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Babes in Bookland
A podcast celebrating women's memoirs, one story at a time!
Babes in Bookland
More Than a Bunny // Part One of Crystal Hefner's "Only Say Good Things"
Crystal Hefner's memoir "Only Say Good Things" takes us behind the glittering façade of the Playboy Mansion into a world of manipulation, trauma, and ultimately, self-discovery. Brett joins me to unpack this raw, unflinching account that exposes the dark reality of Hugh Hefner's empire and the psychological toll it took on the women within it.
Our conversation doesn't shy away from difficult truths. We explore how Crystal's early trauma—losing her father at age 12 and experiencing multiple sexual assaults—created patterns that made her vulnerable to manipulation. "I wanted a mother, but she wanted a new man," Crystal writes about her mother's response to grief, setting the stage for a lifetime of seeking validation from men. Her journey from a self-destructive 22-year-old to Hugh Hefner's girlfriend and eventually his wife reveals how easily vulnerable young women were pulled into this predatory environment.
What makes this discussion particularly compelling is how it compares Crystal's experiences with those of Holly Madison from "Down the Rabbit Hole." The similarities are striking: both women entered believing they had power in the relationship, only to discover they were being systematically broken down and controlled. We examine how Hefner created a competitive environment among his girlfriends, using their insecurities to maintain control while presenting a sanitized version of his life to the public through shows like "The Girls Next Door."
The memoir challenges us to question broader cultural issues around sexual exploitation, consent, and the way society often blames victims rather than confronting predatory behavior. In part one, as Brett and I discuss Crystal's early years up until that fateful night she attended the Halloween party at the mansion when her life changed forever.
Join us for this thought-provoking two-part conversation that goes beyond celebrity gossip to examine the psychological impact of exploitation and the long, complex path to reclaiming one's identity and worth. This is more than just a memoir review—it's a window into how trauma shapes our choices and how even the most broken paths can eventually lead to healing.
Listener discretion advised: this episode includes adult language and discussion about sexual abuse and trauma
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If you have any comments or questions, please connect with me on Instagram or email babesinbooklandpodcast@gmail.com. I’d love to hear your suggestions and feedback! If you leave a kind review, I might read it at top of show!
Link to this episode’s books:
Only Say Good Things by Crystal Hefner
Down the Rabbit Hole by Holly Madison
This episode is produced, recorded, and its content edited by me.
Technical editing by Brianna Picone
Theme song by Devin Kennedy
Special thanks to my dear friend, Brett!
Xx, A
Hi and welcome to another episode of Babes in Bookland. I'm your host, Alex Franca, and today I'm discussing Only Say Good Things, Surviving Playboy and Finding Myself by Crystal Hefner, with my friend Brett. This ended up being a two-parter, so welcome to part one. But before we get to the episode, I have another review from Apple Podcasts. This one's from Scarlett Alexis. Thanks, Scarlett Alexis. This is a not-so-fun-but-interesting memoir. Let's get to it. Hi Brett, Hi Alex, Thank you so much for joining me today. We have a lot to get into, so let's just get straight to it. What did you think of Only Say Good Things by Crystal Hefner?
Speaker 2:I thought it was really entertaining. I devoured it because I'm kind of a pop culture nerd and I thought it moved fast and it had some juicy tea. I really liked it.
Speaker 1:I thought that Crystal was really vulnerable here. She doesn't hold back on her own confessions and secrets and shames, and in her memoir she reflects back on why she thinks she got caught up in the playboy way of life. I personally felt like I could relate to her, that feeling of wanting to be loved, a feeling like she wasn't lovable, and sometimes the things that maybe we do to keep love, even though it isn't really love, not the type of love that we deserve. But, as cliche and cheesy as maybe it is, we have to learn to love ourselves first, and I think that this book ultimately is a love letter from crystal to crystal.
Speaker 1:Like you said, it was a very juicy, entertaining read, full of gossip that I also ate up, but at the end of the day it reminded me that you are strong enough to stop walking the destructive path that you're on, and I think that's kind of the message that she wanted to share with her readers. There's always a chance to turn it all around. You're never too far down the path to where you can't go back and hopefully get back to living the life that you really wish for yourself and want for yourself. Would you agree?
Speaker 2:I do agree.
Speaker 1:Okay, so this book was published in 2024 and this is Crystal's dedication For anyone who has ever felt lost on their journey to self-love and self-acceptance. You are not alone. All right, so with the quick topics, we're also going to chat a little bit very quickly about Holly Madison's Down the Rabbit Hole. But I also was doing some research last night and listening to Holly's book and reading crystals. You know there's all these references to all these past girlfriends, and so I started going down the rabbit hole. Who are these girlfriends? What do they look like?
Speaker 1:I wanted to put some faces to names and I found this quote by Carrie Lee, who lived with Hugh Hefner for five years in the 1980s and in 1999, she tells this to the Washington Post she says you start forgetting who you are and what you believe is right. His past girlfriends have been saying things like this since before Holly and Crystal went down this path, but of course that's just not what people wanted to hear about Hugh Hefner and the Playboy mansion and being a bunny. You know, I think society rewards people like Hugh Hefner and disregards people like Carrie Lee.
Speaker 2:Oh, it certainly has for the majority of our society. I think it's only been a very recent reckoning where we have looked into kind of the dark side of some of this glamour and seen that some of these men that were so idolized and put on a pedestal actually don't deserve to be so celebrated. So I think that this has been a really important second glance that we've given these things.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think we need to keep glancing. I think there's a lot more work to be done. Oh, yes, okay, so let's chat a little bit about Down the Rabbit Hole. I really enjoyed it. I listened to her narrate it and that was the first for me. Usually I have to read the memoirs because I'm taking notes, but we didn't want to do two episodes. We did feel, ultimately, that these women's stories were similar enough, and Crystal's is the most recent. She also ended up marrying Hugh Hefner, and I did feel like Crystal had a little bit more of a self-reflection as to why she felt she ended up in this life. I mean, holly definitely makes references to it, but I appreciated the backstory that Crystal gave us, whereas Holly kind of just jumped straight into life in the mansion. I agree.
Speaker 2:I think it's worth noting the timeline between these two women, and you know the show Girls Next Door that many of us are so familiar with. So Holly Madison lived in the Playboy Mansion from 2001 to 2008 and filmed Girls Next Door during that time. Crystal Hefner moved into the mansion in 2008, without actual overlap with Holly. However, there was interaction. The party at which Crystal meets Hef, the Halloween Playboy Mansion party. Holly was there and saw her.
Speaker 1:That was actually.
Speaker 2:Holly's last party Right, and that's very coincidental and important, I think, how this torch was passed without the girls actually passing it to one another, but on the very same night that Holly had her last Playboy Mansion experience. It was Crystal's first, and so that was in 2008. And then Crystal was there with him, you know, which we'll get into the details and kind of the intermission she took at one point, but she was there until his death in 2017. So while Holly was with him for seven years, crystal was actually there for about nine.
Speaker 1:Right and I think people compare these two women because the story that Holly convinced herself and also sold on Girl Next Door was that she did want to marry Hef. She wanted to be this solo situation, solo partner with him and then Crystal actually kind of ended up in that role. So again, we'll get into it. But let's chat very quickly about Down the Rabbit Hole. So I really loved I thought this was so clever the interspersed quotes from Alice in Wonderland before each chapter. That kind of set you up. I adored that. I love literary references in anything. I thought that was so neat. I thought it was cute.
