March 12, 2024 • 44 mins
The playboy mansion and playboy empire is surrounded by so much intrigue and controversy. Today we got to chat with Crystal Hefner. Crystal became a sexual icon of the 2010’s when she entered the playboy mansion at only 21 years of age. When Crystal turned 26, she married Playboy tycoon Hugh Hefner who was 86 years old and news of this wedding circulated to every corner of the globe.
Crystal has just released a tell all memoir titled “only say good things” about the truth of what really happened behind closed doors of the elusive playboy mansion.
We chat about:
- How Crystal initially entered the Playboy Mansion
- What life was actually like day to day
- How the exploitation of such young women was in plain sight to the entire world
- Finances inside the house and how much the girls actually got paid
- Sex inside the mansion
- The ‘reality’ of original reality TV - The girls next door
- The hierarchy of the ‘girlfriends’
- What happened to all of the girls of the mansion
- Crystal’s regrets & why she is speaking out now
You can find Crystal's book Only Say Good Things
You can find Crystal on Instagram
You can watch us on Youtube
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Lifelun Cut acknowledges the traditional custodians of country whose lands
were never seated. We pay our respects to their elders
past and present.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Always was, always will be Aboriginal Land. This episode was
recorded on Drug Wallamuta Land. Hi guys, and welcome back
to another episode of Life un Cut.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
I'm Laura, I'm Brittany, and I am so pumped about
today's interview.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
It is intriguing, controversial, and she was a sexual icon
of the twenty tens. Crystal Hefner absolutely exploded into the
world of media and pop culture via the Playboy Mansion
at only twenty one years old, and when Crystal turned
to twenty six, she married playboy tycoon Hugh Hefner, who
was at the time eighty six, and news of this
(00:52):
wedding circulated to every corner of the globe. Crystal is
not just the widow of Hugh. She is a world
renowned model, an entrepreneur, and also has just released a
tell or memoir titled Only Say Good Things, which is
the truth about what really happened behind closed doors of
the elusive Playboy Mansion. And finally, Crystal is reclaiming the
one thing that she lost in her twenties. Her voice Crystal,
(01:14):
Welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
Thank you so much, thanks for having me Chrystal.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
This is such an exciting episode because I feel like
everyone has heard of you, and growing up, everyone knew
the Playboy Mansion, everybody knew Hugh Hefner, and everybody knew
his beautiful, very young, bombshell blonde.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
Wife, which is yourself.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
Before we get into your story, do you have an
embarrassing story and accidentally unfiltered because we start every episode
that way.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
I think just my decade at the Playboy Mansion was
very embarrassing and itself, especially when I think back to,
you know, a lot of the stuff though, like how
hef was sixty years older than me. Even when I
think back to the like the sex stuff, I know,
I'm like diving right into that, but that was embarrassing.
It was embarrassing having like group sex with strangers in
(02:03):
my twenties, and that was just so embarrassing and not
anything I would ever want to repeat ever.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
Again, I have so many questions around all of this
because there's this bigger and broader conversation which I know
we'll get into, but this idea of like what you do,
and especially in this day and age when everything is
now in social media and online, that the things you
do in your twenties and like the digital footprint that
you leave for yourself, you may not feel the same
(02:29):
way about that when you are in your thirties or
your forties looking back on that period of life. And
obviously you speak now so candidly around the regrets you have,
the trauma you went through, and trying to almost like
not reinvent yourself, but trying to make people realize that
there is a very different version of who you are
that exists. Can you tell us a little bit around
(02:50):
what your life was like growing up and what led
you to getting to the Playboy Mansion in the first place.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
Yeah, yeah, I think Well, HEF secretary once said, you know,
like he takes in the broken ones, are the ones
with the broken wings. And you know, first I thought
that was like, oh, that's cute, But thinking about it more,
it's like, yeah, he takes in women that are kind
of broken. They come from broken homes. You know, I
lost my DAP when I was young, and then my
mom kind of lost herself, so I felt a lot
(03:17):
like really on my own, I had a high school
boyfriend sweetheart, like really profound love in my life, and
you know, he died in the war in Iraq, And yeah,
I was the lost, broken, insecure person. And I remember
being a teenager and seeing Playboy magazines and I would
see these women and they were so beautiful and they
(03:38):
looked like they were so powerful and had the world
at their feet, and I thought, you know, oh, I
want to be just like them. And at that time,
the celebrities were like Carmen Electra, Pamela Anderson, Jenny McCarthy,
and they you all had the like the big implants,
and you know, I my boobs were like pathetic, and
so I started trying to myself to maybe have more confidence,
(04:02):
feel more powerful. And I think that's how I ended
up at the mansion. You know, I got invited to
submit my photo to go to a party. So I
submitted my photo. I didn't think I get picked, but
I ended up getting pecked. And that's where I met Heff.
It was Halloween party two thousand and eight, which seems
like so park a co.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
So you send a photo in because these parties, everybody
knows how exclusive they are and they're so hard to
get into. But I feel like at the time, it
was the party that everybody wanted to get into, because
that's where dreams were made. You send a photo, they
pick you, they say, yeah, she looks great, bring her in.
What happens once you're there, Like what is really going
down on the inside of these parties? And how did
(04:45):
you go from just being somebody that was supposed to
turn up to one party to being an instrumental part
of that world.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
Yeah, I mean that's a great question because you know,
recently I went on Pierce Morgan's show and he said
to me, He's like, oh, the party was so fun.
I went my fiance and we had so much fun.
It was so cool, Like, yeah, you're a celebrity and
you can like they roll out the red carpet for
you. You just show right up and whatever. Like for me,
it was different, like I had to submit my photos
and then once I got picked, they give you the
(05:14):
instructions and you pull up to a parking garage and
that's where you park your car, and then you get
in a shuttle and the shuttle takes you over to
the mansion. So it's not like you just drive up,
you know, like a celebrity would.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
Like in the back entrance.
Speaker 3 (05:27):
Yeah, yeah, yes. I got to the parking garage and
then a polaroid photo has taken of me. So I'm
in my little skimpy like French made costume and then
the polaroid's taken of me. I didn't think really anything
of it, but I later learned that hef takes those
polaroids after the parties and he goes through them and
he rates them ABC, and I guess it's a level
(05:51):
of attraction. And so the next party, the A's will
get invited and maybe the b's, but then if they
can't come, then they'll go to like the Sea and
the d's, And I don't think anyone's below D. I
think D is the lowest. But it's a whole different
experience for the other side of it, the non celebrity side.
So I took the polaroid in the parking garage, I
(06:13):
got in the shuttle, drove up to the mansion and
you know, the gates swing open and you start up
this winding drive and there's this sign that says playmates
at play and it's really cool and you feel like wow,
like maybe like I've made it, like to go to. Yeah,
I had never seen a celebrity in my life, and
you just feel like, wow, you're part of something special.
(06:34):
The party was beautiful and there was like a lot
the decorations were over the top, and there were there
were women like wow, those costumes are so in like
but it was just paint, so there's a lot of
just body painted women. I went with a very extroverted
friend and we saw these empty cabanas and then we
saw this group of people kind of coming toward the house,
(06:56):
like this wave of people, and my friend, she's like, oh,
that must be Hugh Hefner, Like he's like coming out
of the house to his cabana. She's like, come on.
She pulls my arm like I would have just like
watched from a distance, but she pulls my arm. We
go over there. We see half amongst like security, and
he's with a few other girls and they like unclip
the velvet rope and he goes in the cabana and
(07:16):
sits down. When it felt like you're at a zoo
and you see like the animals and the cage and
you're on the outside and they're on the inside, and
that's how it's supposed to be and then all of
a sudden, my friend starts just like over here, like waving,
and his gaze he looks at her, and then his
gaze like falls on b and he motioned to his
security guards to let me into the cabana. And it
(07:39):
was such a like my soul left my body because
it's like, oh, now I'm inside this animal enclosure, and
what do I do?
Speaker 2 (07:46):
You'd been chosen?
Speaker 3 (07:48):
Yeah, I'm like, this wasn't part of the plan, Like
what do I What do I do? And so I
got invited and I sat down right next to helf,
and he asked me what I did for a living,
and I thought, oh, I don't even have a job.
I'm still in school. I was studying psychology at San
Diego State. But little did I know like the younger,
the better, right for him, So I told him I
(08:10):
was studying psychology at San Diego State. He said he
studied psychology at University of Illinois, and we got to
talking and from there he invited me to stay through
the weekend for these movie nights. He said that that
he had coming up. So that's how it happened, and
that's how I first first was there.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
How quickly were you brought into the fold? Like how
instantaneous did that happen? Because I feel like this must
have just been such a well wind.
Speaker 3 (08:35):
Yeah. Absolutely, I thought, Okay, this is you know, this
is how the other half lives. This is this magical,
wonderful you know. At that point, I'm like Playboys the
place of power and freedom. And later on I just
became very trapped. But in the beginning, it was like
Charlie in the chocolate factory, like wow, Like there's like
(08:58):
ornate things and marble, every wear, a carved wood and
it was beautiful. And I did think I'm gonna do
whatever it takes to stay here.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
And so what happened on these movie nights, because you
put these movie nights in quotations when you just told
us about them, are these nights that are sex fueled?
And I say that because there's a level of ignorance
from the outside, from people like us looking in that
just think all that happens in the Playboy mansion.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
He's sex group, sex brooming. That's what we think from
the outside. So what was actually going down.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
That first night? I didn't know what was going to happen,
But right when we went into the house. There's like
a double staircase that goes upstairs, and we just went
kind of straight upstairs into half's bedroom. So I just thought, okay,
he might be expecting me to sleep with them. And
the first night I just met him, so I'm like, okay, mentally,
(09:50):
I try to prepare myself for that real quick. And it, Yeah,
it happened, and the sex happened, and I tried to
be as detailed as possible and chapter five of the
book because I think it's important to tell the truth
and what goes on up there. But yeah, after that sex,
the first night, I was assigned bedroom number five, and
(10:11):
then the next night was a buffet movie and then
sex after that, and it was the same throughout the weekend,
and then I went back home. When I went back home,
I thought, oh, how do I like move forward with
my last girl life after that just happened? And then
have called me like that Monday night and asked me
(10:33):
to move in.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
What were you thinking at that time? Like, after this
has happened, and even when you say I had to
prepare myself to have sex with this man, which sounds
fucking hideous in and of itself, but how did you
grapple with what was going on in your life and
almost makes sense a reason of the fact that to
live this life, you're gonna have to have a relationship
with this man.
