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Hugh Hefner’s widow Crystal has destroyed thousands of naked photos taken on disposable cameras, confirming Holly Madison’s allegation that the Playboy founder kept a ‘mountain of revenge porn’.
Crystal Hefner, 35, was married to Hugh from 2012 until his death in 2017, aged 91.
On Monday night, in an episode of the 10-part A&E series Secrets of Playboy, an ex-girlfriend of Hefner’s, Madison, told about the dark side of Hefner’s personality.
Madison, 42, who was with Hefner from 2001-8, said that he kept ‘all kinds of naked pictures’ of women so he could allegedly use them as a form of blackmail.
The former model said she remained with Hefner at the Playboy Mansion in part because she was frightened that he would publish the photos.
‘His friends were always so supportive and speaking so highly of him,’ Madison said in the documentary.
‘But that’s the only side of him they ever saw. They had no idea what was going on behind closed doors and how the women were treated.
‘When I lived at the mansion, I was afraid to leave. Something that was always lingering in the back of my mind, I think since the very beginning, was that if I left there was just this mountain of revenge porn just waiting to come out.’
Holly Madison, 42, became Hefner’s ‘special one’, or main girlfriend, and moved into the Playboy mansion aged 21 in 2000. Above, Madison in the new docuseries Secrets of Playboy, in which she said she stayed with him in part because she was terrified he would release ‘revenge porn’
Madison, above with Hefner in 2003, said she found him charming, but not attractive
Melissa Taylor, Anna Berglund, Playboy founder Hugh Hefner and Crystal Harris in 2009, before Crystal became Mrs Hefner
Hugh and Crystal Hefner are pictured in October 2014 at the Playboy Mansion’s Halloween party
Madison added: ‘When you would go out with Hef, he’s taking all kinds of naked pictures of these women when we’re wasted out of our minds.
‘And he would print out like eight copies for him and all the women, you pass them around. It was just gross.’
On Tuesday, Crystal confirmed Madison’s account.
Hefner is pictured with Crystal in April 2010
‘I found thousands of those disposable camera photos you are talking about @hollymadison,’ she tweeted.
‘I immediately ripped them up and destroyed every single one of them for you and the countless other women in them. They’re gone.’
Madison replied: ‘Thank you @crystalhefner.’
Crystal, determined to set the record straight, took issue with other aspects of the documentary – in particular, a claim by poet Sharmagne Leland-St. John-Sylbert, 76, that Hefner was fascinated by Charles Manson.
Leland-St. John said that Hefner kept ‘home videos’ of the Manson Family.
Sondra Theodore, who dated Hefner from 1976 to 1981, also compared life at the mansion to the infamous cult, saying: ‘There were so many similarities with the way the girls followed everything he said, and we were all one big happy family.’
Yet Crystal denied that her late husband was interested in the serial killer, pointing out that he was friends with the Manson family prosecutor but not Manson himself.
‘Saying he has interest is definitely a lie,’ she wrote on Monday.
‘Hef was friends with Vincent Bugliosi up until his death and that’s extent of being ‘tied to’ or ‘interested.”
Madison calls Hefner ‘manipulative’ and described the atmosphere in the Playboy Mansion, above, as ‘cult-like’
Madison, in Monday’s episode, she never had casual sex before meeting him and was ‘kind of asexual’ before the first night she slept with the magazine publisher.
‘I never had casual sex with anybody before. I feel like I was kind of really asexual, so maybe I just wasn’t ready for that,’ she said.
Madison said her mother even thought she had Asperger’s, a high-functioning form of autism, because she had so much trouble ‘connecting with other people.’
Madison was 21 when she moved into the Playboy mansion in 2000 and became Hefner’s ‘special one,’ or main girlfriend.
‘I think I was drawn to try and be in the spotlight because I felt like if I could be famous, that would be a shortcut to feeling a connection with people,’ Madison said.
‘I wasn’t physically attracted to Hef, but I did find him very charming.’
Madison, above at 15 in 1995, says she always had trouble connecting with people and that her mom thought she may have Asperger’s, a high-functioning form of autism spectrum disorder
Madison’s (right) ‘special relationship’ with the magazine publisher was portrayed over the course of 91 episodes on E!’s The Girls Next Door, which ran from 2005 to 2010
The new A&E docuseries lifts the lid on the ‘dark underbelly’ of the Playboy Mansion and founder Hugh Hefner, who died in 2017 at age 91
Hefner’s soon Cooper Hefner has come out against the new series, calling it a ‘case study of regret becoming revenge’
She claimed Hefner offered her a Quaalude, a powerful sedative that has been illegal since 1984, the first night she went out with him and his other girlfriends.
He allegedly told her: ‘They used to call these thigh-openers in the ’70s.’
Hefner’s son, Cooper Hefner, has since come out against the documentary, tweeting that the stories are ‘a case study of regret becoming revenge.’
The documentary features Hefner’s former butler, who claims his boss would host ‘pig night’ where he would invite high-profile and celebrity friends over and secretly film them having sex with ‘ugly’ prostitutes he had hired.
A former assistant claims Hefner used the amphetamine Dexedrine every day to keep himself alert.
Monday’s premiere began with a statement from Playboy magazine condemning some of their founder’s attitudes and actions.
‘Today’s Playboy is not Hugh Hefner’s Playboy,’ they said.
‘We trust and validate these women and their stories and we strongly support those individuals who have come forward to share their experiences.’
Over the weekend, Playboy issued an open letter on Medium addressing what it called the ‘allegations of abhorrent actions’ by Hefner and others.
‘We trust and validate women and their stories, and we strongly support the individuals who have come forward to share their experiences,’ the leadership team wrote.
‘We will continue to confront any parts of our legacy that do not reflect our values today, and to build upon the progress we have made as we evolve as a company so we can drive positive change for you and our communities.’
Madison says she never had casual sex before the first night she did with Hefner. ‘I feel like I was kind of really asexual, so maybe I just wasn’t ready for that,’ she said in the documentary
Hefner, who launched the first edition of Playboy in 1953, had fashioned himself as a champion of freedom of sexuality and freedom of speech in a repressive post-war era
By the 1970s, Playboy had taken off and Hefner opened up dozens of Playboy clubs where members gained entry using a key. He is seen with an entourage of Playboy Bunnies in 1966
Hefner pitted his girlfriends against each other and the plastic surgery was ‘compulsive’ as they tried to keep up with each other, Madison said
The documentary is a critical re-examination of the legacy of the iconic Playboy publisher.
Hefner was just 27 years old when he launched the first edition of Playboy magazine in 1953.
Featuring Marilyn Monroe on the cover, the first issue sold more than 50,000 copies and spawned an empire which spanned decades.
By the 1970s, Playboy was selling seven million copies a month and Hefner opened up dozens of Playboy clubs where members gained entry using a key which literally opened the front door.
Hefner fashioned himself as a champion of freedom of sexuality and freedom of speech in a repressive post-war era.
But the backlash began in the 1970s with the feminist movement which decried his objectification of women.
In recent years, Playboy has struggled to stay relevant – the magazine stopped printing physical copies in 2020 – and many former Playmates have spoken out against the culture in the wake of the MeToo movement.
The documentary is a critical reexamination of the legacy of iconic Playboy publisher, who died in 2017 aged 91
Source: dailymail