Speaker 2:And I think they lent themselves really well, you know, especially when she does the. You know we're all mad here and if you weren't crazy you wouldn't be here. And there were a few that were very appropriate for the chapter, and then it held that motif throughout. I thought it was very clever, I do feel.
Speaker 1:Whatever Holly has done since writing this memoir, since leaving the Playboy Mansion which she does mention therapy, which we'll chat about in one sec I feel like she has a really good relationship with humor and with being able to acknowledge I don't know why I did what I did. I have these guesses. Ultimately, we discover in both of these women's stories that Hugh Hefner was extremely good at manipulation and breaking these women down and making them feel worthless and making them feel like he was the only one who would ever love them, and his version of love is Stockholm syndrome. It's disgusting.
Speaker 2:Well, I think what's also interesting is that he did it quite effortlessly and it was very much an institution at the Playboy Mansion and in the Playboy Corporation, and I think he actually was very he wasn't distant from it but he was very detached, actually was very, he wasn't distant from it but he was very detached.
Speaker 2:And I think you know and we'll get into examples of that given throughout both of the ladies books but to an extent I believe that's because it had gone on for so many years and he just ran this same routine.
Speaker 2:You know, and I kind of related it in my own life to I run a company where we have interns every semester or quarter with school and the first couple times I did it, you know it was getting the routine down and becoming very close with these interns and being very invested in their career paths and their time with us. And then, as you do it and you get to you know the 10th semester that this is going on, it becomes just a system that you execute over and over again. And that is what I saw in his behavior and his routines with these girlfriends that he was running this routine over and over again and he had set ways of doing things and they would kind of initiate one another into it. And it became really sickening to me, because it's one thing when it is an internship, you know it's three months long, and it's totally different when you're all under this guise of this is a romantic relationship and even later a marriage. You know, that is just not how it should be.
Speaker 1:Yeah, to me it just feels like it was so by rote. He was just so used to manipulating this woman. He knew exactly what to do, exactly what to say and also he really encouraged it amongst the girlfriends. And Holly mentions a lot more the cattiness and the backstabbing and the ways that these women would try to keep one another down to be in Hugh Hefner's favor and Crystal. To me her story focused a lot more on herself. Obviously, by the time she got to the mansion, you know, holly, when she first got there there were seven girlfriends she was one of seven, ultimately ended up one of three. Crystal was one of three with the twins and then eventually it just became Crystal. But yeah, I think he just fostered and cultivated this environment, like you said, many years before and then he just got to sit back and let it fester.
Speaker 2:But also even in his recruitment of them, it was not only physical traits and looks that he was looking for, but personality traits. Both of the ladies note how there were certain girlfriends or girls who were invited to stay, you know, for a weekend or a week and were quickly weeded out because they were a little bit more outspoken or because they advocated for what they wanted a little more or didn't fit into this specific mold. That was the type of girl he could manipulate and the system that they had cultivated there. If they didn't fit into it and they weren't going to abide by these what used to be unspoken rules, they were weeded out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Holly does write. If he kept us broken and needy, we would stay, which I felt was just exactly it in a nutshell.
Speaker 1:Like I said earlier, holly wants to seek therapy. At one point she realizes that she is depressed and she talks to Hef about it and he says no, because a therapist would tell her to leave the mansion. She ends up going to therapy on her own and she gets put on antidepressants and that helps her kind of keep going. A lot of this was happening at the beginning of Girls Next Door and she was feeling very anxious about being on the show and having cameras film her and her life.
Speaker 1:The thing that really struck me a lot more in Holly's memoir than Crystal's was the cruelty that Holly endured, based on her physical looks, over and over again from Hef. He would call her ugly, he would comment on how she wasn't Playboy's centerfold material. She gives a lot of examples of his brash cruelty, writes that she cried almost every day in her early years at the mansion and then she turned around, like Crystal would do too. But I think Holly provides way more examples of his cruelty, especially to her physical appearance. And she turned around and she'd write but I actually liked Hef and I really thought he was a good man and she does bring up. You know why did I continue to think this way, cognitive dissonance, like I said earlier, stockholm syndrome. And she also feels that she was just used goods and worried that no one would want her after being one of Hef's girlfriends. He ends up calling her the C word one day.
Speaker 1:And I just thought it was so interesting that she couldn't, because as a listener and as a reader, I mean I watched the show. I thought all three women were beautiful and I was like how can you convince yourself that you're hot enough to be Hugh Hefner's girlfriend, that he has these standards of girlfriends and you have been accepted into this world, yet also believe him when he says that you're ugly? I mean, of course it's so manipulative and it's so abusive and when you break somebody down enough, they do believe you. But I just thought that was so interesting she couldn't realize oh, I must be pretty enough for Hugh Hefner to want to keep me as one of his girlfriends and put me on a TV show and show the world that I'm his main girlfriend.
Speaker 2:Well, of course, and I actually don't think any of them ever actually believed they were ugly Perhaps that's just a simple way of saying it I don't believe that for a second. Firstly because they weren't ugly, but also because the way they even sought this world say that someone who has looks or body type that is far from the traditional playboy model is not really going to even strive to be one. So I think they knew that they, you know, were at least the big fish in their small pond. And then I think, once they get into this pool of girlfriends and playmates, that they began comparing themselves against one another. And then they might believe oh, I'm not as pretty as her, or I'm not quite as perfect as Pamela Anderson, or things like that, but I don't think any of them really thought they were ugly.
Speaker 1:And I don't think.
Speaker 2:Hef thought they were ugly either.
Speaker 1:Well, but I do believe that he said it. Okay, I don't agree with you, Brett, that they didn't think they were ugly. Maybe I could agree that at the beginning. You're right. Nobody's going to go to Playboy if they feel like they don't look a certain way. Okay, I agree. I do think that by the time, very quickly, they get involved in this world.
Speaker 1:Hef was so good at pinning the girls against each other. I mean, Holly writes about how every single one of his girlfriends before her had been given a centerfold and when she brought it up time and time again he would make excuses, which I do believe that he eroded their confidence so much that, yes, at a point I do believe that they all felt like they were ugly. I mean, so many of them were augmenting their bodies. He talks about how he even calls Holly plain before she got her nose job and then it was interesting, because I don't know if you picked up on this, but Holly talks about seeing Crystal for the first time and also kind of says that she was a plain looking girl and there are photos of Crystal from that night and she's hot. So I think that he completely psychologically fucked them up so much that not only did they not see they were beautiful, but that women in their same beauty standard were not beautiful because they weren't beautiful. I don't know. I think he did a number on these ladies Number.
Speaker 2:Oh, certainly. I mean, I think he was not supporting them even close to the way that he should emotionally and affectionately. But I don't know, and I think some of the plastic surgery was taking advantage of their ability to do it with the connections to the good surgeons, with a little bit of the supplemental money to do it. I mean, let's be honest, I'm perfectly fine with my looks, but if I was living in the Playboy mansion and was kind of offered a nose job, I'd probably take it. Offered a boob job, I'd take it. Offered liposuction sure there's no shame in that? Yeah, and so some of it, I don't think, is because they were shamed so deeply that they felt unlovable or unmarketable without it. I think some of it was because the opportunity was there, and why not? But that's neither here nor there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I do feel like both Holly and Crystal write about how much they were made to not feel beautiful, so you know that's their experience. But yeah, who knows, with some of these other women.
