. But
so like I knew how iconic and prevalent. They were
in La the fiction, absolutely, you know, and very reputable
and very successful and very respected people were always there.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Yeah, yeah, there were, and there were a lot of Yeah.
It was like an a list type of vibe of
the Playboy Mansion for sure.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
Which is crazy if you think about it now, because
you're thinking about the Jeffrey Epstein Island and you're thinking
about all the people like former presidents and titans of industry.
So I just keep making that parallel to this situation
and hearing your story and Holly's story and what I'm reading.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, I think Helf wasn't necessarily a predator.
I think there would be more a much more, you know,
lawsuits against him. But this was also a time before
Me Too. Me Too happened a month after hef died,
so it's almost like, wow, he left just in time,
like his specific moment in history that was just perfect
(02:28):
for him, and then he just pieced out like right
at the perfect time. I remember when he was still alive,
the Cosby stuff had just started coming out, and you know,
he knew that, he knew that Cosby was not the
best guy. For sure.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
Well, I definitely want to get into you, and that
obviously for you to be here, it's because your identity
is definitely tied to playboy Hugh Hefner. And I'm sure
you're trying to maybe this book is closure for you,
so you can have your own identity in your own
life and it's not to find you, but it is
also part of your story. So I'm sure you want
to kind of just like say it in your own terms,
(03:07):
your own on your in your own words, on your
own terms, and like get it out.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
Yeah. Yeah, I think it's helpful in the healing process.
There were a lot of things that happened there. I
didn't fully realize until after that messed me up a
bit and created I had this narrative for seventy years.
He just he stuck so hard at this narrative. He
has three thousand scrap books that just document his life
(03:34):
from the very beginning all the way to the end.
He asked us to put to put all like the
obituaries and photos of him like at Westwood Memorial and
the end. And I think he believed that these books
would be studied for generations and generations, and he truly
felt like he was an icon and a gift to
the world.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
Well, it's first you said that you don't think that
he was necessarily a predator. But one what I've read
about you n Holly describing things as Stockholm and like
you didn't really realize what you were necessarily in. It
felt like a cult. It's submissive and obedient and behave
and all that. So, like, what if that's not a
word for that, because you're praying on the week if
(04:17):
you're looking for a certain type that's way younger and
that you can be a power figure in their life.
So if that's not a predator, what is that true?
Speaker 2 (04:24):
I believe that that is a predator. I think what
I meant by that, by what I said was that,
you know, he's not the type of person that would
like force women against their will or drug people's drinks
or things like that. But got it, Yeah, he did.
I guess pray on young women. I was twenty one
(04:46):
when I went into the mansion. I came from a
broken home and a broken family. I think that younger
girls are easier to manipulate. When I was twenty one,
I felt like I was a grown up. But now
at thirty seven, I look back and like I was
I was just a baby, and.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
Yeah, true, because I do remember I told this one
I was talking to Holly being in La and there
were some parties that were like skis crazy, Like you'd
go to Malibu and you'd go and there was a
lot of like coke and a lot of like just
deviance and you kind of are young and you don't
it feels uncomfortable, but you don't know why it must
(05:24):
be so wrong because everybody's there and seeming like it's right.
Like I just will always remember hearing about this pajama
party and I didn't, and I'm so so naive that
I went with my girlfriend. I think I was a
hostess at the time and I was young, wanted to
be an actress. And we showed up and I was
wearing cow flannel pajamas. But they called it a pajama party.
But it was really like everybody in like really sexy
(05:45):
lingerie and the men were wearing like tight, you know, underwear,
like things that you probably saw every time at the Mansion.
But for whatever reason, it made me feel really really
dark and uncomfortable. And I will be honest, I wanted
to feel comfortable there, like I didn't know what was
wrong with me that it didn't feel right?
Speaker 2 (06:02):
That's really sad. I'm just thinking about you showing up
in your little cow costume, your calpajamas, and yeah, it's
like you're not cool unless you're showing off your body,
which is.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
Right, but being very sexual and it was like lingerie.
And I don't think I was like a sexual person
in that way, like I could be maybe with one.
But so that was a lot of currency in La overall,
and you were in the middle of it. And so
I ask you, as a young girl, being from a
broken home, were you predispoke? Did you were you promiscuous
(06:35):
in high school? Were you like very sexual? Did you
shield other things with sexuality? Because it can go both ways.
Many people go to try to get love from sex
in high school and college. You don't understand the girl
who's sleeping with the whole hockey team because you know
that's not going to end well. But in the moment,
each hockey player they feel like is going to give
(06:56):
them love or something.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
Yeah. Absolutely, I lost my high school sweetheart and that
was very hard. He died in the war in Iraq.
And after that, I think I was about eighteen nineteen
and I thought, you know, people were paying attention to
me in that way, and I just thought, oh, I
can use it, like sexuality as a tool basically. And
(07:20):
I feel that was like an option for women to
just it still is, and I do think it helped
with the Playboy Mansion and getting in there. If I
didn't have implants and I wasn't dressed in a skimpy
French made outfit, Heff would have just looked right past me.
If I was wearing the kappajamas, I don't think it
would have invited me.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
In, right, And do you think that? So, first of all,
anybody who's going to deny that using their sexuality or
the way they look as a tool is something that
if you have it, you're not going to use it
is lying like it's just it's part of it, and
it's confused. And I wonder if it's a curse being
(08:05):
attractive and having that sect and being so you know,
looking so good, because then you're not focusing on your
mind or your intelligence or your business acumen, and neither
is anyone else. So how has that been part of
your life?
Speaker 2 (08:17):
You know, around that time before the mansion, it was
a time when Pamela Anderson and Jenny McCarthy and Carmen
Electra were super famous, and you could just feel this
sexual energy just coming up, using their sexuality as a tool,
just oozing off of like pages of magazines in the news.
(08:39):
And so that's around that time, that's kind of what
you aspire to be. You're like, oh, these women are powerful,
they have the world at their feet, Like I want
to be just like them. So then you get the
boob job and bleach the hair, and you're like, wow,
I could really be somebody if I was like if
I was like them, And I think that's kind of
how it started off for me. But over time, and
(09:00):
your value is just skin deep. It really eats at
your soul when you're only valued for what you look
like and you're constantly trying to keep up, keep up
with appearances. You know, hefwoods say, you know you're getting
fat or your nails or your hair, just picking at me.
And in the beginning, I thought, oh, I can do better, like,
oh I can be I can be better. I can
(09:21):
do better, But over time it's it's it just made
me angry. And that was also time with social media,
I was posting bikini photos. It's like twenty fourteen, and
and I realized, I like, I'm contributing to this. It's toxic,
it's misogynistic, like a misogynistic culture. I'm contribute contributing to it.
(09:42):
It sucks and it It took time and just learning
and the time shifting to fully realize that your your
value isn't what you look like.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
Yeah, and that's been one of the things about the
Kardashians that in the past I've discussed and I I
don't know if I don't see it as much, or
maybe they're not as in the same position they were before,
but I don't see it as much. But as a
mother of a teen, I was thinking about just it
doesn't matter. If it does matter, if they're all amazing, brilliant,
(10:15):
lovely people, the message being put out is lose the
weight in two weeks to get on the met Gala,
the filtering of the pictures, that editing the bones out
and the wastes and the butts, and Kylie Jenner doesn't
look anything like what she looked like. And so that's
their business, but their currency. And so yesterday you're watching
(10:36):
Mark Zuckerberg talking and trying to defend the fact that
it's been proven that teen girls are having massive anxiety
and major body security issues that are leading to real
problems and suicide from social media. So that's where that
connection is. And sometimes I feel like, you know, having
to say the difficult things against really popular families is
(11:00):
but trying to do it in a constructive way is
challenging because they're so you know, but there is a fact.
It's a fact that this is like an influence on people.
And you experienced it too.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
Yeah, it's hard and it is toxic, and it's hurting
young girls. You know. I think that the Kardashians are
brilliant and they've created this huge empire for themselves. The
thing that sucks is the youth cells and beauty cells.
But I think times are changing a bit, you know.
(11:32):
I'm seeing people like that would be considered older, like
in ads now and Sephora and things like that. I
think it's shifting a bit too. But if the Kardashians
helped with the message of just loving yourself, like self love,
self acceptance, I think girls that look up to them
(11:55):
that would be much healthier. You can't keep up with them.
It's hundreds of thousands of dollars of surgery. Uh. The
other day I saw Kim Kardashian posting, Uh, just psoriasis.
It's like all over our big big patches, like all
of our legs and everywhere. And I just think to myself, like,
you keep putting this like toxic stuff in your body.
(12:16):
It's not like nothing is like natural from the earth.
It's just you know, these the fillers and implants and
all these things, and your body's gonna have a reaction.
You're gonna have to pay for that later.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
And that's it's very interesting.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
It's sad.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
That's that movie Death Becomes Her when everybody's just getting
all the surgery and plastic and everything, and like their
their their ears and everything starts falling off because they
look young and they're trying to chase you. Their body
starts falling apart. Yeah, so you were in La and
(12:57):
well you lived in San Diego and you go to
the Playboy mansion and you're chosen, and I can see
the allure in that like that, we can all just judge.
It's like very not unlike the Housewives. Didn't she know
what she signed up for? But I imagine it's not
on the first day, like it's an evolution. You just somehow.
Holly said it was seven years later and she couldn't
(13:18):
believe that had been seven years. So, you know, you
had a curfew and you had a small budget, and
were you on the show too?
Speaker 2 (13:28):
I was on season six of The Girl's next Door
and you know, half made four hundred thousand dollars an
episode and I didn't make anything.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
Wow, And you knew that then or you found it
out later?
Speaker 2 (13:42):
Now? Then I knew that hef and the producer because
he would always have him on speakerphone, Kevin Burns. They
would talk, oh, he just picked it up in four
hundred thousand each episode and eight episodes, and so I
would hear they would all brag with each other. And
I didn't get paid anything for The Girls next Door
season six. I was made to feel like, oh, I
(14:03):
should just be so lucky to be there, and I
didn't want to do it. I never wanted to be famous.
That was never my goal. Never wanted to be an
actress or anything like that.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
Fascinating. So did you feel that you were exploited by
E or it was just hef like because are they
this goes on with Bravo and Housewives they should be
lucky to be there, and me, Bethany Frankel, I'd be nothing. Everybody,
I'd be nothing if I was never on the Housewives,
Like that's what it's been boiled down to.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
I hate that because it's like if if it wasn't that,
like you have the personality to, you know, be the
best in another situation. So yeah, I hate it when
people people say things like that, And yeah, there's a
lot of things were unfair. When Hef had asked me
to marry him, they were filming another show called Marrying
(14:53):
Hef It was going to be on Lifetime. I found out.
I found out they were making eight hundred thousand dollars
for a two hour special wow, and my talent fee
was twenty five hundred. So it's weird. It's strange because
a lot of people, I'm like, ninety nine point nine
percent of the comments from the book are incredible, but that,
like the troll percentage is like profiting off a dead
(15:15):
man and all this stuff. I was like, did we
ever think about how he profited off of me personally?
Or did we ever think about how profited profited off
of all of these women? For years and years and years,
all the way to the very very first issue Marilyn Monroe.
He bought her photos from a calendar company, put him
in the put him in the magazine. She didn't get
a dime, and she started the whole empire. Now I
(15:40):
was buried next to her, and she has no say
and whose bones are buried next to her for all eternity?
