ONLY SAY GOOD THINGS

One of Hugh Hefner’s widows discloses the joys and pitfalls of life at the Playboy Mansion.

A self-described “good girl” born in Arizona, Hefner (b. 1986 as Crystal Harris) grew up in a family fractured by the early death of her father. In 2008, as a “dazzled, starry-eyed” 21-year-old San Diego State psychology major, she was “chosen” to attend the annual Playboy Halloween party. She soon began dating Hefner, and she moved swiftly from girlfriend, to centerfold, to a member of Hef’s “modern harem,” to becoming his third wife in 2012, and, ultimately, his caretaker. The author reveals intimate details of the regimented structure inside the estate’s “exotic zoo of girls and animals” and some rather unsurprising behind-the-scenes bedroom antics—which, even on their first night together, felt “odd and robotic—like Hef was just going through the motions of something that had once been fun and sexy.” Instead of the lavish fantasy life she’d imagined, things became “transactional,” with “no wiggle room to say no,” including mandatory unpaid appearances on the TV program The Girls Next Door. The author was required to adhere to cruelly critiqued appearance, weight, and fashion standards, as well as a tight curfew (“the pantry staff would start frantically calling my phone at exactly 6:01 p.m.”). She ended up retreating to her tiny vanity to enjoy peaceful minutes to herself away from the all-seeing eyes of Hef and his “bossy” longtime secretary. “Playing the role of someone else’s image of you every day and every night is exhausting,” she writes. When Hef died at age 91 in 2017, the author promptly left the property and began resuming the kind of life she’d left behind many years before. Her frank memoir scratches some of the glitter off Playboy’s notorious legacy of sexual freedom, luxury, and excess.

An illuminating tell-all.