Speaker 3 (10:54):
Yeah, I don't know. I guess everything and everything has
a price. So at first I was like, Okay, I
guess this just comes with it, and you know, I
could be okay with this. You know, maybe if it's
not like an everyday thing, I could be okay with it.
So I just started That was when I first started
like quietening down, like the inner voice that's like, hey,
(11:15):
something's wrong here, And I just started stuffing that down.
And Yeah, I made myself okay with it because it's
like I didn't really have anything else going in my
life and I had lost like this really big love
that I had. So I just think I was probably
the perfect candidate for the mansion.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
And what was the day to day Like You've been
assigned bedroom number five, which means you're not the only
person there. What does it look like in terms of
how many people at this point, how many girlfriends are they,
how many people are sharing HEF's life. Did you feel
like you were friends with these women but there was
almost a competition to be the main girlfriend, because I'm
(11:58):
assuming if everybody's there, every but he wants to be
sort of the top dog. What did it feel like
in that moment.
Speaker 3 (12:05):
Yeah, I feel that you want to be the top
dog because then you're the closest one to half, and
the closest you are to him, the least chance, least
likely chance you have it being kicked out. So I
quickly tried to figure that out. And at the time,
there were twins there, Christina and Carissa Shannon. They were
only nineteen.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (12:26):
Yeah, it was sad. I remember him like hugging them
in his bed and like looking up because he had
this big mirror above his bed and he's like my
baby's he's like has a and they're sisters. It's like
I'm still trying to wrap my head around that, Like
they're having a really hard time. They just they were
in rehab recently again and they're having a really hard
(12:48):
time now in life. And just thinking that he did
expect these girls, these sisters to hook up with each other,
like and he didn't first second think like okay, I
could be doing damage to these women. Like I think
he was so selfish and so now I've learned narcissistic
that he just didn't think of anybody but himself.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
It's also crazy that of the time it was such
a pop culture moment as well, and I know it
was your life, but it just absolutely permeated the news
in every way. It's crazy that there wasn't more outrage.
And if that was to happen now, people would say like, fuck,
these girls are nineteen years old, like what are we doing?
How are we glorifying this lifestyle? But those questions weren't
(13:35):
being asked at that time they and if they were,
it wasn't the loudest question, and the outrage wasn't there.
It was more intrigue and curiosity than it was really
this question of toxicity.
Speaker 3 (13:46):
It's crazy to me because when I started feeling like, Okay,
something's a little bit wrong or off, but then on
the outside, the media and the whole world is praising
this man. They've put him on such a pedestal and
he's an icon like globally, so it's it's it was
strange for me because I started feeling trapped. I started feeling, Okay,
something's not right here, and it's the gross imbalance of power.
(14:11):
And when people are perceived as powerful. I think the
media just I don't know, cowards to them.
Speaker 1 (14:20):
What were some of the promises that he was making
to the twins and to yourself and the other young women,
because there must have been something a real allure, And
it's not just the living in the mansion, and it's
not just the power. Was there, you know, promises of
you'll never have to worry in your life? Were you
given whatever you wanted whenever you wanted. Was there an
excessive amount of money heading into your bank accounts?
Speaker 3 (14:43):
Yeah, a lot of people, you know, I get all
these things like gold Digger or all these the whatever.
Like I'm like, I wanted whatever, a different life than
I had, you know, I just maybe I wanted to
find somewhere that I could really belong. So I never
had a you know, I was always on the move
and set never had any money. Maybe I wanted to
feel like I belonged or like I was special. But
(15:06):
talking about money, hef was I think about it now,
and he was financially abusive. He would give us one
thousand dollars every Friday. We would have to go ask
him for it, so we'd have to find him in
the house and be like hey, half, like can we
have our allowance today? And he go, oh, have you
been good this week? Like just like it's so embarrassing,
(15:27):
and then we go, yes, another embarrassing story. So we go,
this is definitely an embarrassing story, going into his room
asking him for this thousand dollars each and he pulls
out the little key out of his pocket and opens
this cabinet and brings out like envelope of money and
then he would count one hundred, two hundred, and then
the next girl's pile one hundred, and then he put
(15:47):
it all together and hand it to us. It's like, oh,
have you paid enough attention to me this week? Have you? Don't? Like,
have you been a good girl? Like? Here you go,
and the money was it was never enough to leave
because he did that on purpose, you know, like, let's
give these girls just enough to where you know they
need me and they're not going to have enough to leave.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
But also I can imagine that the life star that
you're living is also incredibly isolating, Like your entire community
becomes the people who are within that house because everything
gets smaller because there's so many requirements of being there.
There's requirements of being available for media. There's requirements of
being available for shoots, and also the requirements of being
available to him whenever he wants you, which would mean
(16:27):
that you probably lost even though you were already in
a situation where you didn't have your family and your
boyfriend who'd passed away, but did you lose your other friends,
your other connections that were around you with support systems
before going in?
Speaker 3 (16:42):
Yeah, I felt very lonely. You know. The twin dours
they didn't like me because I became the number one girlfriend.
They were so checked out that they eventually left, and yeah,
it proved to be too hard for them. But yeah,
it felt very isolating and lonely and lots of anxiety,
almost like paranoia. Like I had this little room that
(17:03):
was like an offshoot of HEF's closet, and you know
there's a big gap under the door, and you would
see just like shadows of people like walking by. So
I'm like, oh, it's the security like listening to me.
So I was always sometimes I would just text my
mom instead of calling her because I would be afraid that,
like someone be listening to me.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
What did your mom think of you doing this? At
the time.
Speaker 3 (17:22):
At first, she liked coming up to the parties, and
half and I would go down to the parties, not
for long and go back up, and then my mom
would stay down there, and she liked it. And I
think I didn't really tell her the extent of what
went on there. I don't even know if she thought
we like had sex with him, Like I don't think
she knew. And because my mom, she's in real estate,
(17:43):
so I would just she would come over and I
talked to her about the house and it's like a
you know, she's British, so we talk about it's like
a British style house. And I would just not be
fully open with her.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
And so how long will you a girlfriend full before
you got married to if.
Speaker 3 (18:00):
Gosh, we got married. He gave me a ring in
two thousand and ten, I think the very end and
Christmas Eve, or maybe it was twenty eleven at the
I don't remember. Now it's weird because I like, part
of me is just trying to forget.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
Yeah, I mean I heard you speak about something. It
was such a powerful way of describing an engagement, because
normally you'd speak about an engagement and most people have
a beautiful story around how they were asked to be married,
and you wrote this. You said, he said that I
hope it fits, was all HEFNA said. He never asked
me to marry him, and you never said yes. It
(18:36):
wasn't a question, it wasn't a choice. And then it
went on to say that it was transactional as all
things were to Hugh.
Speaker 3 (18:42):
Wow. Yeah, yeah, so that's what I said, because it
definitely brings true. He handed me a ring, he said
that he hopes it fits, which it didn't. It was
too big, but you know, and then everyone starts taking pictures.
There's a videographer there. I didn't really have time to
think about it, and later on I reflected a bit
(19:04):
and I just thought, Okay, like, if I say no
to him, then I probably have to leave tomorrow. I'm
not prepared for that. But if I stay here, then
maybe he wants a good pr story because it's the
end of his life. And I already experienced like a
love to me that was really great, and so maybe
that I've had that in my life and now I
can you know, I'll marry him and make him happy.
(19:26):
I think I was very much a people pleaser when
it came to like Keb's needs.
Speaker 2 (19:31):
Was there any part of you in this whole experience
that felt as though you did love him?
Speaker 3 (19:37):
I think early on, when he expected me to have
sex with like multiple people in the room, I'm like,
how can this guy really love me? And so from
there I put like a and the age difference. Yeah,
it got hard. I ran away, Like the first attempt
at getting married. I ran because we had filmed the
Girl's next Door show and I found out that he
(19:58):
got paid four hundred thousand dollars per episode of the
Girl's next Door And it's not something I really wanted.
I never even watched the show before, and he just said, oh,
we're doing the show me and the Twins, and I
didn't get paid anything for it.
Speaker 1 (20:13):
So he got four hundred thousand dollars an episode and
you got nothing.
Speaker 3 (20:18):
Yeah, and then people would be like, oh, you used
him for whatever. I'm like cool, like I think we
all got used. Yeah. If I usede him, then he.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
Used us too, Like Crystal, how is it even possible
from a production company for one person to sign a
contract that affects multiple other people. I mean, when you're
not the property of someone that don't have ownership over
you that you are signing or did you have to
sign a contract? Like how did it work that you
were in a situation where someone earns four hundred thousand
(20:48):
dollars and you aren nothing.
Speaker 3 (20:50):
That's a great question, and how they get away with
it is I always asked to sign a talent release,
So basically I just just I signed and that I
release that they can use my name and likeness on camera.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
And it was never disclosed how much he was earning
from this.
Speaker 3 (21:07):
No, I would overhear because he would do a lot
of his calls on speakerphone, and since my room area
as part of his closet, I would overhear. I'm talking
to the producer of the Girls next Door and talk
about how they're going to make four hundred thousand and
they're trying to get eat up it and I just
but at that time, I'm such an idiot because I'm like, oh,
(21:27):
I should just be so lucky to be here, and
like I'm the chosen one to be on this show.
