All around me were sexy versions of every Halloween costume you could possibly imagine. Sexy witches. Sexy flight attendants. Sexy cats. Sexy doctors and nurses, each one more naked than the next. One girl wore just a stethoscope.
Everywhere you looked were long bare limbs, shimmering cleavages, surgically perfected breasts. There was a particular type of woman that Hugh Hefner, founder of the world famous Playboy brand, liked to look at… and we were it.
I clutched tightly at my golden ticket for the night: a printout of an email telling me I’d been selected as a guest for the annual Playboy Halloween party at Hugh Hefner’s spectacular LA mansion. All I’d had to do was apply and send a couple of photos. And now here I was — one of the chosen ones. It felt amazing.
Inside the huge Gothic front door women clothed in only body paint held trays of drinks just below their breasts, as if offering both to arriving visitors. Waiting staff whisked through the crowds as dance music permeated the air.
Down by the pool the crush of the party was the densest. A row of pool cabanas was filled with important-looking men and beautiful, sexy, laughing women.
The biggest cabana was roped off from the others. And there, right there, was Hugh Hefner, sitting with two girls — twins. Security guards and more women crowded in behind them.
Crystal Hefner with her then husband Hugh, whom she was married to from 2012 until his death in 2017
The now 37-year-old American model was the third and final wife of the Playboy magazine founder
I stood there, dumbstruck — it was the closest I’d ever been to someone so famous. The girl next to me started waving her arms around to attract his attention. What on earth was she doing? I was about to tell her to knock it off when suddenly he spotted her. He looked at her. And then his gaze fell on me.
I froze. My whole body went cold as he looked me over, from head to toe. He pointed at me and crooked his finger. I could see his mouth forming the words.
You. Come here.
His hand, when he shook mine, was warm, and his smile was charming and automatic. He was saying hello, asking me questions.
‘I’m a student,’ I said, answering his question, What do you do? ‘I’m studying psychology at San Diego State.’
‘Oh, I studied psychology at the University of Illinois,’ he said, and started reminiscing about his college days. I could barely process what he was saying. My mind was screaming: You’re talking to Hugh Hefner!
‘Well,’ Hef said. ‘We have all kinds of fun planned for the rest of the night. We can find you a bedroom if you’d like to stick around.’
I couldn’t have walked away if I’d tried. This man was so famous and so powerful, and I had never been around anything like it, or anyone like him. His power was overwhelming. I couldn’t explain it. I could only follow it.
Back in the mansion the twins set off up the curved, red-carpeted staircase ahead of me. I could feel my already low skirt slipping even lower on my hips as I followed them. Hef was last in the procession — maybe to make sure no one got away. Or maybe he just liked the view.
We all wore micro skirts and skinny string thongs, or nothing at all. I knew we were headed to his bedroom and that it was probably going to be wild, but I wasn’t thinking about the sex.
I was thinking that out of all the women dressed as sexy French maids that evening — and there were hundreds, including me — I was the one that had been chosen.
The master bedroom was huge and opulent, with chandeliers, mirrors, heavy drapery and an elaborately carved mantel. Every surface was covered with evidence of Hef’s celebrity: photographs of him with Jennifer Aniston, Scarlett Johansson, Thora Birch, Brad Pitt. Another showed Arnold Schwarzenegger holding up his arms, a girl hanging on each bicep.
Hef was busying himself about the room, dimming the lights, taking off his robe. He pressed some buttons on a remote and music started playing. Four big television screens, mounted into the walls around the bed, flipped on and began showing porn.
One of the twins handed me and another new girl, Amber, a set of silk pyjamas and I wiggled out of my French maid’s corset and fishnets. The pyjamas were enormous, but I knew I wouldn’t be wearing them for very long.
Hef started unbuttoning his shirt and so did the twins. So I did, too.
He grabbed a bottle of baby oil and oiled himself up. Then he looked at the four of us and opened his hands in a gesture that suggested ‘who’s first? Let’s get a move on.’
There were no condoms in sight, but I wasn’t going to be the one to mention it. The twins kind of pushed Amber toward Hef and I admired her confidence to just jump on top of him. She straddled him and then her long gold hair pooled on his chest. There was no kissing or romance or intimacy.
His hearing was also shot. There was research that suggested taking copious amounts of Viagra caused hearing loss, but Hef would have given up a limb before he gave up his little blue pills
Hugh arrives with a group of his Playboy bunnies at Heathrow airport for the opening of the new Playboy Club in 1966
Hugh poses with a group of girls wearing silk pyjamas at the Playboy Mansion
It all felt odd and robotic — like Hef was just going through the motions of something that had once been fun and sexy.
In articles I’d read about him he’d always said he wanted to be remembered as someone who changed the sexual mores of his time, helped people to be more free, more liberated. This didn’t feel very liberated. It felt more transactional.
He lifted Amber off and looked at me. It was my turn. I didn’t hesitate. Go go go, said my brain. Just do it. It’s not a big deal. This is what Playboy girlfriends do. Everybody knows this is what happens here — it’s normal. It’s fine.
