Playboy bunnies say Hugh Hefner ‘fake cried’ for sex

Two former Playboy bunnies have dropped a bizarre bombshell, accusing the late Hugh Hefner of “gaslighting” them with “fake tears”.

Two of Hugh Hefner’s former Playmates have accused the Playboy boss of “gaslighting” them by “fake crying” in order to have sex with his harem of women.

Ex-bunnies Holly Madison and Bridget Marquardt now claim that the late men’s magazine magnate would cry crocodile tears in order to manipulate them, the New York Post reports.

“If we were emotional about something or asking for something, he would start fake crying,” said Madison, 42, while reminiscing with Marquardt, 48, about their time at the Playboy Mansion on their podcast Girls Next Level.

“It was such bad acting and so obvious,” Madison added.

Madison co-starred as one of Hef’s three main girlfriends, alongside co-host Marquardt and Kendra Wilkinson, 37, on E!’s Girls Next Door in the early 2000s.

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Madison and Marquardt claimed Hef pretended to cry in order to get his way with the Playboy bunnies. Picture: Robert Mora/Getty Images

The comments about Hefner, who died of sepsis at age 91 in 2017, come just days after Madison and Marquardt used their platform to expose him for making Playmates feel like pieces of “meat” during forced orgies in his “hoarder-like” bed filled with sex toys.

During their most recent episode, Madison accused Hefner of “gaslighting” her and the other girls by weaponising his tears even though he already had “all the power in the relationship”.

“For the longest time I never talked to anybody about it because I thought maybe I was the only one noticing this,” Madison said.

Kendra Wilkinson, Bridget Marquardt and Holly Madison with Hugh Hefner in 2005. Picture: Kevin Winter/Getty

“But I remember, not long after Kendra moved in, she goes, ‘Does Hef fake cry? Because I was talking to him and he started fake crying,’” she continued, saying Wilkinson’s question came as a comfort.

“I was like, ‘Finally, I know I’m not insane,’” Madison said. “It was insane how obvious it was and how bad the acting was, but you can’t say anything because he’s the one who has all the power in the relationship.”

Madison said Hefner’s fake tears came as a shock to her.

“It was insanity and something I never would have expected from a cultural icon,” she declared.

“I just had this idea in my mind of what I thought Hef was going to be [like] based on what he’d accomplished and what I saw from a distance. And he’s a fake crier.”

Hefner’s forced tears lessened him as an icon in Madison’s eyes. Picture: Charley Gallay/AFP/Getty

The friends also talked about how Hefner would make his live-in Playboy bunnies hunt him down for their weekly allowances.

“You had to track this multi-millionaire business mogul, who still, at that time, was very much the editor-in-chief of Playboy Magazine with a very busy day,” Marquardt said.

“You had to track him down and be like, ‘Hi honey, can I collect my allowance?’”

And despite the fact that she and Madison were featured as the leading ladies in Hef’s life, Marquardt claims that being his top sweetheart came with no extra frills.

“There’s no upside, you don’t get more money, you don’t get treated better,” she said. “In fact, it’s worse because you don’t get your own room, you’re constantly on watch and under the microscope. You can’t get away with anything.”

This article originally appeared in the New York Post and was reproduced with permission

Originally published as Playboy bunnies say Hugh Hefner ‘fake cried’ for sex