Speaker 1 (21:32):
But also you're a young woman that I mean, you
didn't as far as I'm aware, you were in the
middle of a degree, so you didn't even finish that,
and then you got extracted into this world where you
didn't have any control or power. You'd never been in
that world, so you're not to know that signing a
talent release is signing your life away, Like that's something
that they should be educating you on and they didn't,
which is also a form of control. You just said
(21:55):
something that sort of stopped me for a second. I
know a lot of people will be interested in it,
you said. And he couldn't have loved me because he,
you know, used to make us all have sex together
or watch or what were those nights like when it
wasn't just you and hef And did you ever feel
comfortable like you wanted to be doing it or did
(22:16):
you always just feel like it was an expectation and
if you didn't perform you would be kicked out.
Speaker 3 (22:22):
It was definitely an expectation. It wasn't something I ever enjoyed.
You know, it's really awkward and uncomfortable being around you know,
your sex is a very intimate thing, but then you're
there with other people you don't really know. And yeah,
I never have really felt comfortable around half completely. He
(22:42):
never really took the time to get to know me
or anything. So having that dynamic plus a bunch of
strangers and we're all like having to be naked with
each other, it's uh yeah, it's embarrassing.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
I imagine you must learn to disassociate. We hear about
this idea of just like when you said earlier on
this idea of just pushing your thoughts down, like you
would get to a point almost where you disassociate from
the person that you actually are in order to do
some things that doesn't completely traumatize you.
Speaker 3 (23:12):
Absolutely, And I think that's when I first started doing
like dissociating. I found myself later like when I would
in the recent past like go on dates, like oh,
I went on a first date and we like walked
around the neighborhood, and then I get home and I'm like,
I don't remember anything that we talked about. I don't.
I just completely dissociated. And it's sad because I think
(23:34):
it started there. You hear people talk about that happening
but not even being connected to yourself and just going
somewhere else in your mind. It is a trauma response,
and it's so sad.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
And when you say you ran away so you found
out this information about the inequality and the money in filming,
and you ran away from the wedding. Essentially what happened.
Speaker 3 (23:56):
Well, I was upset about the Girls next Door thing,
not upset, but just I realized, like, okay, maybe he
doesn't like It's just constant reminders I'm not valued at all.
And when he gave me the ring, when he asked
me if it fits, there were the cameras and video
people people that I didn't recognize, not the regular ones.
So I'm like okay, And I realized he signed on
(24:20):
with the Girl's next Door producer to do a show
called Marrying Hef and it was a two hour wedding special.
I believe on like Lifetime TV. I don't know about
our wedding, like two hour special. It was going to
follow me like going to the flower mart and picking
out stuff and getting organized. And I found out that
HEF was going to make eight hundred thousand dollars for
(24:41):
the two hour special. He had come into the little
area that I lived in in the closet and he
brought me a like paperwork, and it was like a
he was giving me a talent fee of twenty five
hundred dollars, and I'd overheard him say that he was
getting paid eight hundred thousand dollars, and I find I
least stood up for myself and I said, hey, like,
(25:03):
I know I'll be cause I'm I'm so introverted. Like
they had he had three hundred people coming to the wedding.
We're getting like RSVPs from like Paris Hilton, like Jeene Simmons,
and I'm just like, this is for something, you know.
It didn't feel real to me, Like this feels so fake,
and I didn't want so I'm like, okay, I'm gonna
(25:24):
have to carry this show. I told him, I said,
to twenty five hundred feet a little bit like feels
like a slap in the face, Like I know, I
overheard Juice like talking about how much we're gonna make
maybe like ten thousand or something to make me feel
a little bit more valued. And he responded by saying,
what are you in this for? It took me back
(25:45):
to like all the pts or all the gold digger
comments by the press and all this stuff, and so
I like ran out of the vanity. I've never like
defied him before that moment. I ran out of the vanity.
I ran out the mansion and down the back drive
and I was gonna go to the park. There's a
nice part close by. And as I was going down
the back drive, there's a gate and there's also a
(26:05):
security booth. Security. You'll see me on the camera coming
down the drive and they'll open the gate for me.
So as I'm going down, the gate isn't opening, Like, oh,
that's weird. Is no one in the booth. And I
overheard like I heard a speakerphone. I heard HEF's voice
and he said, if Crystal tries to leave, detain her.
And oh my god, Like, okay, this gate is not opening,
(26:27):
Like I'm actually trapped here. And so I thought to myself, Okay,
I need a better way to get out of here.
And so I just like put my head down walked
back into the house. Yeah, I plotted my escape because
I did leave in twenty eleven.
Speaker 2 (26:43):
Did he come to the table with any more payment
for that show or did you have to accept that amount?
Speaker 3 (26:48):
No, they didn't. I left, and they still filmed it,
and they still I think they bribed me with like
a five thousand to try and be on it, if
just an appearance or make some comments. It's like when
you finally stand up for yourself and realize you're worth Like,
people treat you better.
Speaker 2 (27:08):
Sam, but they can't keep getting away with the behavior.
But I don't know how to put this without it
sounding not how I intended in terms of like, I
feel so sorry for you that you went through that.
I feel so sorry that you you cop the gold
digger comments, but yet are not financially benefiting in a
way that actually sets you up for any sort of future,
and yet are still where you are in life Now
you look back on and you fucking hate and regret, Like,
(27:29):
I so deeply hate that you experienced that, and I'm
so sorry that this is something. I'm glad that you
have the agency and voice and you're able to tell
your story.
Speaker 3 (27:38):
Oh thank you. That's sometimes I feel like I'm telling
the story about somebody else and we're like, like if
I was my ole, Yeah, I don't know, but thank you.
Speaker 1 (27:49):
Was there a prenup or what did it look like
when you got married in terms of did you have
access to the bank account like a normal relationship would,
where you can do what you want, or did he
keep you on a really tauch string and an allowance
even into your marriage?
Speaker 3 (28:05):
So when I ended up getting married to him. There
was a prenup. It was like forty five pages something
like that, and it wasn't very fair. The first attorney
I took it to wouldn't sign it. They said it
was very unfair. And I at that point I didn't
even know that I could negotiate a prenup. So I
took it to someone else, and I think the second lawyer,
(28:27):
who maybe they just wanted to be involved with, like
Playboy or like having signed it. But they signed off
on it, but it had strange things and they're like,
I have no right to the bunny head like rabbit logo,
and I signed it, and I did think. I'm like, okay,
if I'm going to be here, I'm going to try
and do things a bit differently. And I think slowly,
(28:47):
you know, I did start making money. I really did
on your own a code. I thought to myself, like, okay,
I'm not a celebrity, but by association people care about
me for some reason. So it's like when social media
like Instagram, like it was like two thousand and fourteen,
and companies like teeth Whitening, and so I'm like, okay,
I started doing ads and I would invite them over
to the mansion and like do shoots in the backyard.
(29:09):
And I'm like, I'm gonna make the most of what
I can do here. And I taught myself how to DJ,
and Heff would let me go to like I went
to Las Vegas during the day and I would make
like seventy five hundred dollars for like an hour and
a half djaying at like the hard Rock Hotel. And
I just started stashing money and I started a loungewear line,
a bikini, a bikini line out of Australia, viv I've
(29:31):
started working with them and they're amazing. And financial abuse sucks.
I know women that are in relationships that are being
financially abused, and it's like, just save as much as
you can any type of like odd jobs or whatever
you can do, like just save safe, safe, And that's
what I started to do.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
One of the things though, I mean, you've talked about
so much about what's happening inside the mansion, but from
the outset it was like ground zero of reality TV.
Everyone was obsessed with it. It was like seeing inside
this line that nobody understood. It was so intriguing. It
was so fascinating, but how much of it was actually real?
Speaker 3 (30:05):
None of it nothing. They would say, Okay, today you're
going camping in the backyard, Crystal. You're gonna put on
this bear costume and like scare people. Then the very beginning,
I sat down under the archway and the producer said, Okay,
I want you to say your name and say that
you're not the new Holly. Holly's the old you in
(30:27):
my body. I'm like cringed a little bit because I'm like, oh,
Holly's not gonna like this. But I spit it out.
You know, I'm not the new Holly. Holly's the old me.
And that feud kicked.
Speaker 2 (30:37):
Off like the mean girl type vibe.
Speaker 3 (30:40):
Yeah. I have never wanted drama on the show, but
the producer, you know, put it in there in different ways.
I did a like a playmate photo shoot on the show.
He made me a playmate. I think he thought it
would be a good storyline on the show. I wore
a hat. It was for the holidays, and there was
like Holly like the berries in the hat. H They're like, oh,
(31:00):
some Harley, and then there's like a record scratch noise,
like as if they were just hitting us against each other.
Speaker 2 (31:06):
Shok horror.
Speaker 3 (31:08):
Yeah, reality TV then was interesting, like that's when the
Cardashians started. Like I remember like seeing Kim Cardiashi in
at like the Reality TV Awards and they were just starting.
It was just it was a weird time for TV then.
Speaker 2 (31:21):
Well it was also a time where in reality TV
world they could get away with so much because no
one really knew about it. Like now with reality TV
there's so much more responsibility to the care of the participants,
to the mental health because we've seen the damage that
it can do. But at that time, it was like
the height of exploitation. It was the height of being
able to get away with everything because it was so
(31:43):
new and there weren't as many.
Speaker 3 (31:45):
Rules, absolutely, and they could get away with giving people
no money. And so these people are like recognized and
their people are going up to them in the streets
and stuff, but they're like can't even afford to live.
It's very sad how people were treated. And I remember
the cardiac created businesses on the shows, and so now
like a lot of the reality contracts you sign like hey,
(32:07):
if you start a business through this show, like we
get a percentage. So it's it's just like keep suggesting
as time goes on to just I don't know's. It's
just interesting and people have gotten taken advantage of a
lot on reality TV and they continue to and I
think it is called out.
Speaker 1 (32:24):
Still speaking of financial abuse, talk to us about what
HIF did to Marilyn Monroe.