Speaker 1 (15:47):
Oh my god, that's insane. Wow. Okay, So you walk
into this party and you feel lucky to be chosen,
you know. And the way it's described and what I
was reading is like multiple people, we're having sex with
him in one space.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
Yeah. Yeah. The first night in his bedroom there twins
were there, which to me they were sisters. They were nineteen.
It's disgusting, you know. I remember him holding them on
each side of him and like looking up into this
mirror and he's like, my babies. Wow, I'm just like,
these girls are nineteen.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
And why did you like, so, what did you feel
disgusting about yourself? Like did you feel like it was prostitution?
Like what? What? What was going through your mind? Like
going there and being in a French maid costume is
one thing, but like having sex with him, and he's
and I'm not. I promise you on my life, I'm
not judging at oh I don't like Yeah, I want
to like really understand I'm not and I would never
(16:45):
have you on here to like then beat you down.
It's not I I'm You're a smart girl, you're a
beautiful girl. You could be with anybody you want in
the world, with or without have So it's the something
fucked up that went down. And I kind of want
to like no, because people have daughters, go off to college,
go off you by the selves want to be actors
as you cannot put them in bubble wrap, so like
you're someone's daughter.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
My parents came from England. They didn't have green cards.
My dad died and it was just my mom and I.
We were renting a bedroom in some other family's house
like we had We had nothing. So yeah, I always
felt small. I always felt that everyone was better than me.
And when I went into the mansion I met Heff.
Even though it was like this kind of twisted situation
(17:25):
that I didn't realize the magnitude until much later, I
did feel like, oh, this is somewhere I could feel
safe or feel that I could belong like I can
belong somewhere.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
Finally, that sounds like a cult, which is hoppened.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
It was definitely, it was definitely a cult. There's a
cult leader. You do everything they tell you to do.
If you slip up and get in trouble, like, you
feel guilty and terrible and you're going to do better.
I spoke to two women that were in a cult,
and we all reminded ourselves of each other. It was
it was a cult for sure.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
That that makes it make sense to me, Like because
everybody could be logical and all the moms with our
cross body bags and our lattes can be like, oh
she knew and gossip. But like you were young, you
were twenty one, You walked in there. And if you
get into a cult, your mind is completely fucked up
because everything you're saying, you didn't get paid, you had
(18:23):
a curfew, you got in trouble like and so what
did make you stay? What did you like? Did you
love him? Did you love the experience like you felt
like you belonged like? What made you keep going? And
did you ever try to get out in the middle
of it?
Speaker 2 (18:40):
Yeah? I think with colts you get a little bit brainwashed,
you know, as impressionable. And I'm in this place where
he's the king of his castle. He's got about seventy
staff that are all yes men all around him, and
it's this big bubble and you get kind of stuck
in it and sucked in and and you know, my
(19:03):
thirty seven year old self that has more wisdom. If
I in my twenty one year old body would be
punching him in the face, like and calling him discussing
and what are you doing to these women? But I
didn't have the tools then, and I was trying to
fit in and I thought, I'm going to do whatever
this man wants me to do to be like the favorite.
Speaker 1 (19:22):
Or the best.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
And it's gross.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
That reminds me. That's why I always say that Housewives
is like a cult, because everybody's trying to kiss up
to the leader and be the favorite and everybody, you
know it really it's not. They're not living together, but
everybody wants to be the favorite, and people want to
be there. And it's funny because I was criticized like that.
We you know, everyone knows what they're signing up for.
(19:47):
And I will be honest at this point now in
twenty twenty four. I think everybody does know what they're
signing up for. But and back then it sounded like
a good idea. It was just like a nice show
and you're making you know, you're making well, you know,
make money yet but you eventually do you not making money?
That's even crazier, Like, I don't you you were literally
just getting to live in this nice house, but taking
(20:09):
up years of your life. And then we get into
were you Did you ever love him?
Speaker 2 (20:17):
I never was in love with half right off the bat, like, Okay,
if this man wants four women in the bed with him,
he cannot love me. Like that's it's a joke. That's
a joke. So for what it's worth. You know, I
didn't know then. I didn't know then that he was
a narcissist. Now I know that he's a narcissist. Now
(20:37):
all of his behavior makes more sense to me. You know,
we didn't really use those terms when I was when
I was there, and now I'm like, okay, it's all
about him. I just be his mirror and reflect his
self importance back at him. It's everything he wants to
do sexually. Who gives a shit about me? It's all
about what he wants and his stupid little ritual and
(20:57):
routine that he has. And yeah, his friend would bring
articles for him and just anything related to himself. That's
all he wanted to talk about. And so as long
as you're doing that, he likes you. And that's probably
how Holly became so close with him or the number
one or whatever. And same with me, is that we
just followed along better than the other people and made
(21:21):
completely lost ourselves to just mirror him.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
You behaved, it's terrible.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
Yeah, you lose yourself because the real meat wouldn't bleach
my scalp and burn my head. The real meat wouldn't
wear stupid little outfits and stupid heels to all these
parties and try and keep sexualizing myself. Like now, like
I've thrown all of that stuff away. It just makes
me sick. I'm over it. But I didn't have the
(21:50):
tools then be so weird.
Speaker 1 (21:53):
Because you don't recognize that person.
Speaker 2 (21:56):
No, I feel sorry for myself at that young age
and manipulated by an eighty year old man when I
was twenty one, and I remember being there and just
being so in it that he half would do interviews
and say, oh, the sound of young girls laughter like
keeps me young? And then I'm like, oh, yeah, that's me. Wow,
(22:18):
I feel so special, And now I'm like, yuck. It's
like goes into those conspiracy theories of like eating the
blood of children or something. Right, but it was it's gross.
And I remember when Holly's book came out and how
dare she say all these bad things about hef But
but now now I'm like, She's right, it's weird.
Speaker 1 (22:39):
Do you have any relationship with the other women or
is it too traumatizing like to talk to them about this.
Speaker 2 (22:45):
I talked to Kendra the most. I think that Holly
and Bridgett there's still some kind of I don't know.
I just wish we could all get along. And we're
not going to agree on everything, but I just wish
we could get along. At the Playboy Mansion, that whole
experience is something that was like some weird social experiment
in time that will never be repeated again. So the
(23:07):
people that went through there I want to stay connected
to because it's it's interesting.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
It's an experience, but like a cult, you're sort of
compartmentalized and often pitted against each other, and so the
things that happened in that extraordinary circumstanstance, then is affecting
your relationships now that if you met them at a
restaurant or in a store, you might be friends with them.
But because you all went through this harrowing that's housewives too,
(23:33):
their housewes that hate me, their housewives that hate me
based on something I might have said about a blog
or based on being in this extraordinary experiment with them
that doesn't reflect real life or who I am or
who they are. You know, people ratting each other out,
people saying that someone was really broke, this one cheated
on their husband, you know what I mean. It just
(23:53):
you do different things in that environment. And I think
that's probably why you're saying that you don't currently have
a relation with other people in that experience.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
Yeah, and I think it gets ingrained in us in
a completely cellular level to all hate each other.
Speaker 1 (24:08):
It's sad exactly in a time where we're supposed to
be host me too. These things are interesting that they happen,
They still happen, and the men somehow are at the
top of the realm. Yes, fascinating. So and I by
(24:28):
reading about this sect well, first of all I'm picking
up that you feel you're probably still really working through
this in therapy or like how are you coping? Are
you still feeling shame as you go through this experience
talking about it through this book, because writing it is
one thing, then it goes to print and now here
you are like living it again.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
Yeah. I think what I'm trying to do is just
give myself grace and not be so hard on myself.
But yeah, that place was very hard, and this a
lot of gross stuff. You know, a lot of this
celebrities that even came through there, Like a lot of
those men were gross, like yep, gross, perver, misogynistic, nasty people.
(25:09):
And I'm like, Hollywood is gross. You know, people people
have these certain dreams and it's it's all smoke and mirrors.
It's disgusting. Everywhere you turn, it's it sucks and it's
not real. And people idolize fame and Hollywood and I
think trash. Literally you go down to Hollywood Boulevard and
(25:30):
there's just trash everywhere.
Speaker 1 (25:32):
By the way, I have I know all the guys
who are at those parties, and I know there's scumbags,
And that's what I asked Holly, but she didn't have
like an answer to this. I was wondering, well, where
do you live now?
Speaker 2 (25:44):
I live in West Hollywood. I'm still in Los Angeles,
but I go between here in Hawaii. I have a
farm in Hawaii, which.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
Is oh yeah, Well, I'm saying, when you see some
of these people, you must run into people in LA
that like you're both looking like they're they're hiding because
I know that you've seen what they've been down with
because you're on front lines.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
Is that disgusting? I've had certain big actors after Half died,
like one of them said, oh, can we continue that
vibe at my place? I'm like, that's disgusting. And then
I had another when Half wasn't well, I had another
one say can we go to lunch? Because you know,
Half needs to pass the torch to someone and it
might as well be me.
Speaker 1 (26:22):
Wow, Like, what the heck?
Speaker 2 (26:24):
What do these men think? Why do they think they're
God's gift?
Speaker 1 (26:27):
It's disgusting, It's unbelievable, and it's so funny because that's
what that pretty woman seeing was about. And like Julia
Roberts is there, and then Jason Alexander thinks he's just
gonna grab Julia Roberts for himself, you know, like she's
just like.
Speaker 2 (26:40):
So many Jason, Alexander's a.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
Piece of property. Yeah. So, and it's interesting that, well,
so you get married, do you have friends at this time?
Are all your friends in that that you think? Are
your friends in that world? Are you talking to friends
family about getting married? Are they like, she's your nuts?
And like what about that?
Speaker 2 (26:59):
I just my mom at that point, and she she
encouraged it. She she had gone to the Playboy Club
in London, and you know, she's British and she's just fun,
life of the party. She loved going to the parties.
Now I speak to her and she said, I had
no idea. It was like that if I did, you know,
I wouldn't want you to go there. But so she
(27:20):
feels shamed too. Yeah, I think so. It was hard
for you to read the book?
Speaker 1 (27:25):
Yeah, yeah, that's interesting. That reminds me of Paris and Kathy,
with Paris going to that horrible boarding school and Kathy
oh yeah, noing, you know, having to hear about it,
read about it, and feel partially responsible as a mother.
Your number one job is to protect your daughter.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
Yeah, and she thought she was doing the right thing
for her.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
Yeah, the sexual descriptions that you give of hef sound
like that, like he couldn't get it up, he couldn't
keep it up, and he wasn't good in bed. So
he put on this whole costume with his whole life
of like sex, when it seems like it was like
some real problem, like at the core, the one thing
(28:01):
that he portrayed is the one thing that he couldn't do.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
It's yeah, it's it's crazy, and it's interesting you say
that because it's so true. I remember going out with
him and fans would just swarm him and be like, heth,
you're the man. I want to be just like you everywhere,
And I'm thinking, heaf isn't even like himself. He's just
pretending smoke and mirrors. He was this broken child. Everyone
(28:27):
he had a crush on all liked somebody else. He
was a nerd, and his first wife cheated on him,
and he was just you know, had all of these
stepbacks in life, and I think he just over His
parents never showed him love, so he over compensated with
this creation and this fantasy, and he never really knew
how to love. He never really knew how to make love.
(28:49):
He supposed to be this master at all of these things,
and he wasn't. He had no idea. All he cared
about is himself. So if he didn't even have the
capacity to try and care or understand, you know, another person.
So it's hard. It's just he's like the sad little
(29:10):
boy that just was always a sad little boy. I
felt sorry for him all I go up until he died.
Speaker 1 (29:18):
Well, that's common because I call it a trick guy.
And girls need to watch out for these trick guys.