Speaker 2:And they were, and it should go without saying, but of course these are phenomenally good looking women.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they are. They're beautiful. They were then, they are now Okay. So getting back to Crystal's memoir, because we're about to dive deeper, did you catch the opening line reference? Last night I dreamed about the mansion again. No, so that is a reference to Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier, which is one of my favorite books, and it opens with the line last night I dreamed I went to Manderley again, which is the house that our main character, who actually is nameless in the novel, ends up moving into and is manipulated by a man. So I appreciated that line. And then, before we, really get into it.
Speaker 2:Oh good, catch yeah.
Speaker 1:No, I mean that's said earlier, that Crystal's book specifically, and even Holly's. There's a reason why they wrote these books and wanted to get their part of the story out there, because they were marketed for so long a certain way, and I think that there's a lot of judgment. I think people judge women who are involved in this lifestyle, who want to be Playboy bunnies, who want to be in the magazines, and so I completely understand them wanting to, you know, share their side of the story, and so I completely understand them wanting to, you know, share their side of the story. And I think that, specifically Crystal's is also an attempt to have compassion for her younger self and the quote unquote mistakes that she made along the way. I think I just think back on my younger self and I cringe of the way that I reacted in certain situations. This is why I burned all of my diaries, because I don't need to go back to them.
Speaker 2:Oh, I still have all mine of my diaries because I don't need to go back. Oh, I still have all mine. But when I look back in them there's some stuff, you know. That's what's funny is I come from a small town where I still talk to a lot of the people I grew up with and now you know they're married and have kids and I'm friends with the wives of the guys and know that the husbands of the girls I grew up with.
Speaker 2:So it's especially funny when I looked back at old diaries and it'll say I hope Justin is my first kiss, you know, and I really want to go to the dance with him and I'll send it to his wife and she will just get a huge kick out of it. That's very sweet, you know. So, so for the most part I'm able to laugh at my old journals. But then what's a little more dismaying is to see things like man, that I was concerned with how I weighed and how much I was exercising and how I appeared to boys, you know, at such a young age, and dwelled on that when it didn't matter and it was fine, you know.
Speaker 1:I was fine. We're so conditioned to interlock our value and our self-worth with our physical appearance. As women, though, and the way that we are perceived to, I think, men in particular, or the people that we want to be attracted to us. It's crazy how that conditioning just happens without, I think, people overtly saying things. Just you pick up on it.
Speaker 2:The way that society and culture works Also how we compare ourselves, you know, to those we're around and everything is relative. And I think that also relates to the girls in the Playboy Mansion because, like I said earlier, you know, I think all these girls were a big fish in a small pond at some point. But then they enter this.
Speaker 2:You know brothel Harem as Holly called it Well right, but this extreme level of attractiveness and sex appeal, and suddenly that is the pool they're comparing themselves to and some of these just levels of perfection and then also that being just very much their culture within the house. That's all about that, you know, and I think that could very easily get to them and is going to have a very real effect on how they feel about themselves, each other, their interactions with one another and all of that?
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, let's get into it. Let's dive deeper into Crystal's memoir. So throughout this book, I feel like Crystal learned to define her self-worth through the lens and attention of the other men in her life, starting with her dad, which I know that I did growing up, and I think that's very normal. I think that's how a lot of people give themselves an initial value. How else can you really? It's how your parents treat you, how your parents make you feel valued in the world. So what did your parents maybe more specifically your dad teach you about your self-worth and value growing up? And teach you about your self-worth and value growing up? And to continue that conversation, do you feel like your dating patterns reflected that? If your dad made you feel like a valued woman and have high expectations, did you date good guys? Or, on the flip side, did you kind of date you know guys, looking back where you're like, oh man, that was me. You know, kind of dating a loser or whatever?
Speaker 2:You know, I think there's the very obvious answer where we always, you know, are told oh, you'll date your dad, you'll marry your dad, but it's very expected that, yeah, how your father treats you is how you'll expect to be treated by a man. I think it's a little more complex than that and I think my experience with my parents, and especially my dad, changed a lot over my lifespan. You know I'm in my late 30s now, my lifespan, you know I'm in my late 30s now. But I think my dad was a fairly normal, loving, suburban, working dad. Through my childhood he did travel. He's a management consultant, so he traveled four to five days a week but was a very active father on weekends and, you know, involved with our sports, took us to the lake, took us to the ranch, did all these things. So I think I had the support in my early childhood and early adolescence that we can all hope for.
Speaker 2:I do remember I have a girlfriend I grew up with who is a very dainty, extremely feminine. You know, everything matching from the bow in her hair to the ruffle socks on her feet, that I always felt that. You know that even my dad he would joke and call her Princess Britney, and I do remember that that bothered me and that I had brought it up in a fit a couple of times and was like, well, he doesn't call me Princess Brett, and my parents were kind of like he's just being nice and he's in a way he's almost making fun of her Not in a mean way, but he's being jovial about it because that is what she's projecting Whereas I was more tomboy warrior, princess warrior, xena style. So I do remember that. But as I grew up, you know, my relationship with my dad changed, could maybe even say deteriorated, a bit. My parents are still married, they're still together, I still see them and have an active relationship with them. But I think you know my dad's own history. He has a spotty relationship with his own mother, who was a dynamic and perhaps questionable character, and so I think that affected his feelings and relationships with women in all ways.
Speaker 2:And so I think as I grew up and became, you know, a pretty outspoken, confident kind of fireball you know of a person that we would bash heads and still do and so I was very much not coddled by my father, you know, and told some of these storybook things. You know I was never told. You know how beautiful and how worthy and all this I was and it was a little bit more pragmatic of a relationship and an upbringing, and how did that reflect in my male relationships? I think, just fine. I've ended up with someone who's very respectful and very loving and affectionate and treats me very well. But I have dated guys before, probably in small, small dating not long-term boyfriends for sure, but that weren't super respectful but they never stuck around. You know, the longer relationships I've had with guys have been ones that I had plenty of power in the relationship. I had plenty of respect.
Speaker 1:You know, I've never been a victim of sexual assault or trauma like that in any way, so I think he did well enough yeah, you kick these guys to the curb, the ones that weren't respecting you, or did it kind of run its course because you stopped, you know, putting into the relationship Great?
Speaker 2:question, I'd say every option across the board happened at different times. You know, there was someone I dated, you know, before finding Seve who? So even in my 30s, I look back and I'm like, why did I let this guy, you know, only call me every few days? Or there was a person that I only even engaged with for a couple of weeks but that I kick myself for not, you know, blocking him at the first red flag. So to some extent, yes, but also I think that's a product more of feeling like, oh man, I'm in my 30s and also I'm not finding many men that I'm interested in dating, and kind of feeling like the pool is shrinking and maybe this is only as good as it's going to get. So I think that's a little bit different than you know when you're really young.