Speaker 3 (32:30):
Oh, that is hard for me because his whole empire
was started with the calendar photos of Marilyn Monroe. He
bought calendar photos that people heard of, but they had
never seen of Marilyn Monroe. She was nude, she had
no say, she made no money, and that created Heff's
(32:52):
entire empire, and he paid her nothing. And when he
was getting old, and he was not far from the
end of his life, he said, I don't care about
my funeral. You know where I want to be buried,
And where he wanted to be buried was Westwood Memorial,
right next to Marilyn Monroe. He bought the plot in
the nineties and this woman that he exploited, created this
(33:18):
whole empire off of this woman, and now she has
absolutely no say and whose bones will be lying next
to her?
Speaker 1 (33:26):
So he literally just bought photos of her off the internet,
just that already existed rights, the rights to them will
not even right, So I don't think it was rights.
Speaker 2 (33:34):
Back then.
Speaker 1 (33:35):
You could just purchase a photo, so anyone could have
used it. But he turned that into nude calendar then
made his empire, and she couldn't approve it, couldn't find it,
and be didn't get a sent Is that correct.
Speaker 3 (33:47):
Yeah, he collected enough money from wherever to buy her
photos from a calendar company. I think he bought them
for seven hundred dollars.
Speaker 2 (33:54):
I mean, no things are changing in this world, but
if anyone's familiar with em Rata's story around the photographer
who released nude photos of her, it's really fucking harrowing.
For a lot of young models who do nude photos
as part of their you know, when they're getting their
books together or they're trying they just want to get
seen and noticed in the industry, and so they do
what they might think are artistic photos, but they're probably
(34:16):
more nude than what they thought they were going to be.
And then the person who owns the royalties to those photos,
the rights to those photos, is the photographer. It's never
the model. They sign release forms that sign those things
away and that's what's happened in this instance with Marilyn Monroe.
She has no rights to the images, even though the
images are of her. The person who took those images
has full rights and you can purchase the licensing to
(34:39):
distribute it as you would, which just sounds crazy, but
it's something that still happens to models today, and it's
only if they're educated enough to know otherwise that they
can protect themselves.
Speaker 3 (34:48):
Yeah, I just I think of Marilyn Monroe. She you know,
pin up was really big then, and she probably just
went and did the shoot for this pin up company
and then maybe the photographer convinced her to like take
off all little bit. You know, that's happened to me before,
where the photographers are like, oh, hot, fucking hot, Oh
move the strap down a little bit, and you know,
I've called all them out since because I'm like, you
(35:09):
guys are disgusting. But yeah, her shoe probably went a
little bit further than she wanted to. Or you know,
she was obviously from a broken home and she was
you know, in an orphanage and she like had to
get married out of it to get out of it.
And you know, this is obviously a girl who was
vulnerable and people took advantage of that, and it's sad.
Speaker 1 (35:32):
Yeah, you have kept so much of this to yourself
for so long, the better part of six years, and
now you've decided that you want to tell your story
and you want to have your voice, and you've written
your book. You're also the president of the Hugh Foundation.
How did the board react as the president of his
legacy when you said, g you know what, I'm done
(35:53):
protecting him. I'm going to speak my truth.
Speaker 3 (35:56):
Yeah, it's it's very interesting because I'm still on the
board and I'm on the board with his secretary that
took over after Mary and his estate attorney Michael, and
I told them, I told him I'm going to be
writing this book. I'm going to be telling the truth.
And Heff's Foundation sticks up for First Amendment rights, which
(36:16):
is like freedom of speech, freedom of expression. So it's like,
if I if I'm not allowed to do this, then
it would be going against going against all of that.
But the last meeting I have with them, we were
in the scrap books. He has three thousand volumes of
scrap books, and we did say like he did a
lot of things, like positively changed a lot of laws.
(36:38):
He donated a lot of money, but he also was,
you know, a narcissist and he was misogynistic guy. And
I don't know what the legacy looks like going forward,
Like how do you preserve like a complicated legacy? I
don't know. My only thoughts on it are if we
(36:58):
can take some of the money we're auctioning of his
stuff and a lot of the art from the Playboy mansion,
and if we can take that money and put it
toward like women's causes, then I think it'd be starting
barely to start rectifying some of the damage. But I'm
going to see how it plays out.
Speaker 2 (37:15):
Crystal, how do you grapple with regret? Because I think
we've interviewed so many people in our time, and I
think most people would say, I don't regret anything. It's
made me the person I am. But in some of
the things you've said, I feel like there's things that
you have been experienced, things that you've done that you
deeply regret and that you look back on and you're like,
(37:35):
that's so embarrassing now for me, how do you deal
with that? How do you overcome regret when now where
you're at in your life and the version of yourself
that you are. What do you feel when you look
back on those years?
Speaker 3 (37:47):
That decade of my life was the whole thing, wasn't embarrassing?
Like I am so embarrassed to have been part of
that and played a role there. But yeah, looking back
right like because you were, you know, it's like it's hard.
I'm very hard on myself and to this day, and
(38:11):
I'm still trying to find my voice. I'm still trying
to you know. I started my own podcast and I
got all these horrible comments and like, oh, I counted
the time she said the word like or the word times,
like I'm just trying my best here and if you
don't like it too, I had to disable all my
comments on everything, like if you don't like me, just please,
(38:33):
like I can't handle it, just leave me alone. So
I try and not give myself such a hard time.
And I do have friends that say, you know, you
are really hard on yourself and you need to give
yourself grace, like give yourself more grace.
Speaker 2 (38:52):
And also forgiveness, Like you're in your twenties. You're in
your twenties, that's when most people make fucking crazy, terrible
decisions in their relationships in all aspects of life. And
I think, you know, when you come from the background
that you've had but ends up in a world that
is so otherworldly, you are the victim in this in
a lot of ways. And I think that the society
(39:13):
likes to say, yeah, but you're old enough, you made
a choice, like you were this, you were that. But
then when you hear your side of the story, there's
so much more compassion for why you would end up
making the decisions that you made.
Speaker 1 (39:25):
What do you want to say to people that say
you could have just left? Why didn't you leave?
Speaker 3 (39:31):
And I think that's a question that I get asked
probably most Yeah, And you know, when I think about it,
it's like why, you know, why do people take so
long leaving abusive relationships? You know, it's like, oh, the
people are nice or the people you know, you try
and see the good side. You're like, no, this is
the person that's bad but sometimes good. But it's a
(39:54):
bad person that's sometimes good, and you just try and
see the good parts, and especially when it's someone who's
also so praised by other people. You know, I have
friends that are in bad relationships and some of these
guys are like praised by the community or donate all
this money and they you know, so it's hard when
the whole world is praising somebody and you're like, Okay,
(40:15):
what's wrong with me? I need to be better in
this And I don't know. I was just a broken
soul that just was trying to have a better life
for herself in whatever way. And yeah, and I just
got stuck in some darkness for a long time. And
when I wrote this book, I had no idea how
(40:35):
it would be received. I literally had no idea. But
after doing therapy, I started with stories and that you know,
I crafted into a book. And I just wanted to
tell the truth and I wanted to dive into the
psychology aspect, like, you know, why did hef become who
he became? Like he obviously had a broken childhood as well,
(40:59):
just like I did. And yeah, there's there's reasons everything happens.
And I really wrote the book to help other people
and to tell the story. And I got an overwhelming response.
And one of my favorite responses was the women were
the women that said, oh, I wanted to be part
of Playboy or I wanted that was my dream too.
And as I sit here in my regular house and wherever, like,
(41:21):
I'm glad I didn't go for it, so thank you
and and I appreciate that.
Speaker 2 (41:26):
What's your life look like now?
Speaker 3 (41:29):
Oh so much better? Oh my gosh. So I started
traveling and I learned that I love, you know, traveling,
and I ended up in Hawaii, and I fell in
love with Hawaii. So I bought a farm there. So
I have a like a six acre lighty farm that sand.
(41:52):
It's so great.
Speaker 2 (41:53):
I love it.
Speaker 3 (41:54):
And I have three tiny houses there. And so I
go back and forth between California and Hawaii, and I'm
finally in our relationship that's normal and that's like respectful
and kind and yeah, I think if if anyone treats
you like less than nurturing, like just leave the situation.
(42:14):
But it's taken me a while. It's taken me a
string of bad relationships to get to this good one.
So I think I finally have learned my lesson. And
I wish that for everybody, because yeah, bad relationships can
really throw you.
Speaker 1 (42:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (42:28):
Also, it takes some people a really long time to
get to the place of learning the lessons.
Speaker 3 (42:32):
Yeah, And I think a big part of it. A
huge part of it for me is like respecting myself
because when you respect and love yourself so much, if
someone comes through and they don't treat you very well,
you'll get rid of them like fast, and so I
think it's really important to have that like respect and
love for yourself.
Speaker 1 (42:49):
Chrystal, thanks so much for sharing your story. It's genuinely
so interesting, and it's very easy to forget that you're
a real person that lives that because to a lot
of people from the outside, you become a character you're
on TV. It's not somebody that's actually living in someone's closet,
like some rich man's closet, being given an allowance to
(43:12):
control every week, Like those little parts that you have
enlightened the world with, they're going to change people's perspectives
of what that time was. Like I already have a
completely different perspective and insight after this chat today. I
think you're wonderful and I am genuinely very grateful that
you came to share your story today.
Speaker 3 (43:29):
Oh my gosh, I'm grateful to you and thanks. Thank
you both so much. You're both so amazing and this
has been such a great chat and safe space. I
really appreciate that.
Speaker 1 (43:40):
I genuinely loved that chat. I'm so grateful that she
came on today. I've always wanted to know what went
on inside those walls, Like growing up, I had so
many questions, and the fact that I got to ask
her is I don't know. I just feel like I
ticked some sort of life box. I didn't even know
I had.