They're the guys that are the dorks. So you think like, oh,
they're just a cute, little dorky nerdy guy, and you
think that that's gonna mean that they're gonna like treat
you so well or be like the good guy. But
that dorky nerdy guy sometimes is fucked up for the
fact that girls would never give him attention or sleep
(29:41):
with him in the earlier days, which does form how
men are.
Speaker 2 (29:44):
Maybe Heff was just angry and took it out on
all of us.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
I don't know, something something deep seated, you know, to show. Yeah,
well it's exerting power. I'm I'm, I'm gonna show them
and I'm the powerful one.
Speaker 2 (29:58):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (30:12):
Do you date now? That must be challenging or has
been challenging and trusting and trusting yourself.
Speaker 2 (30:19):
Yeah, in the beginning, dating was hard. I would run
into situations where I felt controlled and manipulated. Still and
a lot of that was okay. It was like a
struggling musician, a struggling actor. So I'm thinking, oh my gosh,
here i am being controlled manipulated, and this time I'm
paying the bills like this is this is getting is
getting worse. So more more therapy and now you know
(30:41):
I'm dating in the relationships are much you know, more
healthy and happy.
Speaker 1 (30:49):
Well again, I'm fine. Hallie literally said she first went
towards the same type of person, not realizing it might
be a different package. But it was a similar type
of person, so you have that in common, and then
had to intervene for in what she was looking at, like,
it's me, I'm the problem. It's me. I've got to
be looking at different partners.
Speaker 2 (31:08):
Definitely. Yeah. Now I cannot tolerate anything less than nurturing.
Speaker 1 (31:14):
And what about career? Now, so what is your own identity?
What do you do for a living. How do you
support yourself? What do you want to do? You're still young?
What do you want to be when you grow up?
Speaker 2 (31:26):
My real job is I buy and flip properties. I've
redesigned homes. I like to add a lot of natural elements,
reclaim wood, and yeah, I just I'm a minimalist. So
I have about six properties between California and Hawaii. When
(31:46):
I was in therapy for five years, I remember the
therapist saying, you know, whatever you're doing, now, make sure
it has nothing to do with what you look like.
So I don't do any like social media ads or
anything to do with what I look like. It's all
mainly house stuff.
Speaker 1 (32:02):
I do that a lot too. I love that.
Speaker 2 (32:05):
Yeah, it's fun, it's creative. It's it's fun. It's yeah,
it's nice.
Speaker 1 (32:09):
It's business, it's creative. There's an't you see transformation? When
you say you have six properties, you have six that
you keep or that you're flip. You're currently going to flip.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
Two of them. I'm building homes and I'll sell the homes,
but the other four I'm keeping for now.
Speaker 1 (32:28):
Did leave He didn't seem to leave Holly anything. She
wasn't married to him. Did you have a will. Did
you get married and at least have a prenup or
a will.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
We had a prenup, but it was very unfair. The
first lawyer wouldn't sign it. I had to take it
to someone else to sign it. And I think because
I felt so trapped, I wanted to just start saving.
I got I became a playmate and got some playmate money,
and I just screw and grew, grew the money. I
learned how to DJ. During the day. I would fly
to Vegas and DJ and come straight back for movie night.
(32:57):
And so I saved up some money and opened a
secret LLC. I was able to buy a house, and
from that I bought another house and another house, and
so I was just I think back because I did
feel trapped, but that at that point I had millions,
and my mom said, you know, you can leave any
time you want, and I remember saying, like, I can't
leave him. He needs me. And this is you know, later,
(33:19):
like a couple of years before he died, and I
could have left and been fine.
Speaker 1 (33:22):
And you had millions while living in the playboy mansion,
staying in the marriage.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
Yeah, yeah, I definitely did.
Speaker 1 (33:29):
You weren't. Yeah, how did you earn millions while you
were a prisoner?
Speaker 2 (33:34):
Right? I Like, I thought to myself because I would
see women that bought a range Rover or like lubaitons,
like girl, like buy a condo? What are you doing?
I'm so glad I had that mindset because yeah, I
saved and I bought a house. I ended up buying
another house. I was DJing. It was like seventy five
(33:55):
hundred dollars.
Speaker 1 (33:55):
A wait, but this is aster you're saying, right, this
is during wait, he let you. But that's what I
don't understand. He was telling I'm reading that he gave
people one thousand dollars a week and people had a curfew.
So I would have thought, because men like to control financially,
how did he let you buy a house? Who is
like your lawyer?
Speaker 2 (34:11):
They didn't know? He didn't know.
Speaker 1 (34:13):
Well this is interesting, okay, so what the hell is
this part? Like this is the me like every time,
it's like a nugget that I'm like, we weren't even
talking about. So wait a minute. So this is and
this is what many women should do, like having a
nest egg. This is you would never invest in a
business that that someone said sixty percent chance it's going
to fail, and that's most marriages. So it's hard to
(34:33):
hear that women A obviously need to have a prenup,
B need to have their own Everybody doesn't need to
like put their money with somebody else's. So let's get
down to this now. How are you saving while under
the roof with Hugh Hefner, arguably one of the most
controlling men I've ever heard about, who doesn't want anybody
to have their own resources or job or time, how
are you saving millions of dollars while under this roof?
(34:54):
I need you to be specific. I need to understand.
Speaker 2 (34:57):
Okay, Well, when I was first there, I was given
a thousand dollars every Friday, and which is nothing, you know,
for a twenty four seven job. And I remember the
twins and I we had to go into HEF's room
and basically beg him every Friday, have can we have
our allowance? And he would open the locked cabinet and
(35:19):
pull out an envelope with one hundred dollar bills and
be like one hundred, two hundred, one hundred to you
know for and just count it out for the three
girls and then hand us these stacks and.
Speaker 1 (35:31):
That that alone is degrading, that you had to go
beg for the scraps every week like dogs.
Speaker 2 (35:35):
Yeah, I felt like a hooker, right, Okay, That's how
I felt, And it was disgusting and demoralizing, and that
that kind of ritual lit a fire inside me to
where I'm like, I want to never have to do
this ever again. Whenever I'm away from the situation and
out of here, I want to make sure that I
(35:55):
never have to be in this kind of thing ever again.
And so I remember, have made me a playmate. I
made twenty five thousand dollars. I wrote twenty five thousand
on this little piece of paper, and every time I
would then I would start saving the allowance and barely
spending anything because we had no rent and all the things.
So I was just trying to save as much as
I could, and Heff would give us little extra things
(36:17):
here and there, and sometimes I would lie and say
it's for something, but I would just keep most of it.
Speaker 1 (36:22):
And just like you have the Handmaid, the Handmaid like
figure out out, well, yeah, you have to lie.
Speaker 2 (36:28):
You'd have to. It's like, you know, at the same time,
he's making four hundred thousand dollars for you know, an
episode or episode of The Girl's next Door and we're
making nothing. So I'm like, I gotta be smarter, smarter
at this, and I learned how to DJ. I remember
thinking like, I have no talent. I did a couple
of playmate things during the day where I showed up
(36:48):
and they give me nine hundred dollars.
Speaker 1 (36:51):
And he allowed that, like how did you do not
tell it?
Speaker 2 (36:53):
If it was in the parameters, which was far im
few in between. Usually the playmates were hired for night
things that I couldn't go to. But I learned how
to DJ, and then I got a job at the
hard Rock Hotel in Las Vegas and they paid me
seventy five hundred for an hour and a half, and
so I would try and go like on Saturday and
make it back before movie night. So I was like
saving all of that. And then because I was at
(37:15):
the Mansion, people paid attention to me. I know it's
just through half, of course, but I'm like, I'm just
going to use it to my advantage. Social media started
coming out on Instagram twenty fourteen. A company called Skinny
Bunny Tea asked me to promote so I'd be like
a bikini and holding the skinny bunny tea and they'd
pay me like seventy five hundred every time I posted
(37:37):
like the and it was like once or twice a week,
and I would just I would just start saving and
start saving. And then I had a company in Australia
I want to do a bikini line with me. And
then I had another woman that wanted to do a
laingerie company or a loungewear and so I'm just trying
all these different avenue doscinating and I feel like financial
(37:58):
abuse is a real thing and it sucks and it's hard.
And I have a friend right now that's in a
horrible marriage with this narcissist man who I keep telling you,
I'm like, save, do online stuff to be like an
online assistant because she has two kids.
Speaker 1 (38:13):
And I just do.
Speaker 2 (38:13):
Anything you can to save so you can leave him
if you need to. I think it's so important. And invest,
you know, I started investing tiny bits of money in
like cryptocurrency, so I just it's instead of spending my
time at the mansion wondering like what outfit I'm gonna wear,
or like how to decorate for a party. I'm like,
(38:35):
I need to be like financially literate.
Speaker 1 (38:38):
And that was me on The Housewives. I had a
thousand dollars when I signed up. That was me on
The Housewives. Everyone else was worrying about facials and diamonds
and I was off to the races when it started,
like already like off to the races. But that's why
everyone was trying to play catch up with me for years.
You know, that's because everyone wants to show how rich
they are.
Speaker 2 (38:56):
Yeah, what more? Women need? That mindset of just yeah,
I'm showing how rich you are, I think is another
part of the thing, like part of the problem. I
remember saving enough to get a Chanel bag was five
thousand dollars and I put it on and I'm like,
I feel nothing, Like where's the sparkly magic I'm supposed
to And so I'm like, this is dumb. I just
have this sitting here. And so I'm like, okay, Like
(39:19):
materialism is not going to be my answer to anything.
Speaker 1 (39:24):
You're smart. You're smart, right, Like I.
Speaker 2 (39:28):
Tried, and you know, hef did buy us a house.
He toward the end of his life, he did buy
a house in West Hollywood. It was like a five
million dollar house. Who's us half it myself?
Speaker 1 (39:38):
Oh? Okay.
Speaker 2 (39:38):
At that point he had sold the mansion and so
he could stay there until he died. But the mansion
was sold, and so he bought this house in case
anything went down and we had to leave or somewhere
for me to go if something happened to him. So
I did have that house when.
Speaker 1 (39:57):
I left, and he left it to you. Yes, And
do you do you think he loved you?
Speaker 2 (40:04):
I think he loved me the best way he knew
how you know, I.
Speaker 1 (40:07):
Think you do more than any of the other people
who was with you. Think he like was loyal toy
in some different type of way.
Speaker 2 (40:13):
Yeah, I think toward the end, toward the end, I
respected myself more. Toward the end, I got my implants
taken out, I stopped bleaching my hair, and I did
notice that he respected me. He respected me more. And
I would like to hope that Hugh Afner learned some
type of lesson and compassion or you know, don't chase
(40:38):
after the wrong things. But but I don't know, maybe.
Speaker 1 (40:41):
Maybe well you were there at the end, like you
were there when he died, and so was he. I
don't remember. I didn't was he dying? Like was he
in or was he just do you know what I'm saying?
Was he in hospice or something? Or he just you
know what I mean? Like, did you know he was
about to die? Because when people are sort of in
hospit and like different people are walking through to like
(41:02):
say their last things, some people do hear people say
things that they've never heard, Like I was wanting that
from my father in hospice, and he was the exact
same way to till his last breath, Like I was
trying to get something that I was never going to get.
So what was that like for you? Was there some humanity?
Did you get some connection and like him realizing what
(41:23):
he had done or that it was fucked up? Or
did he become somebody? Did he have some realization?
Speaker 2 (41:29):
I don't think that that he felt anything he did
was fucked up his whole life. I think because of
the narcissism, he just didn't believe that he did anything wrong.
