‘I was scared’: How Holly Madison ended her relationship with Hugh Hefner
THIS was the moment when Holly Madison realised she had to flee the mansion. It began with a buffet — then Hef became a “monster”.
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“IT WAS kind of scary. I didn’t want to be there.”
After six years at the Playboy Mansion, this was the moment Holly Madison came to the conclusion that it was now or never. For Hugh Hefner’s main squeeze and star of hit reality series The Girls of the Playboy Mansion, it was time to get out.
“I was scared, I felt like I had invested so much of myself at that point after six years that I was nervous to leave,” Madison told news.com.au at a book signing in New York.
“It was kind of scary. I felt like [because] I was finally getting to be the only girl there, I was seeing his true colours. I felt like I couldn’t really make excuses for him anymore. I didn’t want to be there.”
It was 2008, and while Madison’s relationship with The Girls co-stars Bridget Marquardt and Kendra Wilkinson was at one of its strongest points during their three-way relationship with Hefner, Madison says in her tell-all book, Down the Rabbit Hole: Curious Adventures and Cautionary Tales of a Former Playboy Bunny, he was “turning into a monster”.
Madison was a prisoner of her own making. She wasn’t permitted to spend a night away from the Playboy mansion, stuck with a 9pm curfew unless Hefner allowed otherwise. After she was denied a night out in Mexico to attend Playboy Playmate Tiffany Fallon’s wedding, life began to crumble within the mansions walls.
CRACKS APPEAR INSIDE THE MANSION
It was at a Sunday night buffet when the cracks began to appear.
Wilkinson had postponed a shoot for Playboy, which meant reshuffling all of the girls’ schedules to fit hers. While Wilkinson and Madison had been getting along “really well”, Madison expressed annoyance at having to reorganise her week. Hefner didn’t take this too well.
“’Stop being such a f***ing c**t”, Madison recalls Hefner screaming, his “jaw clenched so hard, I thought he might crack his teeth”.
She writes in her book: “In that moment, I didn’t care if I couldn’t find someone to love me outside of the mansion, because it was crystal clear no one on the inside loved me, either.”
THE MOMENT THE RELATIONSHIP CRUMBLES
For the first time in seven years, Hefner had allowed Madison to spend a night away from the mansion and her 9pm curfew.
Madison was in Las Vegas for a Playmate shoot and craved time away from the Playboy life.
“I desperately needed to get out that night ... before deciding if I was going to go back to Hef and settle down or break it off for good,” she wrote.
She texted TV magician Criss Angel, whom she had met prior and asked him over to her hotel suite for dinner. After a trip to nightclub CatHouse, Angel invited himself back to Madison’s room to “tuck me in”.
Angel tried, but failed to get under her sheets.
“I can’t,” Madison recalls responding.
But it was too late. Hefner already knew.
THE END: ‘I WAS FINALLY DONE’
Madison was woken by a “ferociously angry” Hefner the next morning.
He’d had her followed.
“You had a guy in your room last night!”
Sure, there was some flirtation, Madison admitted, but she remained firm.
“Nothing happened”.
“Thank you,” he replied. “For giving me the worst night of my life”.
Reeling from the conversation, it began to sink in. Here was this man, known for his reputation of bedding women, calling her out for spending time with another man.
Talk about double standards, she thought.
“In that moment I knew I couldn’t stay. I wouldn’t stay. I was finally done”.
What happens next? Find out in Holly Madison’s book, Down the Rabbit Hole: Curious Adventures and Cautionary Tales of a Former Playboy Bunny, out now.
Originally published as ‘I was scared’: How Holly Madison ended her relationship with Hugh Hefner