Speaker 2 (43:53):
A real life playboy bunny, Yeah, real life playboy. But
I think it's so important to look back on some
of these things that bad in the you know, the
early two thousands, twenty ten, things that now, when you
know better, you do better, and you look back on
those situations and you go, wow, maybe that was far
more problematic than what we realized at the time. And
(44:14):
also this idea that no matter what it is that
you've been through, no matter who it is that people
perceive you to be, you can always rewrite your own story. Heway, guys,
that is it from us, You know the trill
Speaker 1 (44:25):
Tell your mum, tay dat te dog tea friends, and
share the love because we love love
Lifelun Cut acknowledges the traditional custodians of country whose lands
were never seated. We pay our respects to their elders
past and present.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Always was, always will be Aboriginal Land. This episode was
recorded on Drug Wallamuta Land. Hi guys, and welcome back
to another episode of Life un Cut.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
I'm Laura, I'm Brittany, and I am so pumped about
today's interview.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
It is intriguing, controversial, and she was a sexual icon
of the twenty tens. Crystal Hefner absolutely exploded into the
world of media and pop culture via the Playboy Mansion
at only twenty one years old, and when Crystal turned
to twenty six, she married playboy tycoon Hugh Hefner, who
was at the time eighty six, and news of this
(00:52):
wedding circulated to every corner of the globe. Crystal is
not just the widow of Hugh. She is a world
renowned model, an entrepreneur, and also has just released a
tell or memoir titled Only Say Good Things, which is
the truth about what really happened behind closed doors of
the elusive Playboy Mansion. And finally, Crystal is reclaiming the
one thing that she lost in her twenties. Her voice Crystal,
(01:14):
Welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
Thank you so much, thanks for having me Chrystal.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
This is such an exciting episode because I feel like
everyone has heard of you, and growing up, everyone knew
the Playboy Mansion, everybody knew Hugh Hefner, and everybody knew
his beautiful, very young, bombshell blonde.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
Wife, which is yourself.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
Before we get into your story, do you have an
embarrassing story and accidentally unfiltered because we start every episode
that way.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
I think just my decade at the Playboy Mansion was
very embarrassing and itself, especially when I think back to,
you know, a lot of the stuff though, like how
hef was sixty years older than me. Even when I
think back to the like the sex stuff, I know,
I'm like diving right into that, but that was embarrassing.
It was embarrassing having like group sex with strangers in
(02:03):
my twenties, and that was just so embarrassing and not
anything I would ever want to repeat ever.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
Again, I have so many questions around all of this
because there's this bigger and broader conversation which I know
we'll get into, but this idea of like what you do,
and especially in this day and age when everything is
now in social media and online, that the things you
do in your twenties and like the digital footprint that
you leave for yourself, you may not feel the same
(02:29):
way about that when you are in your thirties or
your forties looking back on that period of life. And
obviously you speak now so candidly around the regrets you have,
the trauma you went through, and trying to almost like
not reinvent yourself, but trying to make people realize that
there is a very different version of who you are
that exists. Can you tell us a little bit around
(02:50):
what your life was like growing up and what led
you to getting to the Playboy Mansion in the first place.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
Yeah, yeah, I think Well, HEF secretary once said, you know,
like he takes in the broken ones, are the ones
with the broken wings. And you know, first I thought
that was like, oh, that's cute, But thinking about it more,
it's like, yeah, he takes in women that are kind
of broken. They come from broken homes. You know, I
lost my DAP when I was young, and then my
mom kind of lost herself, so I felt a lot
(03:17):
like really on my own, I had a high school
boyfriend sweetheart, like really profound love in my life, and
you know, he died in the war in Iraq, And yeah,
I was the lost, broken, insecure person. And I remember
being a teenager and seeing Playboy magazines and I would
see these women and they were so beautiful and they
(03:38):
looked like they were so powerful and had the world
at their feet, and I thought, you know, oh, I
want to be just like them. And at that time,
the celebrities were like Carmen Electra, Pamela Anderson, Jenny McCarthy,
and they you all had the like the big implants,
and you know, I my boobs were like pathetic, and
so I started trying to myself to maybe have more confidence,
(04:02):
feel more powerful. And I think that's how I ended
up at the mansion. You know, I got invited to
submit my photo to go to a party. So I
submitted my photo. I didn't think I get picked, but
I ended up getting pecked. And that's where I met Heff.
It was Halloween party two thousand and eight, which seems
like so park a co.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
So you send a photo in because these parties, everybody
knows how exclusive they are and they're so hard to
get into. But I feel like at the time, it
was the party that everybody wanted to get into, because
that's where dreams were made. You send a photo, they
pick you, they say, yeah, she looks great, bring her in.
What happens once you're there, Like what is really going
down on the inside of these parties? And how did
(04:45):
you go from just being somebody that was supposed to
turn up to one party to being an instrumental part
of that world.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
Yeah, I mean that's a great question because you know,
recently I went on Pierce Morgan's show and he said
to me, He's like, oh, the party was so fun.
I went my fiance and we had so much fun.
It was so cool, Like, yeah, you're a celebrity and
you can like they roll out the red carpet for
you. You just show right up and whatever. Like for me,
it was different, like I had to submit my photos
and then once I got picked, they give you the
(05:14):
instructions and you pull up to a parking garage and
that's where you park your car, and then you get
in a shuttle and the shuttle takes you over to
the mansion. So it's not like you just drive up,
you know, like a celebrity would.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
Like in the back entrance.
Speaker 3 (05:27):
Yeah, yeah, yes. I got to the parking garage and
then a polaroid photo has taken of me. So I'm
in my little skimpy like French made costume and then
the polaroid's taken of me. I didn't think really anything
of it, but I later learned that hef takes those
polaroids after the parties and he goes through them and
he rates them ABC, and I guess it's a level
(05:51):
of attraction. And so the next party, the A's will
get invited and maybe the b's, but then if they
can't come, then they'll go to like the Sea and
the d's, And I don't think anyone's below D. I
think D is the lowest. But it's a whole different
experience for the other side of it, the non celebrity side.
So I took the polaroid in the parking garage, I
(06:13):
got in the shuttle, drove up to the mansion and
you know, the gates swing open and you start up
this winding drive and there's this sign that says playmates
at play and it's really cool and you feel like wow,
like maybe like I've made it, like to go to. Yeah,
I had never seen a celebrity in my life, and
you just feel like, wow, you're part of something special.
(06:34):
The party was beautiful and there was like a lot
the decorations were over the top, and there were there
were women like wow, those costumes are so in like
but it was just paint, so there's a lot of
just body painted women. I went with a very extroverted
friend and we saw these empty cabanas and then we
saw this group of people kind of coming toward the house,
(06:56):
like this wave of people, and my friend, she's like, oh,
that must be Hugh Hefner, Like he's like coming out
of the house to his cabana. She's like, come on.
She pulls my arm like I would have just like
watched from a distance, but she pulls my arm. We
go over there. We see half amongst like security, and
he's with a few other girls and they like unclip
the velvet rope and he goes in the cabana and
(07:16):
sits down. When it felt like you're at a zoo
and you see like the animals and the cage and
you're on the outside and they're on the inside, and
that's how it's supposed to be and then all of
a sudden, my friend starts just like over here, like waving,
and his gaze he looks at her, and then his
gaze like falls on b and he motioned to his
security guards to let me into the cabana. And it
(07:39):
was such a like my soul left my body because
it's like, oh, now I'm inside this animal enclosure, and
what do I do?
Speaker 2 (07:46):
You'd been chosen?
Speaker 3 (07:48):
Yeah, I'm like, this wasn't part of the plan, Like
what do I What do I do? And so I
got invited and I sat down right next to helf,
and he asked me what I did for a living,
and I thought, oh, I don't even have a job.
I'm still in school. I was studying psychology at San
Diego State. But little did I know like the younger,
the better, right for him, So I told him I
(08:10):
was studying psychology at San Diego State. He said he
studied psychology at University of Illinois, and we got to
talking and from there he invited me to stay through
the weekend for these movie nights. He said that that
he had coming up. So that's how it happened, and
that's how I first first was there.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
How quickly were you brought into the fold? Like how
instantaneous did that happen? Because I feel like this must
have just been such a well wind.
Speaker 3 (08:35):
Yeah. Absolutely, I thought, Okay, this is you know, this
is how the other half lives. This is this magical,
wonderful you know. At that point, I'm like Playboys the
place of power and freedom. And later on I just
became very trapped. But in the beginning, it was like
Charlie in the chocolate factory, like wow, Like there's like
(08:58):
ornate things and marble, every wear, a carved wood and
it was beautiful. And I did think I'm gonna do
whatever it takes to stay here.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
And so what happened on these movie nights, because you
put these movie nights in quotations when you just told
us about them, are these nights that are sex fueled?
And I say that because there's a level of ignorance
from the outside, from people like us looking in that
just think all that happens in the Playboy mansion.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
He's sex group, sex brooming. That's what we think from
the outside. So what was actually going down.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
That first night? I didn't know what was going to happen,
But right when we went into the house. There's like
a double staircase that goes upstairs, and we just went
kind of straight upstairs into half's bedroom. So I just thought, okay,
he might be expecting me to sleep with them. And
the first night I just met him, so I'm like, okay, mentally,
(09:50):
I try to prepare myself for that real quick. And it, Yeah,
it happened, and the sex happened, and I tried to
be as detailed as possible and chapter five of the
book because I think it's important to tell the truth
and what goes on up there. But yeah, after that sex,
the first night, I was assigned bedroom number five, and
(10:11):
then the next night was a buffet movie and then
sex after that, and it was the same throughout the weekend,
and then I went back home. When I went back home,
I thought, oh, how do I like move forward with
my last girl life after that just happened? And then
have called me like that Monday night and asked me
(10:33):
to move in.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
What were you thinking at that time? Like, after this
has happened, and even when you say I had to
prepare myself to have sex with this man, which sounds
fucking hideous in and of itself, but how did you
grapple with what was going on in your life and
almost makes sense a reason of the fact that to
live this life, you're gonna have to have a relationship
with this man.