He got sick pretty quickly. It was a urinary tract infection.
It was a regressive strain of equal A bacteria. Only
(41:50):
one antibiotic was sensitive to it, so we tried that
it didn't work. He went into sepsis. I you know,
we had to just start IVS and things on him.
And I remember asking him like, are you okay? And
he said, you know, I'm okay with kind of a
defeated tone, and that was the last thing he ever said.
He just yeah, I got worse and worse, and I
(42:14):
had to make these decisions at the end of his life.
It was hard because he never wanted to go to
a hospital and he said, I want to just die
in my bed. And so he went into sepsis, and
the doctor said, if he stays here, he's going to die,
but if he goes to the hospital, like maybe there's
a thirty percent chance of him living.
Speaker 1 (42:33):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (42:33):
And so I'm reading this advanced healthcare directive that somehow
I'm like, how am I named? Is? Hugh Hafner's like
the deciding person on this? And you at the time
when he died, I was thirty one.
Speaker 1 (42:47):
Well okay, so you're thirty one and you're the person
that's deciding what he's whether he's going to take a
thirty percent chance or stay home. So let's hear this now.
It's insane.
Speaker 2 (42:56):
I know. It said something about if I have a
terminal illness, Like I just want to stay home, but
if I can be saved, then take me somewhere or whatever.
So I'm like, okay, he could potentially be saved. It's
bacterial infection. Do we just take him? Do we what
do we do? He was so bad, you know, like, okay,
we might take him and just even moving it might
(43:16):
be so difficult and thirty percent chances of survival. I'm like,
I'm crying, and I stepped out of the room because
I didn't want him to hear any of this that's
going on. And I was talking to his assistant and
his estate attorney. And while I was trying to decide
this in the other room, one of the nurses came
into where I was and said, you know, he's gone.
Speaker 1 (43:39):
Oh thank god, you didn't have to make that decision.
Speaker 2 (43:42):
So he decided. Yeah, he decided for us.
Speaker 1 (43:45):
But did you were you sad when he was dying
or like, were you kind of almost relieved? Like people
have weird thoughts that they're not supposed to be having
when someone's dying. That's been traumatic for them, So will
you kind of relieved that he died or like not
wishing it? But like, you know what I mean, were
you conflicted? Because I mean, this is crazy that you
had this experience with him and now you're the person
(44:05):
that he's left to make this decision and you're crying
and what were you crying? Why were you crying?
Speaker 2 (44:12):
I think it all happened so fast, and the topic
of death is hard for me, so it was just
going through that again. And once he passed away, I
remember like, I don't even want to know what day
it is. I don't want to know what time it is.
And I felt guilty, which is strange. I felt like, oh,
(44:33):
maybe there's something we could have done differently for him.
And yes, it's weird, and I think it's how people
would feel if they were in a cult, you know,
and the leader died, you'd feel sad and confused and guilty.
And yeah, and it took time. I put out a statement,
a very positive statement, but it took time. It took
(44:56):
maybe five years to truly like peel it away and
and understand.
Speaker 1 (45:02):
I believe that going through these things that are so
abnormal that you thought was normal is it takes a
long time for it to get out of your body,
like you could be away from it but like for
it to like on a cellular level. Leave it's very
you know how that goes with any like and death
is confusing anyway, like you don't have to two things
(45:23):
can be happening at the same time. You can think
he's a disgusting pig, but you also you're Some children
love parents that put out the cigarettes on them. They
want to go back to them like that happened. Like
so you can feel a feeling two conflicting feelings like
it's not binary.
Speaker 2 (45:41):
Yeah, absolutely absolutely.
Speaker 1 (45:45):
I'm speechless. Wow. So how does it feel to have
written the book? Did you get everything out that you
wanted to say? Did you forget things? Did you block
things out? And like, honestly are people judging you? Like
where where is all that?
Speaker 2 (46:01):
Oh? Well, I feel like the book could have been,
you know, three times as long. But I you know,
I've I had stories and I crafted them together in
a way that I thought told it in the best way.
And the book has been healing. It's resonating with so
many people. I've had women reach out to me, so
(46:23):
many women reaching out like, oh, playboy was my dream.
And as I sit in my normal house in a
town no one's heard of in Indiana. I'm, you know,
grateful that it didn't happen for me, and thank you
and thanks for lifting the lid and being light. And
I'm going to have my daughter read this book. And
you know, it's the book I wish I have when
I was twenty one, because it was nothing, nothing like that.
Speaker 1 (46:44):
I like it as a book for when someone who's
twenty one. But I like for you what you were
saying about your friend who's in that marriage. Like I
think that you're somehow like listening to you talk about
somebody in a bad relationship, prepare themselves, take care of themselves,
not just make some rash decision, because so many women
(47:04):
are controlled by a situation. And you brought up financial abuse,
which happens a lot and divorce, Like some people just
want to say uncle and get out, and they'll settle
for almost nothing because the the and it's usually the man, sorry,
is keeping the lights off, like they won't turn the
electric bill on, and you're like begging them, or they're
controlling the custody schedule. And I went through ten years
(47:25):
as a wealthy, successful woman who is you know, has
some power being tortured in a divorce. So like you can,
you can help women lock the door before they get robbed,
like just you know, just because you're if you're miserable, okay,
well get your shit organized. Like you sound like you
were sort of miserable and in something bad, but something
told you to be preparing yourself.
Speaker 2 (47:47):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, yeah, And I do really help to
help a man. Like when they read the book, and
you know, the end of the book, I talk about
these girls and I cannot read the end back without
crying because these girls would write into hef as young
as eleven years old and they would say, you know,
I got a playble white bedspread, and you know, what
(48:11):
does it take to be part of the mansion? Like
what does it take to be up there? Like one
day I'll be there, and like what does it take?
It's like you have to you have to lose yourself completely.
That's what it takes. And I don't recommend that to anybody.
Speaker 1 (48:28):
But you found yourself now, yeah work in progress. Yeah wow.
And then and what about his family? So you said
he had a crazy family with his family growing up,
and then he has kids, which is like I don't
believe that. I can't believe he has kids, Like I don't.
Speaker 2 (48:46):
I don't think he could either. Me. I don't think
he could either. He's he you know, he always said
to me, I'm not a good father. He said that
he didn't want the second set of kids, but it
was like having his own grandchildren, and you know, they
were coming in the room when he would act like
he was busy, and he just didn't know how to
(49:07):
be a dad, like I hate Yeah, I didn't know
how to connect. Didn't know how to be a dad.
It's hard. And I think he's just so used to
being gross with women his whole life. I remember Christy,
his daughter, who was CEO for so long, came into
the room when we're playing cards and kissed him like
you know, between cheek and mouth like here and and
then he's like yummy, and I'm just like I'm just
(49:28):
thinking ew. Like he he can't like switch his brain
to daughter.
Speaker 1 (49:34):
Everything has to be transactional sounds like like yummy.
Speaker 2 (49:37):
You don't say that to your daughter. That's gross?
Speaker 1 (49:39):
Yeah, right, he didn't. Yeah, the difference between that's creepy him.
Speaker 2 (49:44):
Its constantly imperv mode.
Speaker 1 (49:46):
Yeah. Exactly what do they think of all of this?
Have they?
Speaker 2 (49:49):
Have?
Speaker 1 (49:49):
They expressed publicly disapproval of this book or Holly's book
or in general, or they're not even like.
Speaker 2 (49:56):
No, I haven't. I spoke to Marston yesterday, and you
know his two youngest kids are closer in age to me,
so you know I really like Marsden care about him,
and yeah, I mean I don't have a bad relationship
with them. I know that Kimberly have ex wife made
some statements about defending him, and the first thing I
(50:19):
thought of was I met her once in person, but
my other interactions with her were all of her naked.
He had huge naked pictures of Kimberly, like in the
gym and in the library, and I'm thinking, like, if
that's not objectification, what is right? And how could you
defend a man that had your naked pictures all over
(50:39):
the house for anybody coming to a party to look at?
Your own children are coming in the house and staring
at their mom naked on the wall, Like, come on,
how how much longer can you defend this man? I
have no idea.
Speaker 1 (50:52):
Wow, Wow, I mean I'm gonna cry. I feel for
you as a twenty one year old girl, I really
really do. So you're still so young and it's great
that you have so much of life ahead of you.
And yeah, I guess that was you and locking the
door now before you get robbed because it won't happen again.
Speaker 2 (51:13):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (51:14):
Yeah, well, I hope that is the book doing incredibly well.
Speaker 2 (51:17):
I just got word that it's a New York Times bestseller.
Speaker 1 (51:21):
Yay, oh immediately amazing first week. Yeah all right, well, congratulations.
That means that you're you know, and you should reach
out to Holly and Bridget or maybe all of us
will have a conversation on here one time. I think
this is a topic, I really do.
Speaker 2 (51:37):
I would love to come on here with them, with you, and.
Speaker 1 (51:41):
I'll ask them because I think it reminds me of
situations I've been in where like people don't like each
other and they don't even really necessarily have a good reason,
and this guy has done so much damage. So you
all have such a word to spread as women who
all got sucked into something. Okay, yes, walking into it knowingly,
but later you know, you could help young girls not
(52:01):
get traumatized, and you'd you know, so anyway, I appreciate
the conversation and really the being so open and honest,
and congratulations on the book and on everything else.
Speaker 2 (52:10):
Thank you, I appreciate it. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (52:12):
Amazing, awesome, have a great day, Thank you. Thanks bye.
Wow that was something else. She was lovely. I was
reading my I have multiple pages in front of me
of the story. I was thinking this was like prostitution
(52:34):
and going in there, it had to be strategic. And
you know, I learn a lot because I mean, a
twenty one year old girl, you know what, to me
is kind of still a child, like it really really is.
We could say whatever we want and you could be
legal to vote, but like twenty one is really young.
Like I mean, if I have assistants that are working
(52:55):
here that are twenty four, pau wall be like they're babies,
Like you know, not to be rude, but like you know,
and a lot of them are way more babies than
I was at that age because I grew up in
a very abusive, fucked up alcohol ridden oblimia, gambling, physical abuse,
being dragged, calling the cops like that doesn't count, Like, yes,
I was mature because I was an adult when I
(53:17):
was a kid. That you don't want that for anybody else.
And so like these kids that get preyed upon by
the Jeffrey Epstein's, by the Harvey Weinstein's, by the Hugh Hefner's,
by all the scumbags that were at that party, many
of them. I know, so I you know, I think
it's an interesting conversation. I was fascinated that she was like,
(53:39):
you know, squirreling her chestnuts, like she was hoarding her
chestnuts as a squirrel while with him. That was when
I was like, each time I have a conversation, like
something comes out that these girls are so desensitized they
don't even think it's like newsworthy, and I'm like, what
the fuck? Like Holly too, so they didn't get paid
to be on this show, Like crazy interesting, really really
(54:00):
really interesting conversation. Wow, I'm like speechless. And then that
these women turn against each other under the realm of
a man leading a cult. It's crazy.
My guest today is American model Crystal Heffner, who is
best known as two thousand and nine's Playboy Playmate of
the Month for December, as well as being the third
wife of Playboy publisher Hugh Hefner. Crystal's brand new book
Only Say Good Things Surviving Playboy and Myself has been
making headline since it's released last month as she opens
up about her life in the Playboy mansion. This is
(00:33):
just me with Crystal Hefner. Let's get into it. Well,
very nice to meet you. So I had a holly on.