Speaker 2:Yeah, making bad dating decisions, but I've never been one of those women who can say I'm either your queen or I would rather be single for the rest of my life. I don't think it has to be quite so extreme. I think, you know, there's a level of respect on both sides that has to be there, but I do know also, at the end of the day, that I don't want to be alone. So I think you know there's a level of respect on both sides that has to be there, but I do know also, at the end of the day, that I don't want to be alone. So you know, if you're not going to treat me as well as you know is my standard, I know I can find someone who will.
Speaker 1:So good for you for not settling, and I'm glad that you finally found the love that you deserve, you know that is important and I think it can be scary potentially to feel like, okay, I'm in my 30s by now. I should X Y Z. At the end of the day, if you're setting yourself up for a relationship for the rest of your life, don't make any allowances. You deserve happiness and love.
Speaker 2:You know we all do the right kind of happiness and love Right and I think that's also you know, and I know we'll get to the point where we say, oh well, crystal found her happy ending. You know. My side note to that is well, as far as we know, you know, her book was written a few years ago.
Speaker 1:I actually really love that. She didn't really give herself a happy ending. She said there really is no ending to this fairy tale because I'm still very much a work in progress, right.
Speaker 2:My note to her would be you know, don't get down if your current relationship doesn't work out. Don't feel like this has all been failure, because you know she's in her late 30s, as am I. It's not over yet, yeah. So a lot of years, a lot of life to live, and I don't think she's married yet you can fact check me on that but so this may not be her last. Don't think she's married yet you can fact check me on that but so this may not be her last relationship, or even her longest relationship that she'll be in. So there's still a lot of time. There's still a lot of life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, definitely, okay. Well, let's get back to Crystal. So her dad was her entire world. She adored him. She writes about how he was an entertainer with big dreams, but they were always just out of reach. He was a musician, always on the cusp of a big break and a bright light to all who knew him. She writes he'd always been the calm and the chaos or the one who kept us steady. Then he is diagnosed with a cancerous brain tumor when Crystal is about 12 or 13, and he dies very quickly after that. So here she is, she has her rock and her world completely falls apart.
Speaker 1:I thought this was heart-wrenching. She's told to tell him that it's okay to go when he's unconscious in the hospital bed, and she didn't want to tell him it was okay because it didn't feel okay, but she ultimately does. Such a huge mature moment for a 12 or 13 year old to be told you have to be the one to tell your dad it's okay to go and to feel like, no, I don't want my dad to go. Like, why would I ever say that? And then still come to realize that this is what he needs to hear and there is no going back from this. I thought that this whole chapter beginning part about her dad was just really. It broke my heart for her to go through something like this at such a young age. And on top of all of that, she starts her period, her first period, on the day that she has to say goodbye to her dad and she writes I didn't want to be a woman.
Speaker 1:Yet being a woman meant pain and blood. It meant watching someone you love die. It meant grief and lies and loss. Everything had changed. But I shoved the pain down because I was a woman now and that's what women do. I didn't know much, but I already knew that. You know, I feel like in life we have these and I kind of talk about this a little bit with my therapist but there are these core beliefs right, that happen in your life. Maybe, like Crystal, you can kind of go back and connect the dots you talked about with your parents. I think people are very influential on establishing these core beliefs about ourselves and about the way that the world works, and Crystal learns very early on that being a woman means enduring pain and not really talking about it. I think is what she's writing here.
Speaker 2:Yes, but so I do agree the death of her father was very sad, but parents are. As a child, your parents are the most important thing to you. They're your protectors, your teachers, your support, etc. But I find it interesting she shares with us the first time she was sexually assaulted. Basically, a friend's father molested her at age nine at a sleepover and one of the things I noted was she didn't tell her parents. In fact, she had the opportunity, she was even questioned about it. When that friend's father was caught and prosecuted for molesting his own daughter, the police and investigators come to her and say we suspect you might have had an experience with him like this, did you?
Speaker 1:And she says no Right, you talked about how, as your relationship with your father grew, it deteriorated. She never got to really get to a level like that with her dad. Maybe she kind of only remembers the good things. I don't feel comfortable ever judging a nine year old for being able to admit sexual molestation, a sexual assault. I hadn't experienced that. I can completely imagine that as a young person, you would just convince yourself that A you don't need to subject yourself to being a part of this because he's been caught. The bad guy has, you know, been found out. He's bad and I can imagine that she just didn't want to think about it, associate with it, move on from it.
Speaker 1:And we can actually turn to Jessica Simpson's memoir for insight on this, because it took her many years to tell her parents about the sexual abuse she was suffering from another child, and she goes into her reasonings why and we chat about that in our Jessica Simpson episode. But I don't think it's this black and white situation that if she trusted her parents so much, she should have felt comfortable doing this. What about if she loved her dad so much? She felt she had to protect him from this? You know again, we are not nine-year-old crystal. So I don't feel really comfortable ever trying to try to psychoanalyze why especially a woman does or doesn't come forward about sexual assault, especially a kid. I feel like I have enough experience with friends who have gone through this that they would never tell their parents. And it was years later, when we were in our 20s, that they told me Like I just don't feel like we can.
Speaker 2:But I think, as a life lesson and for those who, you know, like yourself, are raising daughters and want them to be safe and be able to advocate for themselves, I think it's something that should be taught, that they should come forward and they should find someone you know if not their parents, because sometimes that can just be an awkward and complex boundary to approach.
Speaker 1:But to tell someone, no shame to her for it, it's more looking back and saying, yeah, I wish you did change your path by telling someone I think that's why she writes it, because she does want to empower her readers with this knowledge that like this happens and maybe people don't talk about it, even when he's found out.
Speaker 1:Completely agree, brett, but I do feel like because of people like crystal, all of the survivors, the brave people who came forward about all of the molestations in the catholic church like, yes, we are taught now as adults, as parents, be aware of these things. We're taught to encourage our children to have open discussions with us, but at the end of the day, you do hope and pray. I hope and pray that my children come to me with everything that happens to them, no matter how it makes them feel about themselves, because they trust me enough to help them and not judge them. We don't know if she felt the same way. We just don't know. I did actually write down a couple of things about her sexual assault experiences that we can get to right now, since we're kind of already talking about it, because it was heartbreaking.
Speaker 2:I wrote down, kind of in bullets that I'd made about her story. She was raped in high school by a quote unquote male friend. She was again raped in college by a male roommate that she had.
Speaker 1:And she writes this Every single time it happened. I always wondered what I had done wrong, what message I had given that made men think it was okay to climb on top of me when I was asleep. Not once did I wonder what was wrong with the guys who did it. I feel like she kind of explains herself right there why she didn't come forward, why she even writes about how she was hesitant to even call it rape and that she would just call it bad sex because then she could shake it off and move on.
Speaker 1:That is a heartbreaking way to look at sexual assault. So much that it was your fault. She completely took on the responsibility of these assaulters, these horrible people, and made it her fault so that she could compartmentalize it or figure out how to move on. You know, to the next thing. And yes, you're right. Maybe, obviously this was to her detriment, because obviously she kept accepting, not accepting. I mean, I don't know. This is getting really muddy for me, because no women deserve to be raped and no woman does anything to deserve to be raped or sexually assaulted. How does Crystal you know?
