Marriage to Hugh Hefner and life in the Playboy Mansion: ‘I try to think of good memories but I don’t have any’

Crystal Hefner on her late husband’s toxic beauty standards and the ‘strange social experiment’ that was his home

Hugh and Crystal Hefner at the Playboy Mansion in 2014. Photo by Charley Gallay/Getty Images for Playboy

Kirsty Blake Knox

It took Crystal Hefner years to process her time in the Playboy Mansion. She met Hugh Hefner in 2008 when she was 21, and he was 81. She was attending a Halloween party in his mansion and dressed as a sexy French maid. He was sitting in a cabana, with blonde twins beside him, behind a velvet rope. When he saw her, he beckoned to one of his security guards to bring her over. She moved “as if on a conveyor belt”.

That night she and several other women in fancy dress were brought up to his bedroom. There were screens with porn playing and, above his bed mirrors, a giant chandelier covered in women’s underwear.