I just thought that would be a good idea and
a good conversation. And I used to have an agent
that also represented Kendra, So like your, your world was
(00:55):
peripherally in my in my vision, very peripherally. And I
did live in la and was a hostess a La
Scala in my twenties and some of thirties, and I
used to hear about the Playboy parties. So but I
was yeah, and I would I would have died to go.
(01:16):
And I was never invited. I wasn't part of that group.
I don't think I added any value or anything. But
so like I knew how iconic and prevalent. They were
in La the fiction, absolutely, you know, and very reputable
and very successful and very respected people were always there.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Yeah, yeah, there were, and there were a lot of Yeah.
It was like an a list type of vibe of
the Playboy Mansion for sure.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
Which is crazy if you think about it now, because
you're thinking about the Jeffrey Epstein Island and you're thinking
about all the people like former presidents and titans of industry.
So I just keep making that parallel to this situation
and hearing your story and Holly's story and what I'm reading.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, I think Helf wasn't necessarily a predator.
I think there would be more a much more, you know,
lawsuits against him. But this was also a time before
Me Too. Me Too happened a month after hef died,
so it's almost like, wow, he left just in time,
like his specific moment in history that was just perfect
(02:28):
for him, and then he just pieced out like right
at the perfect time. I remember when he was still alive,
the Cosby stuff had just started coming out, and you know,
he knew that, he knew that Cosby was not the
best guy. For sure.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
Well, I definitely want to get into you, and that
obviously for you to be here, it's because your identity
is definitely tied to playboy Hugh Hefner. And I'm sure
you're trying to maybe this book is closure for you,
so you can have your own identity in your own
life and it's not to find you, but it is
also part of your story. So I'm sure you want
to kind of just like say it in your own terms,
(03:07):
your own on your in your own words, on your
own terms, and like get it out.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
Yeah. Yeah, I think it's helpful in the healing process.
There were a lot of things that happened there. I
didn't fully realize until after that messed me up a
bit and created I had this narrative for seventy years.
He just he stuck so hard at this narrative. He
has three thousand scrap books that just document his life
(03:34):
from the very beginning all the way to the end.
He asked us to put to put all like the
obituaries and photos of him like at Westwood Memorial and
the end. And I think he believed that these books
would be studied for generations and generations, and he truly
felt like he was an icon and a gift to
the world.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
Well, it's first you said that you don't think that
he was necessarily a predator. But one what I've read
about you n Holly describing things as Stockholm and like
you didn't really realize what you were necessarily in. It
felt like a cult. It's submissive and obedient and behave
and all that. So, like, what if that's not a
word for that, because you're praying on the week if
(04:17):
you're looking for a certain type that's way younger and
that you can be a power figure in their life.
So if that's not a predator, what is that true?
Speaker 2 (04:24):
I believe that that is a predator. I think what
I meant by that, by what I said was that,
you know, he's not the type of person that would
like force women against their will or drug people's drinks
or things like that. But got it, Yeah, he did.
I guess pray on young women. I was twenty one
(04:46):
when I went into the mansion. I came from a
broken home and a broken family. I think that younger
girls are easier to manipulate. When I was twenty one,
I felt like I was a grown up. But now
at thirty seven, I look back and like I was
I was just a baby, and.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
Yeah, true, because I do remember I told this one
I was talking to Holly being in La and there
were some parties that were like skis crazy, Like you'd
go to Malibu and you'd go and there was a
lot of like coke and a lot of like just
deviance and you kind of are young and you don't
it feels uncomfortable, but you don't know why it must
(05:24):
be so wrong because everybody's there and seeming like it's right.
Like I just will always remember hearing about this pajama
party and I didn't, and I'm so so naive that
I went with my girlfriend. I think I was a
hostess at the time and I was young, wanted to
be an actress. And we showed up and I was
wearing cow flannel pajamas. But they called it a pajama party.
But it was really like everybody in like really sexy
(05:45):
lingerie and the men were wearing like tight, you know, underwear,
like things that you probably saw every time at the Mansion.
But for whatever reason, it made me feel really really
dark and uncomfortable. And I will be honest, I wanted
to feel comfortable there, like I didn't know what was
wrong with me that it didn't feel right?
Speaker 2 (06:02):
That's really sad. I'm just thinking about you showing up
in your little cow costume, your calpajamas, and yeah, it's
like you're not cool unless you're showing off your body,
which is.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
Right, but being very sexual and it was like lingerie.
And I don't think I was like a sexual person
in that way, like I could be maybe with one.
But so that was a lot of currency in La overall,
and you were in the middle of it. And so
I ask you, as a young girl, being from a
broken home, were you predispoke? Did you were you promiscuous
(06:35):
in high school? Were you like very sexual? Did you
shield other things with sexuality? Because it can go both ways.
Many people go to try to get love from sex
in high school and college. You don't understand the girl
who's sleeping with the whole hockey team because you know
that's not going to end well. But in the moment,
each hockey player they feel like is going to give
(06:56):
them love or something.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
Yeah. Absolutely, I lost my high school sweetheart and that
was very hard. He died in the war in Iraq.
And after that, I think I was about eighteen nineteen
and I thought, you know, people were paying attention to
me in that way, and I just thought, oh, I
can use it, like sexuality as a tool basically. And
(07:20):
I feel that was like an option for women to
just it still is, and I do think it helped
with the Playboy Mansion and getting in there. If I
didn't have implants and I wasn't dressed in a skimpy
French made outfit, Heff would have just looked right past me.
If I was wearing the kappajamas, I don't think it
would have invited me.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
In, right, And do you think that? So, first of all,
anybody who's going to deny that using their sexuality or
the way they look as a tool is something that
if you have it, you're not going to use it
is lying like it's just it's part of it, and
it's confused. And I wonder if it's a curse being
(08:05):
attractive and having that sect and being so you know,
looking so good, because then you're not focusing on your
mind or your intelligence or your business acumen, and neither
is anyone else. So how has that been part of
your life?
Speaker 2 (08:17):
You know, around that time before the mansion, it was
a time when Pamela Anderson and Jenny McCarthy and Carmen
Electra were super famous, and you could just feel this
sexual energy just coming up, using their sexuality as a tool,
just oozing off of like pages of magazines in the news.
(08:39):
And so that's around that time, that's kind of what
you aspire to be. You're like, oh, these women are powerful,
they have the world at their feet, Like I want
to be just like them. So then you get the
boob job and bleach the hair, and you're like, wow,
I could really be somebody if I was like if
I was like them, And I think that's kind of
how it started off for me. But over time, and
(09:00):
your value is just skin deep. It really eats at
your soul when you're only valued for what you look
like and you're constantly trying to keep up, keep up
with appearances. You know, hefwoods say, you know you're getting
fat or your nails or your hair, just picking at me.
And in the beginning, I thought, oh, I can do better, like,
oh I can be I can be better. I can
(09:21):
do better, But over time it's it's it just made
me angry. And that was also time with social media,
I was posting bikini photos. It's like twenty fourteen, and
and I realized, I like, I'm contributing to this. It's toxic,
it's misogynistic, like a misogynistic culture. I'm contribute contributing to it.
(09:42):
It sucks and it It took time and just learning
and the time shifting to fully realize that your your
value isn't what you look like.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
Yeah, and that's been one of the things about the
Kardashians that in the past I've discussed and I I
don't know if I don't see it as much, or
maybe they're not as in the same position they were before,
but I don't see it as much. But as a
mother of a teen, I was thinking about just it
doesn't matter. If it does matter, if they're all amazing, brilliant,
(10:15):
lovely people, the message being put out is lose the
weight in two weeks to get on the met Gala,
the filtering of the pictures, that editing the bones out
and the wastes and the butts, and Kylie Jenner doesn't
look anything like what she looked like. And so that's
their business, but their currency. And so yesterday you're watching
(10:36):
Mark Zuckerberg talking and trying to defend the fact that
it's been proven that teen girls are having massive anxiety
and major body security issues that are leading to real
problems and suicide from social media. So that's where that
connection is. And sometimes I feel like, you know, having
to say the difficult things against really popular families is
(11:00):
but trying to do it in a constructive way is
challenging because they're so you know, but there is a fact.
It's a fact that this is like an influence on people.
And you experienced it too.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
Yeah, it's hard and it is toxic, and it's hurting
young girls. You know. I think that the Kardashians are
brilliant and they've created this huge empire for themselves. The
thing that sucks is the youth cells and beauty cells.
But I think times are changing a bit, you know.
(11:32):
I'm seeing people like that would be considered older, like
in ads now and Sephora and things like that. I
think it's shifting a bit too. But if the Kardashians
helped with the message of just loving yourself, like self love,
self acceptance, I think girls that look up to them
(11:55):
that would be much healthier. You can't keep up with them.
It's hundreds of thousands of dollars of surgery. Uh. The
other day I saw Kim Kardashian posting, Uh, just psoriasis.
It's like all over our big big patches, like all
of our legs and everywhere. And I just think to myself, like,
you keep putting this like toxic stuff in your body.
(12:16):
It's not like nothing is like natural from the earth.
It's just you know, these the fillers and implants and
all these things, and your body's gonna have a reaction.
You're gonna have to pay for that later.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
And that's it's very interesting.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
It's sad.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
That's that movie Death Becomes Her when everybody's just getting
all the surgery and plastic and everything, and like their
their their ears and everything starts falling off because they
look young and they're trying to chase you. Their body
starts falling apart. Yeah, so you were in La and
(12:57):
well you lived in San Diego and you go to
the Playboy mansion and you're chosen, and I can see
the allure in that like that, we can all just judge.
It's like very not unlike the Housewives. Didn't she know
what she signed up for? But I imagine it's not
on the first day, like it's an evolution. You just somehow.
Holly said it was seven years later and she couldn't
(13:18):
believe that had been seven years. So, you know, you
had a curfew and you had a small budget, and
were you on the show too?
Speaker 2 (13:28):
I was on season six of The Girl's next Door
and you know, half made four hundred thousand dollars an
episode and I didn't make anything.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
Wow, And you knew that then or you found it
out later?
Speaker 2 (13:42):
Now? Then I knew that hef and the producer because
he would always have him on speakerphone, Kevin Burns. They
would talk, oh, he just picked it up in four
hundred thousand each episode and eight episodes, and so I
would hear they would all brag with each other. And
I didn't get paid anything for The Girls next Door
season six. I was made to feel like, oh, I
(14:03):
should just be so lucky to be there, and I
didn't want to do it. I never wanted to be famous.
That was never my goal. Never wanted to be an
actress or anything like that.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
Fascinating. So did you feel that you were exploited by
E or it was just hef like because are they
this goes on with Bravo and Housewives they should be
lucky to be there, and me, Bethany Frankel, I'd be nothing. Everybody,
I'd be nothing if I was never on the Housewives,
Like that's what it's been boiled down to.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
I hate that because it's like if if it wasn't that,
like you have the personality to, you know, be the
best in another situation. So yeah, I hate it when
people people say things like that, And yeah, there's a
lot of things were unfair. When Hef had asked me
to marry him, they were filming another show called Marrying
(14:53):
Hef It was going to be on Lifetime. I found out.
I found out they were making eight hundred thousand dollars
for a two hour special wow, and my talent fee
was twenty five hundred. So it's weird. It's strange because
a lot of people, I'm like, ninety nine point nine
percent of the comments from the book are incredible, but that,
like the troll percentage is like profiting off a dead
(15:15):
man and all this stuff. I was like, did we
ever think about how he profited off of me personally?
Or did we ever think about how profited profited off
of all of these women? For years and years and years,
all the way to the very very first issue Marilyn Monroe.