Speaker 2:I just wish she had a healthy, safe environment where, even if and when these things occurred, she had a support system and a safety system for recovering from them, in a way that didn't continue to deteriorate her own sense of self, her own sense of worth and how she would approach you know, continue to approach these things in the future. I agree.
Speaker 1:I wish that for all people who have experienced sexual assault. But when you look at our culture and our society I mean look at who we're electing to office as a woman I understand why women don't come forward about this stuff because it doesn't feel like they will be supported and that their story is valid.
Speaker 1:You know, even with the Me Too movement. I think the Me Too movement is what helped encourage her to write this book. There's only so much because the Me Too movement happens and then people still men are still rewarded, who we have. Women come forward and say he sexually assaulted me, he raped me repeatedly, repeatedly, and we don't care. So until we start really caring and showing these women that they care, I completely understand why people just swallowed in. What else are you supposed to do? You have to keep moving on with your life. I completely agree with you. It's heartbreaking. How do we change it? How do we make the world better for our children and our daughters.
Speaker 2:That's a very tough question and you know, and unfortunately all it takes sometimes is a few bad actors in this space to then ruin it for other true victims. There's a case I won't specifically name, but our listeners will surely know who I'm alluding to, but a case that's very hot in pop culture right now, between two actors, slash producers on a recent movie. That's really just. It's not about assault, it's about harassment. So it raises this question of do you blanketly believe anything that someone in the position of victim says? What constitutes this or that? I don't know, and so that's why I become especially sensitive to those who kind of ruin the safe space for true victims of assault, violence, rape, by maybe taking advantage of situations where maybe they were a victim, maybe they're not, which we'll see, you know, when that case goes to court.
Speaker 1:Do you think it's interesting that people are up in arms when we say a few bad apples ruin the bunch when it comes to police right and they're very quick to be like? One bad policeman does not equal all bad policemen. But when it comes to women claiming to be sexually abused and one or two come out as lying which I agree with you is just despicable and women should be fully ashamed of themselves. But then all of a sudden it's well that woman lied, so maybe every woman is lying. It's like you can't have it both ways.
Speaker 1:And it's just of course, but it's way easier for us to blame the victims because, at the end of the day, if we have to hold the mirror up to ourselves as a society, we have to make real change. These situations is who was the person in power?
Speaker 2:Does simply being a woman make you not in the position of power? Or, you know, is there a situation in which the female is actually the 10,000 pound gorilla in the room and perhaps the male, the accused, is the person in less power? That's why this current case will be very interesting, but I think traditionally, I think that's the exception to the rule. I think, traditionally, the woman in these situations is the one with a lot less power because of the system or the circumstances of the situation they're in.
Speaker 1:It's so stacked against you as a victim, specifically as a sexual assault victim, that you wonder why, like, why it's even worth it. You're not. No change is going to be implemented. That has been the lesson that you have learned repeatedly. We have learned repeatedly as women that change is not implemented. Or one person is the scapegoat. Harvey Weinstein is the scapegoat. Has it changed? Hollywood casting?
Speaker 2:culture, or it's brief. There's this Me Too movement. It's a concentrated moment in time and then we see, you know, yet we still will elect Donald Trump, yet Brett Kavanaugh will still be put into a lifetime appointment as a Supreme Court justice. Yeah, and many more, countless examples. I think that it's still worth the fight, but I think also, as public, it's uncomfortable for us to deal with overall shame for looking at how we're part of the problem. I think it's just so much easier and comfortable for the public to say, oh, she deserved it, oh, she did this, she made herself a victim, and I can't wait for that to hopefully stop one day and for us to realize that perhaps we lean one direction because it's simply more comfortable for us. And how selfish is that?
Speaker 1:It is, you're right, it's comfortable. It's the same reason why we, some people, are hellbent on erasing our history, because how dare we have any fucking accountability in this country? You know, what actually would make us great as a country is holding ourselves accountable, taking responsibility and moving forward in a more positive direction.
Speaker 2:But no, that's not the way too much to hope for evidently.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, I still hope. Can't take that away from me. I will still hope. And, like you, I will still fight. And like you, I will still fight. And I am so appreciative of women like Crystal who come forward with their stories knowing that people might judge them, knowing that people might not believe them, knowing that people might say, well, you should have done something differently. And my friend Becca and I dive even further into this in our upcoming episode on Chanel Miller's Know my Name.
Speaker 2:This brings me to and I think it should be said early on in this discussion is that I was really struck by the mix of reviews on this book. You know I do a lot of reading reviews on Goodreads and such, and I read a few articles that had mixed opinions when this book was first released, and I think it's so interesting for people to say on the surface, well, she was a playboy model and she was essentially a prostitute and entered this marriage for money. She married someone who's 60 years older than her. Boo hoo, she got a lot of money. I think it's really easy to have that be your first impression, but then it's. You know what. So is a sex worker the worst thing you can be, in my opinion, certainly not.
Speaker 1:These women have figured out how to like spin power to their advantage. Good for you, is what I have to say about that Right Does.
Speaker 2:Being a Playboy model or appearing nude in something. Is that really so bad? Because you know what, to be honest, playboy has, since I've ever known, you know, been regarded as one of the higher end, classier, more sought. It's akin to people being in an HBO show, you know. That has nudity.
Speaker 2:We also we don't seem to see a lot of criticism of Bella Hadid and Kendall Jenner, you know, being in designer runway shows where their dresses are 100% see-through and they're walking around nude and these images are on every social media platform. So I think it's really odd, the initial reaction that is just so critical in a negative way. It's projection, I think, of Crystal and Holly, of these girls, yeah, yeah, I think it's really interesting. And then I think also what deserves the second look and we'll get later, of course, more into her arrangement with Hef and her marriage to him, later, of course, more into her arrangement with Hef and her marriage to him.
Speaker 2:But I think someone who targets perhaps an older man purely for his money and presents herself as being deeply in love with him and oh, it's not for the money, it's for the love. I think that's a different situation than what happened here, which, for instance, she was very open. She never said she was in love with hef. She in fact used the word transactional many times. He knew this was a job. Hef. This was not his first go at it. He's actually the one who created this institution of having girlfriends that he paid to be his girlfriend he knew it was transactional as well, maybe he absolutely took every benefit he could from that.
Speaker 2:So I think that people are really conflating these situations and I do respect Crystal and Holly, and I think that they probably weren't paid enough. No, we know they weren't paid enough, which let's get into it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I do want to say, just talking about the instances that you picked up, because I've always struggled with, I've never judged these women. In fact, I've honestly been in awe of women who feel so comfortable and so sexy in their bodies that they show it all and bear it all on magazine covers and in magazines. I don't feel that way about myself and so I'm just like what does that confidence look like? I think where it gets tricky for me is especially learning about the institution, especially learning about Hugh Hefner and the way he would speak about these women behind closed doors. When it is the male gaze and I've talked about this with my friend Kate when we were discussing striptease, which was about the American apparel situation when is it female empowerment versus exploitation?