Speaker 3 (10:54):
Yeah, I don't know. I guess everything and everything has
a price. So at first I was like, Okay, I
guess this just comes with it, and you know, I
could be okay with this. You know, maybe if it's
not like an everyday thing, I could be okay with it.
So I just started That was when I first started
like quietening down, like the inner voice that's like, hey,
(11:15):
something's wrong here, And I just started stuffing that down.
And Yeah, I made myself okay with it because it's
like I didn't really have anything else going in my
life and I had lost like this really big love
that I had. So I just think I was probably
the perfect candidate for the mansion.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
And what was the day to day Like You've been
assigned bedroom number five, which means you're not the only
person there. What does it look like in terms of
how many people at this point, how many girlfriends are they,
how many people are sharing HEF's life. Did you feel
like you were friends with these women but there was
almost a competition to be the main girlfriend, because I'm
(11:58):
assuming if everybody's there, every but he wants to be
sort of the top dog. What did it feel like
in that moment.
Speaker 3 (12:05):
Yeah, I feel that you want to be the top
dog because then you're the closest one to half, and
the closest you are to him, the least chance, least
likely chance you have it being kicked out. So I
quickly tried to figure that out. And at the time,
there were twins there, Christina and Carissa Shannon. They were
only nineteen.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (12:26):
Yeah, it was sad. I remember him like hugging them
in his bed and like looking up because he had
this big mirror above his bed and he's like my
baby's he's like has a and they're sisters. It's like
I'm still trying to wrap my head around that, Like
they're having a really hard time. They just they were
in rehab recently again and they're having a really hard
(12:48):
time now in life. And just thinking that he did
expect these girls, these sisters to hook up with each other,
like and he didn't first second think like okay, I
could be doing damage to these women. Like I think
he was so selfish and so now I've learned narcissistic
that he just didn't think of anybody but himself.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
It's also crazy that of the time it was such
a pop culture moment as well, and I know it
was your life, but it just absolutely permeated the news
in every way. It's crazy that there wasn't more outrage.
And if that was to happen now, people would say like, fuck,
these girls are nineteen years old, like what are we doing?
How are we glorifying this lifestyle? But those questions weren't
(13:35):
being asked at that time they and if they were,
it wasn't the loudest question, and the outrage wasn't there.
It was more intrigue and curiosity than it was really
this question of toxicity.
Speaker 3 (13:46):
It's crazy to me because when I started feeling like, Okay,
something's a little bit wrong or off, but then on
the outside, the media and the whole world is praising
this man. They've put him on such a pedestal and
he's an icon like globally, so it's it's it was
strange for me because I started feeling trapped. I started feeling, Okay,
something's not right here, and it's the gross imbalance of power.
(14:11):
And when people are perceived as powerful. I think the
media just I don't know, cowards to them.
Speaker 1 (14:20):
What were some of the promises that he was making
to the twins and to yourself and the other young women,
because there must have been something a real allure, And
it's not just the living in the mansion, and it's
not just the power. Was there, you know, promises of
you'll never have to worry in your life? Were you
given whatever you wanted whenever you wanted. Was there an
excessive amount of money heading into your bank accounts?
Speaker 3 (14:43):
Yeah, a lot of people, you know, I get all
these things like gold Digger or all these the whatever.
Like I'm like, I wanted whatever, a different life than
I had, you know, I just maybe I wanted to
find somewhere that I could really belong. So I never
had a you know, I was always on the move
and set never had any money. Maybe I wanted to
feel like I belonged or like I was special. But
(15:06):
talking about money, hef was I think about it now,
and he was financially abusive. He would give us one
thousand dollars every Friday. We would have to go ask
him for it, so we'd have to find him in
the house and be like hey, half, like can we
have our allowance today? And he go, oh, have you
been good this week? Like just like it's so embarrassing,
(15:27):
and then we go, yes, another embarrassing story. So we go,
this is definitely an embarrassing story, going into his room
asking him for this thousand dollars each and he pulls
out the little key out of his pocket and opens
this cabinet and brings out like envelope of money and
then he would count one hundred, two hundred, and then
the next girl's pile one hundred, and then he put
(15:47):
it all together and hand it to us. It's like, oh,
have you paid enough attention to me this week? Have you? Don't? Like,
have you been a good girl? Like? Here you go,
and the money was it was never enough to leave
because he did that on purpose, you know, like, let's
give these girls just enough to where you know they
need me and they're not going to have enough to leave.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
But also I can imagine that the life star that
you're living is also incredibly isolating, Like your entire community
becomes the people who are within that house because everything
gets smaller because there's so many requirements of being there.
There's requirements of being available for media. There's requirements of
being available for shoots, and also the requirements of being
available to him whenever he wants you, which would mean
(16:27):
that you probably lost even though you were already in
a situation where you didn't have your family and your
boyfriend who'd passed away, but did you lose your other friends,
your other connections that were around you with support systems
before going in?
Speaker 3 (16:42):
Yeah, I felt very lonely. You know. The twin dours
they didn't like me because I became the number one girlfriend.
They were so checked out that they eventually left, and yeah,
it proved to be too hard for them. But yeah,
it felt very isolating and lonely and lots of anxiety,
almost like paranoia. Like I had this little room that
(17:03):
was like an offshoot of HEF's closet, and you know
there's a big gap under the door, and you would
see just like shadows of people like walking by. So
I'm like, oh, it's the security like listening to me.
So I was always sometimes I would just text my
mom instead of calling her because I would be afraid that,
like someone be listening to me.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
What did your mom think of you doing this? At
the time.
Speaker 3 (17:22):
At first, she liked coming up to the parties, and
half and I would go down to the parties, not
for long and go back up, and then my mom
would stay down there, and she liked it. And I
think I didn't really tell her the extent of what
went on there. I don't even know if she thought
we like had sex with him, Like I don't think
she knew. And because my mom, she's in real estate,
(17:43):
so I would just she would come over and I
talked to her about the house and it's like a
you know, she's British, so we talk about it's like
a British style house. And I would just not be
fully open with her.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
And so how long will you a girlfriend full before
you got married to if.
Speaker 3 (18:00):
Gosh, we got married. He gave me a ring in
two thousand and ten, I think the very end and
Christmas Eve, or maybe it was twenty eleven at the
I don't remember. Now it's weird because I like, part
of me is just trying to forget.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
Yeah, I mean I heard you speak about something. It
was such a powerful way of describing an engagement, because
normally you'd speak about an engagement and most people have
a beautiful story around how they were asked to be married,
and you wrote this. You said, he said that I
hope it fits, was all HEFNA said. He never asked
me to marry him, and you never said yes. It
(18:36):
wasn't a question, it wasn't a choice. And then it
went on to say that it was transactional as all
things were to Hugh.
Speaker 3 (18:42):
Wow. Yeah, yeah, so that's what I said, because it
definitely brings true. He handed me a ring, he said
that he hopes it fits, which it didn't. It was
too big, but you know, and then everyone starts taking pictures.
There's a videographer there. I didn't really have time to
think about it, and later on I reflected a bit
(19:04):
and I just thought, Okay, like, if I say no
to him, then I probably have to leave tomorrow. I'm
not prepared for that. But if I stay here, then
maybe he wants a good pr story because it's the
end of his life. And I already experienced like a
love to me that was really great, and so maybe
that I've had that in my life and now I
can you know, I'll marry him and make him happy.
(19:26):
I think I was very much a people pleaser when
it came to like Keb's needs.
Speaker 2 (19:31):
Was there any part of you in this whole experience
that felt as though you did love him?
Speaker 3 (19:37):
I think early on, when he expected me to have
sex with like multiple people in the room, I'm like,
how can this guy really love me? And so from
there I put like a and the age difference. Yeah,
it got hard. I ran away, Like the first attempt
at getting married. I ran because we had filmed the
Girl's next Door show and I found out that he
(19:58):
got paid four hundred thousand dollars per episode of the
Girl's next Door And it's not something I really wanted.
I never even watched the show before, and he just said, oh,
we're doing the show me and the Twins, and I
didn't get paid anything for it.
Speaker 1 (20:13):
So he got four hundred thousand dollars an episode and
you got nothing.
Speaker 3 (20:18):
Yeah, and then people would be like, oh, you used
him for whatever. I'm like cool, like I think we
all got used. Yeah. If I usede him, then he.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
Used us too, Like Crystal, how is it even possible
from a production company for one person to sign a
contract that affects multiple other people. I mean, when you're
not the property of someone that don't have ownership over
you that you are signing or did you have to
sign a contract? Like how did it work that you
were in a situation where someone earns four hundred thousand
(20:48):
dollars and you aren nothing.
Speaker 3 (20:50):
That's a great question, and how they get away with
it is I always asked to sign a talent release,
So basically I just just I signed and that I
release that they can use my name and likeness on camera.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
And it was never disclosed how much he was earning
from this.
Speaker 3 (21:07):
No, I would overhear because he would do a lot
of his calls on speakerphone, and since my room area
as part of his closet, I would overhear. I'm talking
to the producer of the Girls next Door and talk
about how they're going to make four hundred thousand and
they're trying to get eat up it and I just
but at that time, I'm such an idiot because I'm like, oh,
(21:27):
I should just be so lucky to be here, and
like I'm the chosen one to be on this show.
Speaker 1 (21:32):
But also you're a young woman that I mean, you
didn't as far as I'm aware, you were in the
middle of a degree, so you didn't even finish that,
and then you got extracted into this world where you
didn't have any control or power. You'd never been in
that world, so you're not to know that signing a
talent release is signing your life away, Like that's something
that they should be educating you on and they didn't,
which is also a form of control. You just said
(21:55):
something that sort of stopped me for a second. I
know a lot of people will be interested in it,
you said. And he couldn't have loved me because he,
you know, used to make us all have sex together
or watch or what were those nights like when it
wasn't just you and hef And did you ever feel
comfortable like you wanted to be doing it or did
(22:16):
you always just feel like it was an expectation and
if you didn't perform you would be kicked out.