He bought her photos from a calendar company, put him
in the put him in the magazine. She didn't get
a dime, and she started the whole empire. Now I
(15:40):
was buried next to her, and she has no say
and whose bones are buried next to her for all eternity?
Speaker 1 (15:47):
Oh my god, that's insane. Wow. Okay, So you walk
into this party and you feel lucky to be chosen,
you know. And the way it's described and what I
was reading is like multiple people, we're having sex with
him in one space.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
Yeah. Yeah. The first night in his bedroom there twins
were there, which to me they were sisters. They were nineteen.
It's disgusting, you know. I remember him holding them on
each side of him and like looking up into this
mirror and he's like, my babies. Wow, I'm just like,
these girls are nineteen.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
And why did you like, so, what did you feel
disgusting about yourself? Like did you feel like it was prostitution?
Like what? What? What was going through your mind? Like
going there and being in a French maid costume is
one thing, but like having sex with him, and he's
and I'm not. I promise you on my life, I'm
not judging at oh I don't like Yeah, I want
to like really understand I'm not and I would never
(16:45):
have you on here to like then beat you down.
It's not I I'm You're a smart girl, you're a
beautiful girl. You could be with anybody you want in
the world, with or without have So it's the something
fucked up that went down. And I kind of want
to like no, because people have daughters, go off to college,
go off you by the selves want to be actors
as you cannot put them in bubble wrap, so like
you're someone's daughter.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
My parents came from England. They didn't have green cards.
My dad died and it was just my mom and I.
We were renting a bedroom in some other family's house
like we had We had nothing. So yeah, I always
felt small. I always felt that everyone was better than me.
And when I went into the mansion I met Heff.
Even though it was like this kind of twisted situation
(17:25):
that I didn't realize the magnitude until much later, I
did feel like, oh, this is somewhere I could feel
safe or feel that I could belong like I can
belong somewhere.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
Finally, that sounds like a cult, which is hoppened.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
It was definitely, it was definitely a cult. There's a
cult leader. You do everything they tell you to do.
If you slip up and get in trouble, like, you
feel guilty and terrible and you're going to do better.
I spoke to two women that were in a cult,
and we all reminded ourselves of each other. It was
it was a cult for sure.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
That that makes it make sense to me, Like because
everybody could be logical and all the moms with our
cross body bags and our lattes can be like, oh
she knew and gossip. But like you were young, you
were twenty one, You walked in there. And if you
get into a cult, your mind is completely fucked up
because everything you're saying, you didn't get paid, you had
(18:23):
a curfew, you got in trouble like and so what
did make you stay? What did you like? Did you
love him? Did you love the experience like you felt
like you belonged like? What made you keep going? And
did you ever try to get out in the middle
of it?
Speaker 2 (18:40):
Yeah? I think with colts you get a little bit brainwashed,
you know, as impressionable. And I'm in this place where
he's the king of his castle. He's got about seventy
staff that are all yes men all around him, and
it's this big bubble and you get kind of stuck
in it and sucked in and and you know, my
(19:03):
thirty seven year old self that has more wisdom. If
I in my twenty one year old body would be
punching him in the face, like and calling him discussing
and what are you doing to these women? But I
didn't have the tools then, and I was trying to
fit in and I thought, I'm going to do whatever
this man wants me to do to be like the favorite.
Speaker 1 (19:22):
Or the best.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
And it's gross.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
That reminds me. That's why I always say that Housewives
is like a cult, because everybody's trying to kiss up
to the leader and be the favorite and everybody, you
know it really it's not. They're not living together, but
everybody wants to be the favorite, and people want to
be there. And it's funny because I was criticized like that.
We you know, everyone knows what they're signing up for.
(19:47):
And I will be honest at this point now in
twenty twenty four. I think everybody does know what they're
signing up for. But and back then it sounded like
a good idea. It was just like a nice show
and you're making you know, you're making well, you know,
make money yet but you eventually do you not making money?
That's even crazier, Like, I don't you you were literally
just getting to live in this nice house, but taking
(20:09):
up years of your life. And then we get into
were you Did you ever love him?
Speaker 2 (20:17):
I never was in love with half right off the bat, like, Okay,
if this man wants four women in the bed with him,
he cannot love me. Like that's it's a joke. That's
a joke. So for what it's worth. You know, I
didn't know then. I didn't know then that he was
a narcissist. Now I know that he's a narcissist. Now
(20:37):
all of his behavior makes more sense to me. You know,
we didn't really use those terms when I was when
I was there, and now I'm like, okay, it's all
about him. I just be his mirror and reflect his
self importance back at him. It's everything he wants to
do sexually. Who gives a shit about me? It's all
about what he wants and his stupid little ritual and
(20:57):
routine that he has. And yeah, his friend would bring
articles for him and just anything related to himself. That's
all he wanted to talk about. And so as long
as you're doing that, he likes you. And that's probably
how Holly became so close with him or the number
one or whatever. And same with me, is that we
just followed along better than the other people and made
(21:21):
completely lost ourselves to just mirror him.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
You behaved, it's terrible.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
Yeah, you lose yourself because the real meat wouldn't bleach
my scalp and burn my head. The real meat wouldn't
wear stupid little outfits and stupid heels to all these
parties and try and keep sexualizing myself. Like now, like
I've thrown all of that stuff away. It just makes
me sick. I'm over it. But I didn't have the
(21:50):
tools then be so weird.
Speaker 1 (21:53):
Because you don't recognize that person.
Speaker 2 (21:56):
No, I feel sorry for myself at that young age
and manipulated by an eighty year old man when I
was twenty one, and I remember being there and just
being so in it that he half would do interviews
and say, oh, the sound of young girls laughter like
keeps me young? And then I'm like, oh, yeah, that's me. Wow,
(22:18):
I feel so special, And now I'm like, yuck. It's
like goes into those conspiracy theories of like eating the
blood of children or something. Right, but it was it's gross.
And I remember when Holly's book came out and how
dare she say all these bad things about hef But
but now now I'm like, She's right, it's weird.
Speaker 1 (22:39):
Do you have any relationship with the other women or
is it too traumatizing like to talk to them about this.
Speaker 2 (22:45):
I talked to Kendra the most. I think that Holly
and Bridgett there's still some kind of I don't know.
I just wish we could all get along. And we're
not going to agree on everything, but I just wish
we could get along. At the Playboy Mansion, that whole
experience is something that was like some weird social experiment
in time that will never be repeated again. So the
(23:07):
people that went through there I want to stay connected
to because it's it's interesting.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
It's an experience, but like a cult, you're sort of
compartmentalized and often pitted against each other, and so the
things that happened in that extraordinary circumstanstance, then is affecting
your relationships now that if you met them at a
restaurant or in a store, you might be friends with them.
But because you all went through this harrowing that's housewives too,
(23:33):
their housewes that hate me, their housewives that hate me
based on something I might have said about a blog
or based on being in this extraordinary experiment with them
that doesn't reflect real life or who I am or
who they are. You know, people ratting each other out,
people saying that someone was really broke, this one cheated
on their husband, you know what I mean. It just
(23:53):
you do different things in that environment. And I think
that's probably why you're saying that you don't currently have
a relation with other people in that experience.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
Yeah, and I think it gets ingrained in us in
a completely cellular level to all hate each other.
Speaker 1 (24:08):
It's sad exactly in a time where we're supposed to
be host me too. These things are interesting that they happen,
They still happen, and the men somehow are at the
top of the realm. Yes, fascinating. So and I by
(24:28):
reading about this sect well, first of all I'm picking
up that you feel you're probably still really working through
this in therapy or like how are you coping? Are
you still feeling shame as you go through this experience
talking about it through this book, because writing it is
one thing, then it goes to print and now here
you are like living it again.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
Yeah. I think what I'm trying to do is just
give myself grace and not be so hard on myself.
But yeah, that place was very hard, and this a
lot of gross stuff. You know, a lot of this
celebrities that even came through there, Like a lot of
those men were gross, like yep, gross, perver, misogynistic, nasty people.
(25:09):
And I'm like, Hollywood is gross. You know, people people
have these certain dreams and it's it's all smoke and mirrors.
It's disgusting. Everywhere you turn, it's it sucks and it's
not real. And people idolize fame and Hollywood and I
think trash. Literally you go down to Hollywood Boulevard and
(25:30):
there's just trash everywhere.
Speaker 1 (25:32):
By the way, I have I know all the guys
who are at those parties, and I know there's scumbags,
And that's what I asked Holly, but she didn't have
like an answer to this. I was wondering, well, where
do you live now?
Speaker 2 (25:44):
I live in West Hollywood. I'm still in Los Angeles,
but I go between here in Hawaii. I have a
farm in Hawaii, which.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
Is oh yeah, Well, I'm saying, when you see some
of these people, you must run into people in LA
that like you're both looking like they're they're hiding because
I know that you've seen what they've been down with
because you're on front lines.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
Is that disgusting? I've had certain big actors after Half died,
like one of them said, oh, can we continue that
vibe at my place? I'm like, that's disgusting. And then
I had another when Half wasn't well, I had another
one say can we go to lunch? Because you know,
Half needs to pass the torch to someone and it
might as well be me.
Speaker 1 (26:22):
Wow, Like, what the heck?
Speaker 2 (26:24):
What do these men think? Why do they think they're
God's gift?
Speaker 1 (26:27):
It's disgusting, It's unbelievable, and it's so funny because that's
what that pretty woman seeing was about. And like Julia
Roberts is there, and then Jason Alexander thinks he's just
gonna grab Julia Roberts for himself, you know, like she's
just like.
Speaker 2 (26:40):
So many Jason, Alexander's a.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
Piece of property. Yeah. So, and it's interesting that, well,
so you get married, do you have friends at this time?
Are all your friends in that that you think? Are
your friends in that world? Are you talking to friends
family about getting married? Are they like, she's your nuts?
And like what about that?
Speaker 2 (26:59):
I just my mom at that point, and she she
encouraged it. She she had gone to the Playboy Club
in London, and you know, she's British and she's just fun,
life of the party. She loved going to the parties.
Now I speak to her and she said, I had
no idea. It was like that if I did, you know,
I wouldn't want you to go there. But so she
(27:20):
feels shamed too. Yeah, I think so. It was hard
for you to read the book?
Speaker 1 (27:25):
Yeah, yeah, that's interesting. That reminds me of Paris and Kathy,
with Paris going to that horrible boarding school and Kathy
oh yeah, noing, you know, having to hear about it,
read about it, and feel partially responsible as a mother.
Your number one job is to protect your daughter.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
Yeah, and she thought she was doing the right thing
for her.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
Yeah, the sexual descriptions that you give of hef sound
like that, like he couldn't get it up, he couldn't
keep it up, and he wasn't good in bed. So
he put on this whole costume with his whole life
of like sex, when it seems like it was like
some real problem, like at the core, the one thing
(28:01):
that he portrayed is the one thing that he couldn't do.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
It's yeah, it's it's crazy, and it's interesting you say
that because it's so true. I remember going out with
him and fans would just swarm him and be like, heth,
you're the man. I want to be just like you everywhere,
And I'm thinking, heaf isn't even like himself. He's just
pretending smoke and mirrors. He was this broken child. Everyone
(28:27):
he had a crush on all liked somebody else. He
was a nerd, and his first wife cheated on him,
and he was just you know, had all of these
stepbacks in life, and I think he just over His
parents never showed him love, so he over compensated with
this creation and this fantasy, and he never really knew
how to love. He never really knew how to make love.
(28:49):
He supposed to be this master at all of these things,
and he wasn't. He had no idea. All he cared
about is himself. So if he didn't even have the
capacity to try and care or understand, you know, another person.