Speaker 1:And that's just where I don't know the answer to that with Playboy, because when you read about how much these women are and aren't getting paid and like what they're asked to do and how they're treated as props and objects, I don't know, I don't know. Is that just an internal thing? Like as long as you are the one feeling like you decided to pose for this, that's your empowering move, but then you are being exploited because it's all done under a male gaze, like. It's a very complicated situation for me, but I think, at the end of the day, you and I both agree that we respect these women. We don't judge them. And if you do judge them, figure yourself out, because why do you care so much about the way other people live their lives? But I just wanted to talk about that because it is something that I struggle with as a woman. Can you even on Instagram? You know that posing in more sexually explicit ways gets more likes? I don't know. I struggle with it, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it's very nuanced, I think intention matters and I think it's one of the epidemics in our society where it, you know, it's if a woman does it versus if a man does it. Yeah, yeah, it's a real thing.
Speaker 1:Yep, okay, let's get back to Crystal. So her family starts struggling financially. She and her mother have to share a room in a rented house. She's navigating her own grief and her mother falls apart. Then suddenly her mother throws herself into dating again. Crystal writes I wanted a mother, but she wanted a new man. So again we're getting hints that Crystal not feeling supported in her life at all. Her mother's new husband is Lyle and he had Playboy magazines and to her, to Crystal, these women exuded power, what I was just talking about. So her father's passing is such a pivotal point in Crystal's life and this is when her feelings of safety and security ended and she's thrust into survival mode.
Speaker 1:She struggles to keep up with the rich kids at her school, feeling more and more like an outsider. She writes, trying to fit into whatever mold I needed to, whatever the world required of me in order to be accepted, I'd do it. Okay, now we're going to get into a couple of the guys that she dates on her way to Hugh Hefner, greg. She meets Greg in high school and she is extremely happy with him and feels really safe with him. She ends up getting pregnant but has an abortion because they are 17 and not ready to be parents. Her self-esteem is tanking, though. She doesn't like herself and doesn't think there's anything to like about herself. So she ends up breaking up with him. I think it was just one of those things where she didn't love herself enough to be ready for the type of love Greg was presenting, you know. And he ends up joining the military, and then he dies when the Humvee that he was riding in drives over a roadside bomb. And though she and Greg aren't together at this point, in fact she's with Owen, who we will speak about in one second. She writes Greg's death had hollowed me out and there was a freedom in the emptiness. It became easy to believe my worth as a person was entirely based on what I looked like on the outside, because inside I had nothing left to give anyone. I was 21 years old and had already lost the two men I had ever loved. I had already lost myself. I thought I had nothing else to lose. I just want to hug her.
Speaker 1:So back to Owen. This is after Greg. She's just in self-destruction mode, and Owen throws parties for high schoolers and is not in high school. It's so gross. But this makes her cool by association, by dating him, though that is helpful to her. She writes you know she goes into way more detail about why she feels so other, but a lot of it had to do with the class issues. And she writes that Owen took me to porn conventions where Ron Jeremy shoved his hand down my shirt and groped me while Owen laughed and took a picture. Another example of sexual assault. Another example of nobody giving a fuck. Okay, is there anything that you want to add before we get to Hef Any little notes you had?
Speaker 2:No, I mean, I think she has some pretty inherently bad taste in men, but which was surprising, because, yeah, it did sound like Greg was a great guy, you know who knows the accuracy of any of our memories, of course, and also you know he died young and she loved him, so who knows what flaws he had. I do think it would be ironic that she found and fell in love with such a flawless guy and then went for a lot of skis, balls and scumbags, well, and part of me was like, well, where was she growing up? You know, was this a kind of a low? And no, la Jolla. But so, okay, but wait, so, so yeah.
Speaker 2:So I was like, you know, where was she growing up? Was she in, you know, kind of a trashy low income area? Was this the regular? You regular? Were all these guys coming from questionable families? But no, she grew up in La Jolla, which is one of the highest median household income areas in the country, definitely in top 20, if not quite a bit higher. So I found it interesting that she seems to be this sleazeball magnet when she's growing up in La Jolla.
Speaker 1:Well, I think there's a lot of rich kids with a lot of issues number one, number two. There's also a lot of people who live well outside of their means and it just seems like her mother never quite got it together to a point. Also, douchebags exist in all classes and races and places. Just because your family has money does not mean that you're a stand-up guy. Let's be real.
Speaker 2:Sure, it's sad. It's one of many sad experiences she has.
Speaker 1:We can be so self-destructive, can't we?
Speaker 2:There's nothing to be said for taste and decision making, you know, being something we should all be accountable for as well. Yeah, I think she made some bad decisions and I think she has some bad taste, but I think she has acknowledged both things, so I won't harp on them, you know, and I certainly don't shame her for them.
Speaker 1:I think that she is trying to skirt that line between accountability and this idea that we do make bad decisions. Sometimes growing up we don't know why. Here's her attempt to explain why I had these traumatic things happen to me. I had very little self-worth but, yes, I did make these decisions, I did pick these losers to date, I did accept their bad behavior, but why? That's what I would do too If I had lived Crystal's trajectory and, you know, been reflective as it seems she kind of was during her time with Hef, which is why she leaves, and, you know, figuring out why she goes back, which we're about to get to.
Speaker 1:But I think I too would need to explain it to myself at the end of the day and then, you know, obviously in mass too, to all of us who are, you know, probably from her perspective, judging her. So I try to figure out why I do the very low stakes comparison things that I did growing up. I was like why did I date that guy for so long? What was it about? Because now, raising a daughter, it is important to me to figure out why I made certain decisions or allowed certain behaviors and relationships in my life for longer than I probably should have, so that I can just help her not do that, maybe avoid it.
Speaker 1:And so I think that this is her attempt to do that for us too. Hey, if you're 17, picking up her book and you're in a situation that's similar to hers, rethink yourself now. Figure out why now, so that maybe you don't have to get to this very broken place that I got to before you can pick the pieces up and move on. That's why a lot of these women write their memoirs, you know, it's sort of potentially a warning or a way to make other women feel validated in their experiences.
Speaker 2:Right, I think often about a conversation I once got to have with Jeffrey Katzenberg, who's the head of DreamWorks, and I remember him saying you know I had said what's your best advice for me as a young assistant in Hollywood and he said learn from the mistakes of your bosses. Pay attention not just to the great things they do but their mistakes, so you don't have to make them yourself. And of course this relates to all of life, you know. Learn from the mistakes of others. But I think that is one of the valuable takeaways from reading autobiographies and memoirs and that's why I say I always hesitate to buy into some of the trauma porn and just say, oh look, how far they've come, Because I say wait, look for where were good decisions they made and where were bad decisions, and let's learn from both of those but be able to acknowledge when some of them are bad decisions and let's figure out how we can make those bad decisions they made valuable and worthwhile and then not do them ourselves.
Speaker 2:So I think you know taking some of these as a cautionary tale is very important and that reminds me you know, another book that I don't know if you'll choose to read and review on this podcast, but that I find relatable to these is the Jenna Jameson autobiography. I don't know if you know who she is. She was a.
Speaker 1:I know who she is, I didn't know.
