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Hugh Hefnerhas been dead for six years, but his wife Crystal Hefner is still unpacking the trauma from her decade at the Playboy Mansion. Her upcoming book, Only Say Good Things: Surviving Playboy and Finding Myself, will be out Jan. 23, 2024, but she’s revealing her thoughts on what Hugh’s legacy really means.
The magazine was originally sold on the premise of empowerment for women when it came to the sexual revolution, but in the years after the #MeToo movement, Crystal looks at the Playboy empire much differently. Hugh died one month before #MeToo became a social media and cultural phenomenon. “You can’t fault his timing,” she told the Daily Mail. “He dipped out right on time. Hef’s lifespan of 91 years, it ended on the cusp of #MeToo. Coincidence? I think not.”
Crystal’s memoir isn’t about bashing her deceased husband, it’s about unpacking emotional control he held over her. After the A&E docuseries, Secrets of Playboy, unearthed interviews with countless Playmates about Hugh’s misogyny and narcissism, she’s here to confirm that, unfortunately, it’s all true. “The other day I found a picture of me with him at the very beginning. It’s just so sad. [I look] like a baby. I look back and I feel sorry for that girl,” she continued. “There was going to be this Wizard Of Oz moment where the fantasy fades, you draw back the curtain and see the reality of it. But he who has the money makes the rules, right?”
She has moved on from her Hollywood life at the mansion and now lives in a tiny home in Hawaii — far away from the Playboy Mansion. Crystal is still haunted by the life she lived in her 20s, but she’s learning to heal herself with future plans to get her doctorate in psychology. “Looking back, I think I had a kind of Stockholm syndrome,” she said. “There was part of me that always thought if this was real love, there wouldn’t be other women in the bedroom. I reconciled myself to it by trying to believe that Hef loved me as best he knew how.”
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