Speaker 3 (22:22):
It was definitely an expectation. It wasn't something I ever enjoyed.
You know, it's really awkward and uncomfortable being around you know,
your sex is a very intimate thing, but then you're
there with other people you don't really know. And yeah,
I never have really felt comfortable around half completely. He
(22:42):
never really took the time to get to know me
or anything. So having that dynamic plus a bunch of
strangers and we're all like having to be naked with
each other, it's uh yeah, it's embarrassing.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
I imagine you must learn to disassociate. We hear about
this idea of just like when you said earlier on
this idea of just pushing your thoughts down, like you
would get to a point almost where you disassociate from
the person that you actually are in order to do
some things that doesn't completely traumatize you.
Speaker 3 (23:12):
Absolutely, And I think that's when I first started doing
like dissociating. I found myself later like when I would
in the recent past like go on dates, like oh,
I went on a first date and we like walked
around the neighborhood, and then I get home and I'm like,
I don't remember anything that we talked about. I don't.
I just completely dissociated. And it's sad because I think
(23:34):
it started there. You hear people talk about that happening
but not even being connected to yourself and just going
somewhere else in your mind. It is a trauma response,
and it's so sad.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
And when you say you ran away so you found
out this information about the inequality and the money in filming,
and you ran away from the wedding. Essentially what happened.
Speaker 3 (23:56):
Well, I was upset about the Girls next Door thing,
not upset, but just I realized, like, okay, maybe he
doesn't like It's just constant reminders I'm not valued at all.
And when he gave me the ring, when he asked
me if it fits, there were the cameras and video
people people that I didn't recognize, not the regular ones.
So I'm like okay, And I realized he signed on
(24:20):
with the Girl's next Door producer to do a show
called Marrying Hef and it was a two hour wedding special.
I believe on like Lifetime TV. I don't know about
our wedding, like two hour special. It was going to
follow me like going to the flower mart and picking
out stuff and getting organized. And I found out that
HEF was going to make eight hundred thousand dollars for
(24:41):
the two hour special. He had come into the little
area that I lived in in the closet and he
brought me a like paperwork, and it was like a
he was giving me a talent fee of twenty five
hundred dollars, and I'd overheard him say that he was
getting paid eight hundred thousand dollars, and I find I
least stood up for myself and I said, hey, like,
(25:03):
I know I'll be cause I'm I'm so introverted. Like
they had he had three hundred people coming to the wedding.
We're getting like RSVPs from like Paris Hilton, like Jeene Simmons,
and I'm just like, this is for something, you know.
It didn't feel real to me, Like this feels so fake,
and I didn't want so I'm like, okay, I'm gonna
(25:24):
have to carry this show. I told him, I said,
to twenty five hundred feet a little bit like feels
like a slap in the face, Like I know, I
overheard Juice like talking about how much we're gonna make
maybe like ten thousand or something to make me feel
a little bit more valued. And he responded by saying,
what are you in this for? It took me back
(25:45):
to like all the pts or all the gold digger
comments by the press and all this stuff, and so
I like ran out of the vanity. I've never like
defied him before that moment. I ran out of the vanity.
I ran out the mansion and down the back drive
and I was gonna go to the park. There's a
nice part close by. And as I was going down
the back drive, there's a gate and there's also a
(26:05):
security booth. Security. You'll see me on the camera coming
down the drive and they'll open the gate for me.
So as I'm going down, the gate isn't opening, Like, oh,
that's weird. Is no one in the booth. And I
overheard like I heard a speakerphone. I heard HEF's voice
and he said, if Crystal tries to leave, detain her.
And oh my god, Like, okay, this gate is not opening,
(26:27):
Like I'm actually trapped here. And so I thought to myself, Okay,
I need a better way to get out of here.
And so I just like put my head down walked
back into the house. Yeah, I plotted my escape because
I did leave in twenty eleven.
Speaker 2 (26:43):
Did he come to the table with any more payment
for that show or did you have to accept that amount?
Speaker 3 (26:48):
No, they didn't. I left, and they still filmed it,
and they still I think they bribed me with like
a five thousand to try and be on it, if
just an appearance or make some comments. It's like when
you finally stand up for yourself and realize you're worth Like,
people treat you better.
Speaker 2 (27:08):
Sam, but they can't keep getting away with the behavior.
But I don't know how to put this without it
sounding not how I intended in terms of like, I
feel so sorry for you that you went through that.
I feel so sorry that you you cop the gold
digger comments, but yet are not financially benefiting in a
way that actually sets you up for any sort of future,
and yet are still where you are in life Now
you look back on and you fucking hate and regret, Like,
(27:29):
I so deeply hate that you experienced that, and I'm
so sorry that this is something. I'm glad that you
have the agency and voice and you're able to tell
your story.
Speaker 3 (27:38):
Oh thank you. That's sometimes I feel like I'm telling
the story about somebody else and we're like, like if
I was my ole, Yeah, I don't know, but thank you.
Speaker 1 (27:49):
Was there a prenup or what did it look like
when you got married in terms of did you have
access to the bank account like a normal relationship would,
where you can do what you want, or did he
keep you on a really tauch string and an allowance
even into your marriage?
Speaker 3 (28:05):
So when I ended up getting married to him. There
was a prenup. It was like forty five pages something
like that, and it wasn't very fair. The first attorney
I took it to wouldn't sign it. They said it
was very unfair. And I at that point I didn't
even know that I could negotiate a prenup. So I
took it to someone else, and I think the second lawyer,
(28:27):
who maybe they just wanted to be involved with, like
Playboy or like having signed it. But they signed off
on it, but it had strange things and they're like,
I have no right to the bunny head like rabbit logo,
and I signed it, and I did think. I'm like, okay,
if I'm going to be here, I'm going to try
and do things a bit differently. And I think slowly,
(28:47):
you know, I did start making money. I really did
on your own a code. I thought to myself, like, okay,
I'm not a celebrity, but by association people care about
me for some reason. So it's like when social media
like Instagram, like it was like two thousand and fourteen,
and companies like teeth Whitening, and so I'm like, okay,
I started doing ads and I would invite them over
to the mansion and like do shoots in the backyard.
(29:09):
And I'm like, I'm gonna make the most of what
I can do here. And I taught myself how to DJ,
and Heff would let me go to like I went
to Las Vegas during the day and I would make
like seventy five hundred dollars for like an hour and
a half djaying at like the hard Rock Hotel. And
I just started stashing money and I started a loungewear line,
a bikini, a bikini line out of Australia, viv I've
(29:31):
started working with them and they're amazing. And financial abuse sucks.
I know women that are in relationships that are being
financially abused, and it's like, just save as much as
you can any type of like odd jobs or whatever
you can do, like just save safe, safe, And that's
what I started to do.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
One of the things though, I mean, you've talked about
so much about what's happening inside the mansion, but from
the outset it was like ground zero of reality TV.
Everyone was obsessed with it. It was like seeing inside
this line that nobody understood. It was so intriguing. It
was so fascinating, but how much of it was actually real?
Speaker 3 (30:05):
None of it nothing. They would say, Okay, today you're
going camping in the backyard, Crystal. You're gonna put on
this bear costume and like scare people. Then the very beginning,
I sat down under the archway and the producer said, Okay,
I want you to say your name and say that
you're not the new Holly. Holly's the old you in
(30:27):
my body. I'm like cringed a little bit because I'm like, oh,
Holly's not gonna like this. But I spit it out.
You know, I'm not the new Holly. Holly's the old me.
And that feud kicked.
Speaker 2 (30:37):
Off like the mean girl type vibe.
Speaker 3 (30:40):
Yeah. I have never wanted drama on the show, but
the producer, you know, put it in there in different ways.
I did a like a playmate photo shoot on the show.
He made me a playmate. I think he thought it
would be a good storyline on the show. I wore
a hat. It was for the holidays, and there was
like Holly like the berries in the hat. H They're like, oh,
(31:00):
some Harley, and then there's like a record scratch noise,
like as if they were just hitting us against each other.
Speaker 2 (31:06):
Shok horror.
Speaker 3 (31:08):
Yeah, reality TV then was interesting, like that's when the
Cardashians started. Like I remember like seeing Kim Cardiashi in
at like the Reality TV Awards and they were just starting.
It was just it was a weird time for TV then.
Speaker 2 (31:21):
Well it was also a time where in reality TV
world they could get away with so much because no
one really knew about it. Like now with reality TV
there's so much more responsibility to the care of the participants,
to the mental health because we've seen the damage that
it can do. But at that time, it was like
the height of exploitation. It was the height of being
able to get away with everything because it was so
(31:43):
new and there weren't as many.
Speaker 3 (31:45):
Rules, absolutely, and they could get away with giving people
no money. And so these people are like recognized and
their people are going up to them in the streets
and stuff, but they're like can't even afford to live.
It's very sad how people were treated. And I remember
the cardiac created businesses on the shows, and so now
like a lot of the reality contracts you sign like hey,
(32:07):
if you start a business through this show, like we
get a percentage. So it's it's just like keep suggesting
as time goes on to just I don't know's. It's
just interesting and people have gotten taken advantage of a
lot on reality TV and they continue to and I
think it is called out.
Speaker 1 (32:24):
Still speaking of financial abuse, talk to us about what
HIF did to Marilyn Monroe.
Speaker 3 (32:30):
Oh, that is hard for me because his whole empire
was started with the calendar photos of Marilyn Monroe. He
bought calendar photos that people heard of, but they had
never seen of Marilyn Monroe. She was nude, she had
no say, she made no money, and that created Heff's
(32:52):
entire empire, and he paid her nothing. And when he
was getting old, and he was not far from the
end of his life, he said, I don't care about
my funeral. You know where I want to be buried,
And where he wanted to be buried was Westwood Memorial,
right next to Marilyn Monroe. He bought the plot in
the nineties and this woman that he exploited, created this
(33:18):
whole empire off of this woman, and now she has
absolutely no say and whose bones will be lying next
to her?