So it's hard. It's just he's like the sad little
(29:10):
boy that just was always a sad little boy. I
felt sorry for him all I go up until he died.
Speaker 1 (29:18):
Well, that's common because I call it a trick guy.
And girls need to watch out for these trick guys.
They're the guys that are the dorks. So you think like, oh,
they're just a cute, little dorky nerdy guy, and you
think that that's gonna mean that they're gonna like treat
you so well or be like the good guy. But
that dorky nerdy guy sometimes is fucked up for the
fact that girls would never give him attention or sleep
(29:41):
with him in the earlier days, which does form how
men are.
Speaker 2 (29:44):
Maybe Heff was just angry and took it out on
all of us.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
I don't know, something something deep seated, you know, to show. Yeah,
well it's exerting power. I'm I'm, I'm gonna show them
and I'm the powerful one.
Speaker 2 (29:58):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (30:12):
Do you date now? That must be challenging or has
been challenging and trusting and trusting yourself.
Speaker 2 (30:19):
Yeah, in the beginning, dating was hard. I would run
into situations where I felt controlled and manipulated. Still and
a lot of that was okay. It was like a
struggling musician, a struggling actor. So I'm thinking, oh my gosh,
here i am being controlled manipulated, and this time I'm
paying the bills like this is this is getting is
getting worse. So more more therapy and now you know
(30:41):
I'm dating in the relationships are much you know, more
healthy and happy.
Speaker 1 (30:49):
Well again, I'm fine. Hallie literally said she first went
towards the same type of person, not realizing it might
be a different package. But it was a similar type
of person, so you have that in common, and then
had to intervene for in what she was looking at, like,
it's me, I'm the problem. It's me. I've got to
be looking at different partners.
Speaker 2 (31:08):
Definitely. Yeah. Now I cannot tolerate anything less than nurturing.
Speaker 1 (31:14):
And what about career? Now, so what is your own identity?
What do you do for a living. How do you
support yourself? What do you want to do? You're still young?
What do you want to be when you grow up?
Speaker 2 (31:26):
My real job is I buy and flip properties. I've
redesigned homes. I like to add a lot of natural elements,
reclaim wood, and yeah, I just I'm a minimalist. So
I have about six properties between California and Hawaii. When
(31:46):
I was in therapy for five years, I remember the
therapist saying, you know, whatever you're doing, now, make sure
it has nothing to do with what you look like.
So I don't do any like social media ads or
anything to do with what I look like. It's all
mainly house stuff.
Speaker 1 (32:02):
I do that a lot too. I love that.
Speaker 2 (32:05):
Yeah, it's fun, it's creative. It's it's fun. It's yeah,
it's nice.
Speaker 1 (32:09):
It's business, it's creative. There's an't you see transformation? When
you say you have six properties, you have six that
you keep or that you're flip. You're currently going to flip.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
Two of them. I'm building homes and I'll sell the homes,
but the other four I'm keeping for now.
Speaker 1 (32:28):
Did leave He didn't seem to leave Holly anything. She
wasn't married to him. Did you have a will. Did
you get married and at least have a prenup or
a will.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
We had a prenup, but it was very unfair. The
first lawyer wouldn't sign it. I had to take it
to someone else to sign it. And I think because
I felt so trapped, I wanted to just start saving.
I got I became a playmate and got some playmate money,
and I just screw and grew, grew the money. I
learned how to DJ. During the day. I would fly
to Vegas and DJ and come straight back for movie night.
(32:57):
And so I saved up some money and opened a
secret LLC. I was able to buy a house, and
from that I bought another house and another house, and
so I was just I think back because I did
feel trapped, but that at that point I had millions,
and my mom said, you know, you can leave any
time you want, and I remember saying, like, I can't
leave him. He needs me. And this is you know, later,
(33:19):
like a couple of years before he died, and I
could have left and been fine.
Speaker 1 (33:22):
And you had millions while living in the playboy mansion,
staying in the marriage.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
Yeah, yeah, I definitely did.
Speaker 1 (33:29):
You weren't. Yeah, how did you earn millions while you
were a prisoner?
Speaker 2 (33:34):
Right? I Like, I thought to myself because I would
see women that bought a range Rover or like lubaitons,
like girl, like buy a condo? What are you doing?
I'm so glad I had that mindset because yeah, I
saved and I bought a house. I ended up buying
another house. I was DJing. It was like seventy five
(33:55):
hundred dollars.
Speaker 1 (33:55):
A wait, but this is aster you're saying, right, this
is during wait, he let you. But that's what I
don't understand. He was telling I'm reading that he gave
people one thousand dollars a week and people had a curfew.
So I would have thought, because men like to control financially,
how did he let you buy a house? Who is
like your lawyer?
Speaker 2 (34:11):
They didn't know? He didn't know.
Speaker 1 (34:13):
Well this is interesting, okay, so what the hell is
this part? Like this is the me like every time,
it's like a nugget that I'm like, we weren't even
talking about. So wait a minute. So this is and
this is what many women should do, like having a
nest egg. This is you would never invest in a
business that that someone said sixty percent chance it's going
to fail, and that's most marriages. So it's hard to
(34:33):
hear that women A obviously need to have a prenup,
B need to have their own Everybody doesn't need to
like put their money with somebody else's. So let's get
down to this now. How are you saving while under
the roof with Hugh Hefner, arguably one of the most
controlling men I've ever heard about, who doesn't want anybody
to have their own resources or job or time, how
are you saving millions of dollars while under this roof?
(34:54):
I need you to be specific. I need to understand.
Speaker 2 (34:57):
Okay, Well, when I was first there, I was given
a thousand dollars every Friday, and which is nothing, you know,
for a twenty four seven job. And I remember the
twins and I we had to go into HEF's room
and basically beg him every Friday, have can we have
our allowance? And he would open the locked cabinet and
(35:19):
pull out an envelope with one hundred dollar bills and
be like one hundred, two hundred, one hundred to you
know for and just count it out for the three
girls and then hand us these stacks and.
Speaker 1 (35:31):
That that alone is degrading, that you had to go
beg for the scraps every week like dogs.
Speaker 2 (35:35):
Yeah, I felt like a hooker, right, Okay, That's how
I felt, And it was disgusting and demoralizing, and that
that kind of ritual lit a fire inside me to
where I'm like, I want to never have to do
this ever again. Whenever I'm away from the situation and
out of here, I want to make sure that I
(35:55):
never have to be in this kind of thing ever again.
And so I remember, have made me a playmate. I
made twenty five thousand dollars. I wrote twenty five thousand
on this little piece of paper, and every time I
would then I would start saving the allowance and barely
spending anything because we had no rent and all the things.
So I was just trying to save as much as
I could, and Heff would give us little extra things
(36:17):
here and there, and sometimes I would lie and say
it's for something, but I would just keep most of it.
Speaker 1 (36:22):
And just like you have the Handmaid, the Handmaid like
figure out out, well, yeah, you have to lie.
Speaker 2 (36:28):
You'd have to. It's like, you know, at the same time,
he's making four hundred thousand dollars for you know, an
episode or episode of The Girl's next Door and we're
making nothing. So I'm like, I gotta be smarter, smarter
at this, and I learned how to DJ. I remember
thinking like, I have no talent. I did a couple
of playmate things during the day where I showed up
(36:48):
and they give me nine hundred dollars.
Speaker 1 (36:51):
And he allowed that, like how did you do not
tell it?
Speaker 2 (36:53):
If it was in the parameters, which was far im
few in between. Usually the playmates were hired for night
things that I couldn't go to. But I learned how
to DJ, and then I got a job at the
hard Rock Hotel in Las Vegas and they paid me
seventy five hundred for an hour and a half, and
so I would try and go like on Saturday and
make it back before movie night. So I was like
saving all of that. And then because I was at
(37:15):
the Mansion, people paid attention to me. I know it's
just through half, of course, but I'm like, I'm just
going to use it to my advantage. Social media started
coming out on Instagram twenty fourteen. A company called Skinny
Bunny Tea asked me to promote so I'd be like
a bikini and holding the skinny bunny tea and they'd
pay me like seventy five hundred every time I posted
(37:37):
like the and it was like once or twice a week,
and I would just I would just start saving and
start saving. And then I had a company in Australia
I want to do a bikini line with me. And
then I had another woman that wanted to do a
laingerie company or a loungewear and so I'm just trying
all these different avenue doscinating and I feel like financial
(37:58):
abuse is a real thing and it sucks and it's hard.
And I have a friend right now that's in a
horrible marriage with this narcissist man who I keep telling you,
I'm like, save, do online stuff to be like an
online assistant because she has two kids.
Speaker 1 (38:13):
And I just do.
Speaker 2 (38:13):
Anything you can to save so you can leave him
if you need to. I think it's so important. And invest,
you know, I started investing tiny bits of money in
like cryptocurrency, so I just it's instead of spending my
time at the mansion wondering like what outfit I'm gonna wear,
or like how to decorate for a party. I'm like,
(38:35):
I need to be like financially literate.
Speaker 1 (38:38):
And that was me on The Housewives. I had a
thousand dollars when I signed up. That was me on
The Housewives. Everyone else was worrying about facials and diamonds
and I was off to the races when it started,
like already like off to the races. But that's why
everyone was trying to play catch up with me for years.
You know, that's because everyone wants to show how rich
they are.
Speaker 2 (38:56):
Yeah, what more? Women need? That mindset of just yeah,
I'm showing how rich you are, I think is another
part of the thing, like part of the problem. I
remember saving enough to get a Chanel bag was five
thousand dollars and I put it on and I'm like,
I feel nothing, Like where's the sparkly magic I'm supposed
to And so I'm like, this is dumb. I just
have this sitting here. And so I'm like, okay, Like
(39:19):
materialism is not going to be my answer to anything.
Speaker 1 (39:24):
You're smart. You're smart, right, Like I.
Speaker 2 (39:28):
Tried, and you know, hef did buy us a house.
He toward the end of his life, he did buy
a house in West Hollywood. It was like a five
million dollar house. Who's us half it myself?
Speaker 1 (39:38):
Oh? Okay.
Speaker 2 (39:38):
At that point he had sold the mansion and so
he could stay there until he died. But the mansion
was sold, and so he bought this house in case
anything went down and we had to leave or somewhere
for me to go if something happened to him. So
I did have that house when.
Speaker 1 (39:57):
I left, and he left it to you. Yes, And
do you do you think he loved you?
Speaker 2 (40:04):
I think he loved me the best way he knew
how you know, I.
Speaker 1 (40:07):
Think you do more than any of the other people
who was with you. Think he like was loyal toy
in some different type of way.
Speaker 2 (40:13):
Yeah, I think toward the end, toward the end, I
respected myself more. Toward the end, I got my implants
taken out, I stopped bleaching my hair, and I did
notice that he respected me. He respected me more. And
I would like to hope that Hugh Afner learned some
type of lesson and compassion or you know, don't chase
(40:38):
after the wrong things. But but I don't know, maybe.
Speaker 1 (40:41):
Maybe well you were there at the end, like you
were there when he died, and so was he. I
don't remember. I didn't was he dying? Like was he
in or was he just do you know what I'm saying?
Was he in hospice or something? Or he just you
know what I mean? Like, did you know he was
about to die? Because when people are sort of in
hospit and like different people are walking through to like
(41:02):
say their last things, some people do hear people say
things that they've never heard, Like I was wanting that
from my father in hospice, and he was the exact
same way to till his last breath, Like I was
trying to get something that I was never going to get.
So what was that like for you? Was there some humanity?
