Crystal Hefner on her marriage to Hugh and being ‘trapped’ in the Playboy Mansion

Ways to Change the World with Krishnan Guru-Murthy

Channel 4 News

Society & Culture, News, Politics

4.6 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 15 February 2024

⏱️ 32 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Crystal Hefner was 21 when she first entered the infamous Playboy Mansion in October 2008. Within months, she ascended its hierarchy to become the top girlfriend of Hugh Hefner, who was 60 years her senior, and went on to marry him in 2012.

But she quickly discovered the house was not the glittering sanctuary she had believed, nor Mr Hefner’s Playboy was the place of freedom, expression and empowerment it professed itself to be. Crystal only left the mansion when Hefner died, aged 91, in 2017.

Having made a promise to the Playboy tycoon to ‘only say good things’ about him, for years Crystal suppressed the truth of what really happened behind closed doors at the Mansion, and the lasting trauma it caused her. Now she's written a book, "Only Say Good Things", about her experiences.

In this episode of Ways to Change the World, she tells Krishnan Guru-Murthy about life at the Playboy Mansion as one of Hugh’s three live-in girlfriends, how he made her ‘feel small and afraid for so long’, and why she’s finally decided to speak out.

Produced by Silvia Maresca.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and this is the
0:02.0	ways to change the world I'm Christian Geremirthy and this is the
0:04.4	podcast in which we talk to extraordinary people about the big ideas and
0:08.2	their lives and the events that have helped shape them.
0:10.6	My guess this week is famous, partly for her surname, Crystal Hefner is the surviving
0:17.8	widow of Hugh Hefner who led the Playboy Empire. She's written a book called Only Say Good Things,
0:25.9	which is one of the things he tried to make her promise as he was nearing the end of his life.
0:32.0	It's subtitles surviving Playboy and finding myself. It's a
0:37.3	gripping read. Welcome to the podcast. Thank you for coming. Thank you.
0:39.9	Thanks for having me. Now on the back of this book you sort of said,
0:44.2	well I'll just read it out in fact.
0:45.6	I used to believe that the women in Hugh Hefner's orbit
0:47.8	were glamorous and all powerful, but then I became one of those women
0:50.9	and I saw other women gazing at me with the same yearning
0:53.7	hungry envious eyes I had. I wanted to say to them this isn't what you think I
0:57.7	wanted to say to them go home I wanted to say run yes Run. Yes.
1:03.0	You've been on a big journey.
1:05.0	Absolutely.
1:06.0	Big journey.
1:08.0	Now, I think people need to read the story because I mean we can't
1:10.8	pray see the story in sort of 30 minutes but there are some sort of
1:13.4	key elements of it I think I'd like to hear from you you know in person and I think
	...

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