Speaker 1 (33:26):
So he literally just bought photos of her off the internet,
just that already existed rights, the rights to them will
not even right, So I don't think it was rights.
Speaker 2 (33:34):
Back then.
Speaker 1 (33:35):
You could just purchase a photo, so anyone could have
used it. But he turned that into nude calendar then
made his empire, and she couldn't approve it, couldn't find it,
and be didn't get a sent Is that correct.
Speaker 3 (33:47):
Yeah, he collected enough money from wherever to buy her
photos from a calendar company. I think he bought them
for seven hundred dollars.
Speaker 2 (33:54):
I mean, no things are changing in this world, but
if anyone's familiar with em Rata's story around the photographer
who released nude photos of her, it's really fucking harrowing.
For a lot of young models who do nude photos
as part of their you know, when they're getting their
books together or they're trying they just want to get
seen and noticed in the industry, and so they do
what they might think are artistic photos, but they're probably
(34:16):
more nude than what they thought they were going to be.
And then the person who owns the royalties to those photos,
the rights to those photos, is the photographer. It's never
the model. They sign release forms that sign those things
away and that's what's happened in this instance with Marilyn Monroe.
She has no rights to the images, even though the
images are of her. The person who took those images
has full rights and you can purchase the licensing to
(34:39):
distribute it as you would, which just sounds crazy, but
it's something that still happens to models today, and it's
only if they're educated enough to know otherwise that they
can protect themselves.
Speaker 3 (34:48):
Yeah, I just I think of Marilyn Monroe. She you know,
pin up was really big then, and she probably just
went and did the shoot for this pin up company
and then maybe the photographer convinced her to like take
off all little bit. You know, that's happened to me before,
where the photographers are like, oh, hot, fucking hot, Oh
move the strap down a little bit, and you know,
I've called all them out since because I'm like, you
(35:09):
guys are disgusting. But yeah, her shoe probably went a
little bit further than she wanted to. Or you know,
she was obviously from a broken home and she was
you know, in an orphanage and she like had to
get married out of it to get out of it.
And you know, this is obviously a girl who was
vulnerable and people took advantage of that, and it's sad.
Speaker 1 (35:32):
Yeah, you have kept so much of this to yourself
for so long, the better part of six years, and
now you've decided that you want to tell your story
and you want to have your voice, and you've written
your book. You're also the president of the Hugh Foundation.
How did the board react as the president of his
legacy when you said, g you know what, I'm done
(35:53):
protecting him. I'm going to speak my truth.
Speaker 3 (35:56):
Yeah, it's it's very interesting because I'm still on the
board and I'm on the board with his secretary that
took over after Mary and his estate attorney Michael, and
I told them, I told him I'm going to be
writing this book. I'm going to be telling the truth.
And Heff's Foundation sticks up for First Amendment rights, which
(36:16):
is like freedom of speech, freedom of expression. So it's like,
if I if I'm not allowed to do this, then
it would be going against going against all of that.
But the last meeting I have with them, we were
in the scrap books. He has three thousand volumes of
scrap books, and we did say like he did a
lot of things, like positively changed a lot of laws.
(36:38):
He donated a lot of money, but he also was,
you know, a narcissist and he was misogynistic guy. And
I don't know what the legacy looks like going forward,
Like how do you preserve like a complicated legacy? I
don't know. My only thoughts on it are if we
(36:58):
can take some of the money we're auctioning of his
stuff and a lot of the art from the Playboy mansion,
and if we can take that money and put it
toward like women's causes, then I think it'd be starting
barely to start rectifying some of the damage. But I'm
going to see how it plays out.
Speaker 2 (37:15):
Crystal, how do you grapple with regret? Because I think
we've interviewed so many people in our time, and I
think most people would say, I don't regret anything. It's
made me the person I am. But in some of
the things you've said, I feel like there's things that
you have been experienced, things that you've done that you
deeply regret and that you look back on and you're like,
(37:35):
that's so embarrassing now for me, how do you deal
with that? How do you overcome regret when now where
you're at in your life and the version of yourself
that you are. What do you feel when you look
back on those years?
Speaker 3 (37:47):
That decade of my life was the whole thing, wasn't embarrassing?
Like I am so embarrassed to have been part of
that and played a role there. But yeah, looking back
right like because you were, you know, it's like it's hard.
I'm very hard on myself and to this day, and
(38:11):
I'm still trying to find my voice. I'm still trying
to you know. I started my own podcast and I
got all these horrible comments and like, oh, I counted
the time she said the word like or the word times,
like I'm just trying my best here and if you
don't like it too, I had to disable all my
comments on everything, like if you don't like me, just please,
(38:33):
like I can't handle it, just leave me alone. So
I try and not give myself such a hard time.
And I do have friends that say, you know, you
are really hard on yourself and you need to give
yourself grace, like give yourself more grace.
Speaker 2 (38:52):
And also forgiveness, Like you're in your twenties. You're in
your twenties, that's when most people make fucking crazy, terrible
decisions in their relationships in all aspects of life. And
I think, you know, when you come from the background
that you've had but ends up in a world that
is so otherworldly, you are the victim in this in
a lot of ways. And I think that the society
(39:13):
likes to say, yeah, but you're old enough, you made
a choice, like you were this, you were that. But
then when you hear your side of the story, there's
so much more compassion for why you would end up
making the decisions that you made.
Speaker 1 (39:25):
What do you want to say to people that say
you could have just left? Why didn't you leave?
Speaker 3 (39:31):
And I think that's a question that I get asked
probably most Yeah, And you know, when I think about it,
it's like why, you know, why do people take so
long leaving abusive relationships? You know, it's like, oh, the
people are nice or the people you know, you try
and see the good side. You're like, no, this is
the person that's bad but sometimes good. But it's a
(39:54):
bad person that's sometimes good, and you just try and
see the good parts, and especially when it's someone who's
also so praised by other people. You know, I have
friends that are in bad relationships and some of these
guys are like praised by the community or donate all
this money and they you know, so it's hard when
the whole world is praising somebody and you're like, Okay,
(40:15):
what's wrong with me? I need to be better in
this And I don't know. I was just a broken
soul that just was trying to have a better life
for herself in whatever way. And yeah, and I just
got stuck in some darkness for a long time. And
when I wrote this book, I had no idea how
(40:35):
it would be received. I literally had no idea. But
after doing therapy, I started with stories and that you know,
I crafted into a book. And I just wanted to
tell the truth and I wanted to dive into the
psychology aspect, like, you know, why did hef become who
he became? Like he obviously had a broken childhood as well,
(40:59):
just like I did. And yeah, there's there's reasons everything happens.
And I really wrote the book to help other people
and to tell the story. And I got an overwhelming response.
And one of my favorite responses was the women were
the women that said, oh, I wanted to be part
of Playboy or I wanted that was my dream too.
And as I sit here in my regular house and wherever, like,
(41:21):
I'm glad I didn't go for it, so thank you
and and I appreciate that.
Speaker 2 (41:26):
What's your life look like now?
Speaker 3 (41:29):
Oh so much better? Oh my gosh. So I started
traveling and I learned that I love, you know, traveling,
and I ended up in Hawaii, and I fell in
love with Hawaii. So I bought a farm there. So
I have a like a six acre lighty farm that sand.
(41:52):
It's so great.
Speaker 2 (41:53):
I love it.
Speaker 3 (41:54):
And I have three tiny houses there. And so I
go back and forth between California and Hawaii, and I'm
finally in our relationship that's normal and that's like respectful
and kind and yeah, I think if if anyone treats
you like less than nurturing, like just leave the situation.
(42:14):
But it's taken me a while. It's taken me a
string of bad relationships to get to this good one.
So I think I finally have learned my lesson. And
I wish that for everybody, because yeah, bad relationships can
really throw you.
Speaker 1 (42:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (42:28):
Also, it takes some people a really long time to
get to the place of learning the lessons.
Speaker 3 (42:32):
Yeah, And I think a big part of it. A
huge part of it for me is like respecting myself
because when you respect and love yourself so much, if
someone comes through and they don't treat you very well,
you'll get rid of them like fast, and so I
think it's really important to have that like respect and
love for yourself.
Speaker 1 (42:49):
Chrystal, thanks so much for sharing your story. It's genuinely
so interesting, and it's very easy to forget that you're
a real person that lives that because to a lot
of people from the outside, you become a character you're
on TV. It's not somebody that's actually living in someone's closet,
like some rich man's closet, being given an allowance to
(43:12):
control every week, Like those little parts that you have
enlightened the world with, they're going to change people's perspectives
of what that time was. Like I already have a
completely different perspective and insight after this chat today. I
think you're wonderful and I am genuinely very grateful that
you came to share your story today.
Speaker 3 (43:29):
Oh my gosh, I'm grateful to you and thanks. Thank
you both so much. You're both so amazing and this
has been such a great chat and safe space. I
really appreciate that.
Speaker 1 (43:40):
I genuinely loved that chat. I'm so grateful that she
came on today. I've always wanted to know what went
on inside those walls, Like growing up, I had so
many questions, and the fact that I got to ask
her is I don't know. I just feel like I
ticked some sort of life box. I didn't even know
I had.
Speaker 2 (43:53):
A real life playboy bunny, Yeah, real life playboy. But
I think it's so important to look back on some
of these things that bad in the you know, the
early two thousands, twenty ten, things that now, when you
know better, you do better, and you look back on
those situations and you go, wow, maybe that was far
more problematic than what we realized at the time. And
(44:14):
also this idea that no matter what it is that
you've been through, no matter who it is that people
perceive you to be, you can always rewrite your own story. Heway, guys,
that is it from us, You know the trill
Speaker 1 (44:25):
Tell your mum, tay dat te dog tea friends, and
share the love because we love love
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