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One of the most popular shows in the mid-2000s was The Girls Next Door on E!
The show, which ran from 2005 to 2010, followed Playboy mogul Hugh Hefner and his girlfriends living in the Playboy Mansion.
Crystal Hefner, 40, appeared on the show’s sixth and final season in 2009 as one of Hugh’s girlfriends alongside twin sisters Karissa and Kristina Shannon.
In 2012, Crystal ended up marrying Hugh, who was 86 years old at the time. The couple remained together until he passed away in 2017 at the age of 91.
On a recent episode of Billy Ray Cyrus’ ex-wife Firerose‘s No One Asked Her podcast, Crystal appeared and opened up about her relationship with Hugh.
“I think I was absolutely brainwashed, but there was nothing out there that validated me,” she shared. “So I just thought I was the crazy one because all of the media put Hef on such a pedestal that I’m like, ‘OK, if they all see him as this larger-than-life amazing human, there must be something wrong with me.”
“I would watch interviews of his from the past, and there was this one where he was arguing with feminists and a woman said, ‘Uh, let’s see you parade out here with a bunny tail on and stuff.’ And then she said, ‘Calling women animals,’ … and he said, ‘Women are animals; what else would they be?’” she continued. “At that time, I was like siding with him and … like, I’m going against myself while he keeps me in this dilapidated, gross home and I can’t see my family.”
She also revealed that, during her time at the Playboy Mansion, 70 employees kept an eye on her.
“I remember when I left, I mean, it took him dying for me to leave, but when I finally left, I didn’t even know how to turn the headlights on in my car because I was always home before dark,” she said. “Movie night was at six, and that’s an early time, and I had to be there … so it was kind of disguised – the coercive control, like, ‘Oh, that’s the time for movie night.’ OK, that’s the time for my curfew and my control.”
Crystal noted that, after Hugh died, she struggled to depart the famous home.
“I was so confused,” she explained. “In the media, he was old for so long, so you just, you see him as kind of immortal. I couldn’t stay in the bedroom we stayed in, but I stayed in one bedroom of the house for like six weeks. I didn’t leave.”
In 2024, Crystal released her memoir, Only Say Good Things: Surviving Playboy and Finding Myself.