Above the bed was a huge mirror and while I was on top of Hugh Hefner having sex with him for the first time, he didn’t look into my eyes once. He stared to the side and up, watching the view from above in the mirror. There was nothing sexy about it.
This wasn’t about making love. It was about power and control and leverage.
With Madonna singing in the background and Amber pulling out sex toys from a cabinet behind the bed, I gritted my teeth and surrendered to the task at hand. Amber and I pretended to use the sex toys on each other. I moaned harder and louder. Hugh Hefner smiled.
After a while he waved us off him, almost pushing us to the side while he grabbed himself. Instantly he was moaning and flailing and flopping like a fish trying to get back to water.
His face contorted as if he was in pain. For a second I panicked, thinking he was having some kind of 81-year-old man attack. But after one last moan it was over.
He gave us each a little pat on the shoulder. ‘You can stay the night if you want to,’ he said. ‘And you’re welcome to spend the weekend here.’
For the next two days I got a taste of what it was like to be the one per cent. I tanned in the tanning beds. I swam in the pool. I sat in the coveted spot next to Hef at movie night. It felt like living 24/7 at a five-star hotel.
I quickly learnt that if I wanted to be a part of this world, the trip to the bedroom with all the other girls was the price. This was the rent. And I was hoping that if I paid it — if I paid extra, even — I’d be allowed back again.
It took only a few days for him to call. I came home from a modelling gig to a message on my answering machine.
‘Hello, Crystal,’ said the distinctive voice. ‘This is Hugh Hefner calling. I would like to invite you to move into the mansion.’
The magazine founder and his entourage at the Playboy Mansion in the 1970s
A group of bunnies open Playboy t-shirts and other presents at the mansion
There was no thinking about it. I packed as fast as I could, throwing all my clothes into bin bags and stuffing them in my car.
That was the day I joined the exotic zoo of girls and animals at the Playboy Mansion. Except that unlike the peacocks, cockatoos and monkeys, I walked into my cage willingly.
It was that easy. And if there was the sound of a door slamming shut behind me, I didn’t hear it.
Life at the mansion was just as dazzling as it had been during my first weekend. Celebrities turned up regularly. Jack Nicholson, pointing his famous grin at me. Smokey Robinson. James Caan. Paris Hilton. David Hasselhoff.
I felt like I was at the centre of the universe. Everybody wanted to be here, even the most famous people in the world.
The staff took care of everything. I could push a button and order any type of food I wanted. If I asked for a grilled cheese sandwich, they’d make it. If I asked for a filet mignon, they’d make that, too.
I quickly gained a few pounds without realising it. I might not have noticed, but Hef certainly did. One night he gave my body a critical look and raised his eyebrows. ‘Looks like somebody needs to tone up,’ he said lightly, but with a warning note in his voice.
In a panic I hit the gym and dropped those offending extra pounds fast. There were expectations and I needed to meet them.
Through trial and error I learned the rules of the game. Back in the mansion by curfew, usually six o’clock. Be present at all events.
White-blonde hair, no roots showing. Light pink translucent nail polish. Full make-up, but no dark lips. ‘Women who wear red lipstick look like harlots,’ Hef said.
I learned that he would not wear a condom and not to ask about it. If anybody caught something, he had a personal doctor on staff to treat us.
‘What else can I do for him?’ ‘How can I smooth things along for him?’ What will he need next?’ were the thoughts that constantly whirled through my mind.
I completely bought in.
My hard work paid off and Hef swiftly moved me into the primary bedroom with him as his ‘main’ girlfriend. I felt like a girl in a fairy tale who’d been plucked out of obscurity by a prince and whisked off to a castle.
A tiny little hitch in the narrative, however, was that a lot of the time Hef wasn’t much of a prince. He could be charming, but he could be cruel, too.
Crystal has revealed the inside story of life with Hugh at the Playboy Mansion in her autobiography Only Say Good Things: Surviving Playboy And Finding Myself
Crystal Hefner has written a jaw-dropping memoir
‘Why go anywhere when you can live here?’ he would often ask. To him, the outside world could be unpredictable and he would fly into a rage at traffic, at crowds, at having to wait for anything or anybody. In the mansion he had total control.
While Hef didn’t love to go places, he did love to be seen out on the town. So once in a while we left his safe, contained bubble so he could show us off.
It became my job to help find girls to come up to the bedroom at parties at the mansion. It was a big part of the reason we went out at all: for Hef to find fresh girls.
Sometimes Hef would point someone out. Other times, I picked. He liked to have at least five girls and I knew what he liked. It was actually a relief to have other women up in the bedroom with me, to not have to be sexual with him all alone. If these other girls were doing it, then I didn’t have to.
Every week followed the exact same pattern. Mondays were men only, when a group of Hef’s friends joined him for a movie or to peruse the latest Playboy magazine.
Tuesday was for games — dominoes and Uno — and was girls and Hef only. The games would drag on and sometimes Hef would nod off. I knew it was because of all the pain meds he was taking. But Hef’s opiate addiction was a secret from the rest of the world. It was well known in the house, but nobody ever talked about it.