Speaker 2:She wrote the biggest porn star in the world. She calls it how to Be a Porn Star, which is a play on the Elizabeth Taylor how to Be a Movie Star book, and the subtitle is A Cautionary Tale yeah, because she's very reflective in it about these were things that happened to me and these were things I did and that I made happen to myself and don't try this at home. And so so I think that it was really. It was both entertaining and it was valuable. As for a young girl to read and to say, okay, I see those signs, I see those decisions when presented with an ambiguous situation that might mimic or reflect some of this, I know, now maybe try door number two or even door number three. So I think there's value in that, in these memoirs, and that's why I don't think it's disrespectful or mean to acknowledge, well, this or that was a bad decision.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think most of the time these women acknowledge it too. I don't think Crystal shies away from making herself not look like the best person you know. And I think it is really interesting because, god, as you were talking, I was like nobody would pick up these books and be like, well, but look at her, at the end of the day, she's fine Because, no, she at the end of the day she's fine Because, no, she hasn't been fine the entire time, you know. And because there is an empowerment right at the end of these memoirs where it's, like you said, I went through all of this and I came out on the other side stronger. But the whole point is they don't want you to have to do that. Get stronger earlier, you know.
Speaker 2:Yes, but also some of that I think we should take with a grain of salt. Some of that is editors and publishers. You know, if you're still in the middle of the snake pit, they're not going to have you write your book and publish it right now. So to a great extent I would hope so. It's the business where they say give me an arc, give me a happy ending, which I think Holly Madison very much. Wraps it up with a bow, she gets married, she has a baby and Crystal is you know, and then she says my happily ever after, whereas Crystal is a bit more self-reflective and honest and says you know to be continued. That was the story thus far. Let's see where it goes, and I really do admire her ability to do that, and that's also what makes me want to continue to Google these women and see where they are now. Where are they?
Speaker 1:now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, okay. So back to Crystal. It's time for her to meet Hef, and this is what she writes about him. He could be charming and gracious and attentive and he could be sharp and cold and uninterested. It depended on who he was with and what they had to offer. Like you mentioned earlier, she comes to the mansion on Halloween and it was really interesting to hear how she even got to the mansion. She had to send in a headshot. She was selected.
Speaker 1:Hef is sitting in the interior of the party. There's, like these velvet ropes everywhere to keep all the you know, regular people away from Hef and the hotties or whatever and she's pointed at. And then, from Holly's perspective, we kind of understand that at this point Holly, bridget and Kendra have flown the coop, they've left the mansion, holly's on her way out, and these two twins have stepped in and they are Hef's girlfriends and, as we'll get to very quickly, they did not want the part of being Hef's girlfriend, the sexual part, very much. So what they would do was they would select other women to bring into the fold so that these other women had to have sex with Hef and the twins could kind of, you know, be on the peripheral of all of these sexual interactions and they were kind of looking to replace Holly. They didn't want to be the head girlfriend, they wanted, you know, the perks without that responsibility. And that's that was from Holly's perspective of kind of why Crystal was selected when she was selected. Would you agree with that assessment?
Speaker 2:Yes, of course, yeah, yes. So so the Halloween party? Yes, one of the things where both Holly's story and Crystal's corroborates one another is this routine for how they would get these this like almost staff of girls. They weren't a staff because they weren't being paid. Their payment was, of course, getting to attend the party. Would we call them a gaggle of girls? Well, I'd say it was a lot more. It was a large group, a large enough group, where they were busing them in.
Speaker 1:Oh, I see. Okay, I thought you were just talking about the sex parties. For a second.
Speaker 2:How many?
Speaker 1:women do you think were invited up to the sex parties? In my head it's seven.
Speaker 2:Do you think it's more than that? No, I don't think it's more than that. I don't think the rooms were big enough to accommodate more than that. So they talk about how girls would kind of send in stuff to apply and then they would select them and there would be so many of them that they had them park, if not rented out, a couple levels of the UCLA parking garage. So also, when we think about, well, how many girls were there? Well, there was enough to need a parking garage and to fill up charter buses and multiple shuttles of girls going in and out.
Speaker 2:And while these girls were not paid to be there, as we'll see throughout this entire story with Hef, they continue to be taught that you know, just their mere presence, their mere ability to attend such things is payment in itself. They should be so lucky to just even be present. But they're treated like staff and they're brought in with the idea that they are there to be the entertainment. They are not actually guests of the party. The path she went down, yes, was to be one of these girls who's there because you're hot, you're playmate adjacent at this party, not being paid to be there but very much being part of the entertainment.
Speaker 1:And I just found it really interesting.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I found it really interesting that Polly's last Playboy party was Crystal's first and they did see each other there. So I feel like that was the end of that era where the Playboy mansion is still really cool and is still kind of even a desired place to go.
Speaker 1:It had been brought back around because of the girls next door, I think, and shown as this. Even Holly talks about how it was almost family friendly, adjacent, because it was so cartoony as opposed to erotic the way that they filmed the show, and I think to me that was a big part of it. I loved the Girls Next Door. I loved Holly and Bridget. Kendra was okay. While on some level I knew it wasn't for me this lifestyle, I thought that they were charming, the three of them, not Hugh, he was gross.
Speaker 2:But so that was part of it. We should note that the show Girls Next Door aired from 2005 to 2010. And the height of its popularity was I think we can all agree when the three girls, holly, bridget and Kendra were on it and they had moved out of the house by 2008. And so their last season didn't air until 2009.
Speaker 1:Okay so, getting back to Crystal and the Halloween party, eventually she's let inside and it's expected it's time to have group sex with Hef and she writes I'd like to so gross.
Speaker 2:I love that she was so honest.
Speaker 1:She was so honest and, believe me, her book is way juicier. And Holly's not About the sex. I felt like a lot of sex was missing from Holly's. I felt like a lot of sex was missing from Holly's and I was like, well, maybe they weren't quite. Yeah, it was me or that I hesitated when I saw the king-sized bed or when the large television screens started playing porn movies. But I didn't.
Speaker 2:Wait, let's focus on that for a second.
Speaker 1:I don't know how much I want to focus on it. Brad is overwhelming my senses thinking about it, I am imagining it being very dusty in there too, because I feel like he's the type of guy who didn't change anything from his heyday, like the 70s, which this is just. You know me. You know, when you walk into an old house and there's a green carpet, yeah, and the wood paneled walls and like the sunken living room and that was all there and I've not been inside the mansion.
Speaker 2:This is only from pictures and from these books. But I think a couple things are notable about this. First, I love that Crystal was so honest with us about this first encounter and how it was group sex with Hap the very night she met him, the very first time she found herself in any type of true interaction with Playboy and the machine that it was group sex with Hap and Holly not only does not talk about, as far as we we never hear that Holly actually had sex with Hap. We know she did, but she doesn't tell us that?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm trying to remember, because I literally just listened to it last night.
Speaker 2:What she does tell us is how the other girlfriends and you know, when Holly first started there, as you mentioned, there were seven girls, it was an actual meets the definition of harem but that the girls thought it was this best-kept secret that they actually had sex with her. They would get so angry when Holly admitted it to the public or to anyone outside the house, because they liked to always say, oh well, of course we don't actually have sex with them, we just pretend to like him and stuff and it's like oh really, Because that's not true, so I like that. She was honest about it.
Speaker 2:Now, at whatever point it becomes clear that this is going to be an orgy or group sex or whatever you want to call it, there has to be those questions firing in your head of well, am I up for that? And so, whether that occurs while they're going up the stairs, whether that occurs when she sees the porn on the four TVs, whether that occurs when she sees half nude and busting out the baby oil, Lubing himself up At whatever point that occurs you know she did decide yeah, I'm going to do it Well she tells us, though, that she'd like to tell us that she hesitated.
