Holly Madison says Playboy Mansion was ‘cult-like’ and Playmates were ‘gaslit’

Former Playmate says they were ‘expected to think of Hef as, like, this really good guy’

Holly Madison discusses life at the Playboy Mansion in new docuseries (AFP via Getty Images)

Holly Madison has spoken candidly about her time living at the Playboy Mansion, with the former Playboy Bunny revealing why the sprawling estate and Playmate lifestyle was very “cult-like”.

Madison, 42, who dated Playboy founder Hugh Hefner from 2001 to 2008, shared the revelation in a preview clip ahead of the 24 January release of the upcoming 10-part docuseries, Secrets of Playboy.

In the trailer, the former Playmate reflected on her time living in the mansion, as well as her perception of Hefner.

“The reason I think the mansion was very cult-like looking back on it is because we were all kind of gaslit and expected to think of Hef as, like, this really good guy,” she explained. “And you started to feel like: ‘Oh he’s not what they say in the media, he’s just a nice man.’”

According to Madison, another cult-like aspect of life at the mansion was the ease in which the women could become “isolated from the outside world there”.

“You had a 9 o’clock curfew. You were encouraged to not have friends over. You weren’t really allowed to leave unless it was like a family holiday,” she recalled.

Madison said she was also urged by Hefner to quit her waitressing job, which she did just once a week as a backup if “things don’t work out,” because it made him jealous.

“So instead, we were given $1,000 a week as an allowance,” she explained.

In the preview clip, Hefner’s former girlfriend also discussed the weekly schedule at the mansion, which she said included clubbing followed by sex, which was always the “same time, the same night”.

This is not the first time that Madison has spoken about her time at the Playboy Mansion and her experiences with Hefner, who died in 2017, as she recently revealed while appearing on the Power: Hugh Hefner podcast that her first night with the Playboy mogul was a “traumatic experience”.

According to Madison, who recalled how she’d gone back to the mansion with Hefner and some other women following a night at a club, she hadn’t really known “what went on with them sexually” but thought she was “prepared for that”.

“I didn’t really know what went on with them sexually. I knew there must be something and I was prepared for that. I wasn’t prepared for what would eventually happen,” Madison said. “I thought it would be more the type of thing where I saw what happened, saw what was going on. If I wasn’t comfortable with it I wouldn’t have to do anything and I could make my decision on whether I wanted to come back for date number two or not.”

However, Madison, who said she was “wasted” at the time, said she instead found herself “the first one to go that night”.

“He was literally pushed on top of me,” she recalled. “And after it happened, I was just mortified and embarrassed and it had way more of an emotional impact on me than I thought it would.”

Madison eventually left the mansion in 2008, with the model later reflecting on her experiences in her 2015 book Down the Rabbit Hole: Curious Adventures and Cautionary Tales of a Former Playboy Bunny.

According to A&E, Secrets of Playboy will unveil “the hidden truths behind the fable and philosophy of the Playboy empire through a modern-day lens, with the series delving into “the complex world Hugh Hefner created” and examining “its far-reaching consequences on our culture’s view of power and sexuality”.