His hearing was also shot. There was research that suggested taking copious amounts of Viagra caused hearing loss, but Hef would have given up a limb before he gave up his little blue pills. The truth was he was an older man trying to keep up with his own lifestyle. But it was one more thing we could never talk about.
Wednesdays were cards nights, again with the men, and Thursdays were for going out on the town. Friday and Saturday were classic movie nights, which Hef adored.
In these old films the women were completely passive, except for when they were flirting or trying to lead a man into temptation. They were silly, weak, or dumb, and everything in their life revolved around getting the man. Sometimes I would watch Hef watching them. He was enraptured by the stereotypical roles on the screen.
This was the life I had chosen, the life I thought I wanted. But the truth was that I was bored out of my mind. I wish I had seen all the ways I was being exactly like those women in the classic movies I judged.
I had come to hate every single rigid day of the week, but I especially hated Friday mornings: allowance day. This was when we had to go and personally ask Hef for our wages in a weekly ritual designed to remind us of our dependence on his generosity. It made me feel like a hooker.
A dream I’d once had that Hef and I would develop a real relationship was long since over. This wasn’t a relationship. It was a job.
And part of the job was the sex, which never changed. I knew by then exactly what he liked — how he wanted me to move, what I should sound like and what I should look like. Sometimes, though, I was shocked that he actually fell for it.
How could he not see that for all of us it was an act? Did he really think we were enjoying it? He seemed less sex-savvy than some of the teenage boys I’d been with years ago. It was clear to me that Hef had never taken a moment in his entire life to figure out how to please someone else.
I knew that one day if I was ever in a real relationship, where sex was about pleasure and intimacy and actual lovemaking, I would regret these nights in the bedroom. I would regret the ways I compromised and betrayed myself.
Playboy bunnies open presents at the mansion on Christmas Day
Hugh poses for a portrait on the stairs of the house in Los Angeles ahead of a party in 1994
On Christmas Eve 2010 Hef handed me a little music box. Inside it was a ring. An engagement ring.
‘I hope it fits,’ was all Hef said.
As far as romantic proposals go, it wasn’t. We hadn’t even talked about marriage, we weren’t in love and I was confused. I looked around the room.
‘But…’ I began.
Hef interrupted me. ‘It should fit,’ he said.
I got the message loud and clear, so I picked up the ring and slipped it on in front of everyone there: the other girlfriends, the staff, a photographer and several cameramen.
The ring fitted. Everyone clapped. Cameras flashed.
Hef never actually asked me to marry him. I never said yes.
I felt too young to get married. And if I were to list what I wanted in a husband, Hef wouldn’t be it — unless my list included power-hungry and lonely, with a deep need to control everything and everyone; a narcissist who only ever thought of himself.
A Press release went out and plans were made for a TV special called Marrying Hef, a reality series featuring me. The publicist started taking me around to flower shops, cake tastings, dress fittings. A camera crew followed, filming everything.
In the middle of it all, Hef asked me to sign some papers. It was a contract for the series and I was to receive a token $2,500 for my role. I’d overheard Hef and the producer talk about what they were getting: $800,000. Money they were making out of me.
In that moment, I snapped. They did not respect me enough to pay me for my work.
I realised that the Playboy machine was going to squeeze everything it could out of me for as long as I stayed here.
They were going to juice me like a lemon. I knew that I had to leave.
One Saturday, in the middle of movie night, I whispered to Hef: ‘I’ll be right back.’
I casually slipped out like I was going to the bathroom, smiling at the guests as I walked by them. Upstairs, I tucked a few things into a bag, then got in my car and drove out to the security booth by the front gate.
I could see the worried looks on the guards’ faces because I was off script. Crystal doesn’t leave after curfew. Crystal doesn’t leave in the middle of movie night. One of the guards reached for his walkie-talkie.
‘I’m just running down to Walgreens,’ I said quickly. ‘I have to pick up some tampons.’
Nothing makes security guards more uncomfortable than the word ‘tampons’. The gate swung open and I drove out.
It was June, just days before the wedding. Everything had already been ordered and paid for: the dress, the flowers, the food. But I didn’t feel guilty. Hef had never asked me to marry him.
I don’t know how long it took him to notice that I hadn’t come back. Maybe it wasn’t until he took his little pill out of its tissue and reached over to squeeze my thigh that he noticed the space next to him was empty.
I don’t know how long he yelled at staff to find me. I imagine he raged and tantrumed and threatened to fire people if they didn’t find me. I don’t know if he still went to the bedroom with four or five women that night, or if his blue pill went to waste.
But one thing I did know. I was out. I was free — for now.
Only Say Good Things by Crystal Hefner, to be published by Ebury on January 25 at £22. © Crystal Hefner 2024. To order a copy for £19.80 (offer valid to 17/2/24; UK P&P free on orders over £25) go tomailshop.co.uk/books or call 020 3176 2937.