Speaker 1:I think she's established by this point, by telling us about her past sexual experiences, that she has gotten really good at disassociating during sex. That's the takeaway that I have here Retrospectively. She's like I wish I could tell you guys that at some point alarm bells started going off in my head, but I was already so fucked up when it came to sex that I just didn't.
Speaker 2:And she already had enough experiences where she did not consent. That she's finally. Hey, it's going to be unpleasant, but at least this time I can yeah, right, exactly.
Speaker 1:So yeah, let's talk about sex with Hugh Hefner. We're going there people, they didn't shy away and let's talk about.
Speaker 2:so this was 2008 and Crystal, give me a second to check my timeline. How old were we? I'm trying to figure out what I'm trying to say and we'll you know I'm sure you'll cut this part but is how old is Crystal at this point? And how old is Heth and how?
Speaker 1:old are the twins? Okay, the twins are 19. I remember that I wrote that down because I was like oh my God was at this point than 18.
Speaker 2:Potentially, twins were born in October 89.
Speaker 1:Okay, so they were 19. Because they were to have turned 20 in 2009. Crystal, I believe, is 22.
Speaker 2:The twins who were there with her are 19. Crystal, I know, and they just turned 19. Their birthday is in October, god. So they just turned 19. Crystal is 22. And we know that Heth is 60 years her senior.
Speaker 1:So he is 82 years old. At this point, let's all take a moment and think about the 82 year olds in our life. Brett, I'm getting emotional. Why am I getting emotional right now for these women?
Speaker 2:I am so. Oh, Alex, you're always emotional on these podcasts. I'd be disappointed if we didn't pull a tear from you.
Speaker 1:I'm going to rename my podcast. And then I cried.
Speaker 2:I know At which point you'll have to like put that in the notes. At which minute and second does Alex shed her first tear or start tearing up? At the very least, I love it. But so let's put this into perspective. My parents are about, I think, 73, 74. Oh my God, Ew, I mean okay wait let's take it away from our parents. But just knowing age and knowing kind of how old they are like obviously I don't want to conflate sexual activity with my parents Probably a good move I don't know like what old person to compare to, though, but let's put it this way Harrison Ford.
Speaker 2:I cannot imagine but he's hot as a celebrity right, and as someone who's been traditionally so good looking. It's again hard.
Speaker 1:Let's just, hugh Hefner was never good looking. Can we fucking say that he was never, ever good looking?
Speaker 2:Never. No, they do comment that he doesn't bang very well.
Speaker 1:Okay, okay, I wrote down notes about that and this was a major blow. Yes, okay, we'll get to that. So we'll get to it.
Speaker 2:But let's go back. We need a second for this, so don't cut this. He's got Johnson and Johnson baby oil, which we'll touch again on the baby oil in a couple minutes, because that is a thing but these 19 year old twins and a 22 year old girl, among others, climb on it, among others. Oh yeah, oh, exactly, so there was at least four girls in the room.
Speaker 2:At least. We don't know if there are. I don't recall if there were more, but there's at least four. He's 82. There's got to be something psychological. I mean it goes without saying.
Speaker 1:But why an 82-year-old is even trying to be sexually active nightly at this point, girl, I don't even want to begin to try to understand clearly. I think holly and crystal both touch on his daddy issues and how he is stunted as a child never knew how to love.
Speaker 2:He is gross, disgusting, yeah and so I know that the sex was pretty much over. I believe she kind of said roughly about a year or two prior to his death. But but that would have meant say they were sexually active until 2015. That would have made him 90. Yeah, still having almost nightly group sex at age 90.
Speaker 1:I know that this group sex stuff happened after parties and I don't know how often. The part it was kind of hard to figure out because there is like this weekly ritual that they all have and like Monday night is guy night, and like Tuesday night they all went to this place and Holly's world was a little different because Hef was younger, so they would go out, whereas Crystal's world was different. They wouldn't go back out. He was kind of back to being in because at that point he had realized he had aged so much he didn't want to be seen as the old guy on the town anymore. He couldn't keep up. It was no longer cool, it was getting skeezy. I mean, it always was skeezy, but marketably wise, I guess. So yeah, but you know Holly talks about in her book, and so does Crystal, about how basically as a group you would get let into this room.
Speaker 1:Crystal later was doing the leading. Holly specifically says that she tried very hard not to bring other women into this situation for a few, you know, because she was trying to out these like backstabbing, manipulative other girlfriends. But that's a different discussion. But he would lay back, pop his pill, lube himself up with baby oil and then yes, that was it. The women would take turns getting on top of him, riding him for about a minute, it seemed. I think holly said that one of them figured out if you counted to 60 in your head, then you could get off. That was enough. And then he would finish himself off.
Speaker 1:And Crystal writes there was no birth control, porn was playing everywhere Mirrors on the ceiling and that she knew she had to put on a porn performance. She had to perform Make him feel. Ooh, this feels so good. You know, blah, blah, blah, while she's writing him. And she writes this wasn't about making love, it was about power and control and leverage. It was a performance. I was auditioning for a part. I thought it was about my power. She thought she was the one in control. I'm putting on a show for him and he'll pick me and I think a lot of these women felt like they were in power at the beginning, potentially like it was their choice, their power. And then it gets really skewed with the manipulation and the way that he was able to break these women down. But really hef was in power the entire time.
Speaker 2:You know sure, and to add to the picture of also what was going on, I don't think it was just a line okay, who gets on first, second, third, because I do remember them talking about having to kind of perform with one another. Yes there was that, so there was a lot of girl on girl stuff.
Speaker 1:I feel like the way that what I'm gathering and I don't know if she explicitly says this, because now I'm kind of putting both women's, some of these stories that are the same situation just from different perspectives I feel like the Shannon twins didn't want to have to ride him, so they would do this really creepy, incestual kissing of each other and touching, while kind of pushing, you know, the newbies onto him. Maybe they did have to ride him too.
Speaker 2:Yes, and I did read I read that in a separate article that one of the criticisms of the twins was that it was very incestuous because they were performing sexual acts with each other. And then there's another article I read where the valet now I don't know if this was the household valet or the driver valet, but the valet would note how he would have to put on gloves and pick up the sex toys and the dildos off the floor. And this was not just on party nights, and there is something that said nightly sex.
Speaker 1:I just Googled that while we were chatting.
Speaker 2:So it's not necessarily group sex every night, right, but I do think it was a nightly ritual.
Speaker 1:We're moving forward here. So Crystal goes back home and later she's called and asked to move in. I mean, obviously, and at first it's really fun for her and she kind of likens it to an adult Willy Wonka land and she writes that she finally feels like she has a real home. I mean, she had a really unstable life with her mom after her dad died, which we didn't get into as much, but she does. In her memoir she writes I walked into my cage willingly, it was that easy, and if there was the sound of the door slamming behind me, I didn't hear it. I couldn't hear it because for the first time in my life, I felt like I was safe. Okay, brett, let's end part one here and you and I are going to keep chatting and that's going to become part two, which will air next week. So goodbye for now. Bye, brett, bye. Thanks for listening to Babes in Bookland. To access the full version of this episode, you can subscribe on Apple Podcasts or support us on Patreon. Visit babesinbooklandcom for more information.