Did you get some connection and like him realizing what
(41:23):
he had done or that it was fucked up? Or
did he become somebody? Did he have some realization?
Speaker 2 (41:29):
I don't think that that he felt anything he did
was fucked up his whole life. I think because of
the narcissism, he just didn't believe that he did anything wrong.
He got sick pretty quickly. It was a urinary tract infection.
It was a regressive strain of equal A bacteria. Only
(41:50):
one antibiotic was sensitive to it, so we tried that
it didn't work. He went into sepsis. I you know,
we had to just start IVS and things on him.
And I remember asking him like, are you okay? And
he said, you know, I'm okay with kind of a
defeated tone, and that was the last thing he ever said.
He just yeah, I got worse and worse, and I
(42:14):
had to make these decisions at the end of his life.
It was hard because he never wanted to go to
a hospital and he said, I want to just die
in my bed. And so he went into sepsis, and
the doctor said, if he stays here, he's going to die,
but if he goes to the hospital, like maybe there's
a thirty percent chance of him living.
Speaker 1 (42:33):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (42:33):
And so I'm reading this advanced healthcare directive that somehow
I'm like, how am I named? Is? Hugh Hafner's like
the deciding person on this? And you at the time
when he died, I was thirty one.
Speaker 1 (42:47):
Well okay, so you're thirty one and you're the person
that's deciding what he's whether he's going to take a
thirty percent chance or stay home. So let's hear this now.
It's insane.
Speaker 2 (42:56):
I know. It said something about if I have a
terminal illness, Like I just want to stay home, but
if I can be saved, then take me somewhere or whatever.
So I'm like, okay, he could potentially be saved. It's
bacterial infection. Do we just take him? Do we what
do we do? He was so bad, you know, like, okay,
we might take him and just even moving it might
(43:16):
be so difficult and thirty percent chances of survival. I'm like,
I'm crying, and I stepped out of the room because
I didn't want him to hear any of this that's
going on. And I was talking to his assistant and
his estate attorney. And while I was trying to decide
this in the other room, one of the nurses came
into where I was and said, you know, he's gone.
Speaker 1 (43:39):
Oh thank god, you didn't have to make that decision.
Speaker 2 (43:42):
So he decided. Yeah, he decided for us.
Speaker 1 (43:45):
But did you were you sad when he was dying
or like, were you kind of almost relieved? Like people
have weird thoughts that they're not supposed to be having
when someone's dying. That's been traumatic for them, So will
you kind of relieved that he died or like not
wishing it? But like, you know what I mean, were
you conflicted? Because I mean, this is crazy that you
had this experience with him and now you're the person
(44:05):
that he's left to make this decision and you're crying
and what were you crying? Why were you crying?
Speaker 2 (44:12):
I think it all happened so fast, and the topic
of death is hard for me, so it was just
going through that again. And once he passed away, I
remember like, I don't even want to know what day
it is. I don't want to know what time it is.
And I felt guilty, which is strange. I felt like, oh,
(44:33):
maybe there's something we could have done differently for him.
And yes, it's weird, and I think it's how people
would feel if they were in a cult, you know,
and the leader died, you'd feel sad and confused and guilty.
And yeah, and it took time. I put out a statement,
a very positive statement, but it took time. It took
(44:56):
maybe five years to truly like peel it away and
and understand.
Speaker 1 (45:02):
I believe that going through these things that are so
abnormal that you thought was normal is it takes a
long time for it to get out of your body,
like you could be away from it but like for
it to like on a cellular level. Leave it's very
you know how that goes with any like and death
is confusing anyway, like you don't have to two things
(45:23):
can be happening at the same time. You can think
he's a disgusting pig, but you also you're Some children
love parents that put out the cigarettes on them. They
want to go back to them like that happened. Like
so you can feel a feeling two conflicting feelings like
it's not binary.
Speaker 2 (45:41):
Yeah, absolutely absolutely.
Speaker 1 (45:45):
I'm speechless. Wow. So how does it feel to have
written the book? Did you get everything out that you
wanted to say? Did you forget things? Did you block
things out? And like, honestly are people judging you? Like
where where is all that?
Speaker 2 (46:01):
Oh? Well, I feel like the book could have been,
you know, three times as long. But I you know,
I've I had stories and I crafted them together in
a way that I thought told it in the best way.
And the book has been healing. It's resonating with so
many people. I've had women reach out to me, so
(46:23):
many women reaching out like, oh, playboy was my dream.
And as I sit in my normal house in a
town no one's heard of in Indiana. I'm, you know,
grateful that it didn't happen for me, and thank you
and thanks for lifting the lid and being light. And
I'm going to have my daughter read this book. And
you know, it's the book I wish I have when
I was twenty one, because it was nothing, nothing like that.
Speaker 1 (46:44):
I like it as a book for when someone who's
twenty one. But I like for you what you were
saying about your friend who's in that marriage. Like I
think that you're somehow like listening to you talk about
somebody in a bad relationship, prepare themselves, take care of themselves,
not just make some rash decision, because so many women
(47:04):
are controlled by a situation. And you brought up financial abuse,
which happens a lot and divorce, Like some people just
want to say uncle and get out, and they'll settle
for almost nothing because the the and it's usually the man, sorry,
is keeping the lights off, like they won't turn the
electric bill on, and you're like begging them, or they're
controlling the custody schedule. And I went through ten years
(47:25):
as a wealthy, successful woman who is you know, has
some power being tortured in a divorce. So like you can,
you can help women lock the door before they get robbed,
like just you know, just because you're if you're miserable, okay,
well get your shit organized. Like you sound like you
were sort of miserable and in something bad, but something
told you to be preparing yourself.
Speaker 2 (47:47):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, yeah, And I do really help to
help a man. Like when they read the book, and
you know, the end of the book, I talk about
these girls and I cannot read the end back without
crying because these girls would write into hef as young
as eleven years old and they would say, you know,
I got a playble white bedspread, and you know, what
(48:11):
does it take to be part of the mansion? Like
what does it take to be up there? Like one
day I'll be there, and like what does it take?
It's like you have to you have to lose yourself completely.
That's what it takes. And I don't recommend that to anybody.
Speaker 1 (48:28):
But you found yourself now, yeah work in progress. Yeah wow.
And then and what about his family? So you said
he had a crazy family with his family growing up,
and then he has kids, which is like I don't
believe that. I can't believe he has kids, Like I don't.
Speaker 2 (48:46):
I don't think he could either. Me. I don't think
he could either. He's he you know, he always said
to me, I'm not a good father. He said that
he didn't want the second set of kids, but it
was like having his own grandchildren, and you know, they
were coming in the room when he would act like
he was busy, and he just didn't know how to
(49:07):
be a dad, like I hate Yeah, I didn't know
how to connect. Didn't know how to be a dad.
It's hard. And I think he's just so used to
being gross with women his whole life. I remember Christy,
his daughter, who was CEO for so long, came into
the room when we're playing cards and kissed him like
you know, between cheek and mouth like here and and
then he's like yummy, and I'm just like I'm just
(49:28):
thinking ew. Like he he can't like switch his brain
to daughter.
Speaker 1 (49:34):
Everything has to be transactional sounds like like yummy.
Speaker 2 (49:37):
You don't say that to your daughter. That's gross?
Speaker 1 (49:39):
Yeah, right, he didn't. Yeah, the difference between that's creepy him.
Speaker 2 (49:44):
Its constantly imperv mode.
Speaker 1 (49:46):
Yeah. Exactly what do they think of all of this?
Have they?
Speaker 2 (49:49):
Have?
Speaker 1 (49:49):
They expressed publicly disapproval of this book or Holly's book
or in general, or they're not even like.
Speaker 2 (49:56):
No, I haven't. I spoke to Marston yesterday, and you
know his two youngest kids are closer in age to me,
so you know I really like Marsden care about him,
and yeah, I mean I don't have a bad relationship
with them. I know that Kimberly have ex wife made
some statements about defending him, and the first thing I
(50:19):
thought of was I met her once in person, but
my other interactions with her were all of her naked.
He had huge naked pictures of Kimberly, like in the
gym and in the library, and I'm thinking, like, if
that's not objectification, what is right? And how could you
defend a man that had your naked pictures all over
(50:39):
the house for anybody coming to a party to look at?
Your own children are coming in the house and staring
at their mom naked on the wall, Like, come on,
how how much longer can you defend this man? I
have no idea.
Speaker 1 (50:52):
Wow, Wow, I mean I'm gonna cry. I feel for
you as a twenty one year old girl, I really
really do. So you're still so young and it's great
that you have so much of life ahead of you.
And yeah, I guess that was you and locking the
door now before you get robbed because it won't happen again.
Speaker 2 (51:13):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (51:14):
Yeah, well, I hope that is the book doing incredibly well.
Speaker 2 (51:17):
I just got word that it's a New York Times bestseller.
Speaker 1 (51:21):
Yay, oh immediately amazing first week. Yeah all right, well, congratulations.
That means that you're you know, and you should reach
out to Holly and Bridget or maybe all of us
will have a conversation on here one time. I think
this is a topic, I really do.
Speaker 2 (51:37):
I would love to come on here with them, with you, and.
Speaker 1 (51:41):
I'll ask them because I think it reminds me of
situations I've been in where like people don't like each
other and they don't even really necessarily have a good reason,
and this guy has done so much damage. So you
all have such a word to spread as women who
all got sucked into something. Okay, yes, walking into it knowingly,
but later you know, you could help young girls not
(52:01):
get traumatized, and you'd you know, so anyway, I appreciate
the conversation and really the being so open and honest,
and congratulations on the book and on everything else.
Speaker 2 (52:10):
Thank you, I appreciate it. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (52:12):
Amazing, awesome, have a great day, Thank you. Thanks bye.
Wow that was something else. She was lovely. I was
reading my I have multiple pages in front of me
of the story. I was thinking this was like prostitution
(52:34):
and going in there, it had to be strategic. And
you know, I learn a lot because I mean, a
twenty one year old girl, you know what, to me
is kind of still a child, like it really really is.
We could say whatever we want and you could be
legal to vote, but like twenty one is really young.
Like I mean, if I have assistants that are working
(52:55):
here that are twenty four, pau wall be like they're babies,
Like you know, not to be rude, but like you know,
and a lot of them are way more babies than
I was at that age because I grew up in
a very abusive, fucked up alcohol ridden oblimia, gambling, physical abuse,
being dragged, calling the cops like that doesn't count, Like, yes,
I was mature because I was an adult when I
(53:17):
was a kid. That you don't want that for anybody else.
And so like these kids that get preyed upon by
the Jeffrey Epstein's, by the Harvey Weinstein's, by the Hugh Hefner's,
by all the scumbags that were at that party, many
of them. I know, so I you know, I think
it's an interesting conversation. I was fascinated that she was like,
(53:39):
you know, squirreling her chestnuts, like she was hoarding her
chestnuts as a squirrel while with him. That was when
I was like, each time I have a conversation, like
something comes out that these girls are so desensitized they
don't even think it's like newsworthy, and I'm like, what
the fuck? Like Holly too, so they didn't get paid
to be on this show, Like crazy interesting, really really
(54:00):
really interesting conversation. Wow, I'm like speechless. And then that
these women turn against each other under the realm of
a man leading a cult. It's crazy.
Host
Bethenny Frankel
Popular Podcasts
40s and Free Agents: NFL Draft Season
Daniel Jeremiah of Move the Sticks and Gregg Rosenthal of NFL Daily join forces to break down every team's needs this offseason.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Bobby Bones Show
Listen to 'The Bobby Bones Show' by downloading the daily full replay.