The darkish aspect of Playboy. Holly Madison, Bridget Marquardt and extra of Hugh Hefner‘s ex-girlfriends opened up about their time with the media mogul within the new A&E docuseries Secrets and techniques of Playboy.
“On the mansion, the indoctrination, I really feel, begins virtually instantly while you’re there, and also you begin listening to about how fantastic Hef is from his circle of his buddies,” the Vegas Diaries writer, 42, mentioned through the sequence premiere on January 24. “So, to start with, Hef is what you’ll now name a love bomber. He’s any individual who tells you ‘I like you’ virtually instantly.”
The Holly’s World alum dated the late Playboy founder from 2001 to 2008, throughout which period she lived within the well-known Playboy Mansion in Los Angeles. Since writing her 2015 tell-all memoir, Down the Rabbit Gap: Curious Adventures and Cautionary Tales of a Former Playboy Bunny, she’s been outspoken about her experiences with Hefner, who died in 2017 at age 91.
Within the new sequence, former Playboy fashions and ex-girlfriends of Hefner famous that lots of Madison’s claims mirrored their very own reminiscences of life on the mansion. “I do know for a reality the principles she needed to comply with,” Carla Howe, a former mannequin, mentioned within the premiere. “You’re imprisoned in that Playboy [world]. Like, you’ll be able to’t do your individual factor.”
Madison recalled one incident when Hefner allegedly “flipped out” on her as a result of she reduce her hair shorter than he appreciated. “I bear in mind when she reduce her hair,” Jonathan Baker, a buddy of Hefner’s, recalled. “He was very sad about it.”
Stefan Tetenbaum, who labored as Hefner’s private valet from 1978 to 1981, alleged that life wasn’t simple for workers on the mansion, both. “He thought he was the king, the emperor,” Tetenbaum claimed. “We had been simply servants. Everyone else was invisible. He didn’t need to know our names. He simply gave us instructions.”
In response to Tetenbaum, staffers had been presupposed to keep away from contact with the ladies within the mansion, even when they tried to provoke a dialog. “We had been instructed you can not discuss to the women,” he defined. “You’re not their buddy. You’re employed for Mr. Hefner — you don’t work for them.”
Baker and a few of Hefner’s different buddies declare that they by no means noticed him deal with his girlfriends with something lower than kindness. Madison, nonetheless, famous that these acquaintances didn’t at all times see what was taking place behind closed doorways.
“I really feel like on The Ladies Subsequent Door, Hef was portrayed as, like, a kindly grandpa, however that’s not how he’s,” the truth star defined. “It might make me so indignant how manipulative he was. Hef managed each side of our life.”
Secrets and techniques of Playboy airs on A&E Mondays at 9 p.m. ET.
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