A new A&E docuseries is promising to expose the “dark underbelly” of Hugh Hefner’s Playboy Mansion and all that went on there over the years. Secrets of Playboy, which premieres on January 24, will aim to uncover the strange and sometimes illegal things that went on there, from drug use sexual abuse, and even bestiality. Not only that, but it was Hefner himself who was guilty of many of the most egregious offenses.
- Hefner was described as a “vampire.” The 10-part docuseries interviews everyone from Hefner’s ex-girlfriends Holly Madison and Sondra Theodore to former “Bunny Mother” PJ Masten and other insiders who knew what was going on at the mansion. Needless to say, many of the women didn’t have a very positive view on Hefner and his tactics.
- Theodore revealed many of the messed up things that went on. The now-65-year-old said that while she was living at the mansion, Hefner demanded orgies five nights a week. He also hosted weekly “Pig Nights” in which a dozen “ugly” prostitutes were hired to have sex with his friends. Madison further revealed that Hefner refused to use condoms during sex and that she witnessed and experienced so many terrible things there, she ended up feeling suicidal.
- That wasn’t even the worst of what happened there. The documentary claims that VIP members of Playboy nightclubs were allowed to do whatever they want without consequence. For instance, Soul Train host Don Cornelius allegedly held two Playboy bunnies hostage and raped one of them but was never held responsible. Former porn star Linda Lovelace even alleged that she was treated like a “piece of meat” and forced to perform oral sex on a German Shepherd while Hefner and others watched.
- Theodore admitted she was terrified of Hefner. Theodore, who dated Hefner in the late 1970s and early 1980s, said that his sexual demands were extreme and that he “scared me at the end… you couldn’t satisfy him. He wanted more and more and more.” She went on to say that if she didn’t do exactly as he wanted in the bedroom, he turned nasty. “The group sex was at least five nights a week. They had a protocol. He liked to direct and you didn’t segue away from it because you could tell it irritated him,” Theodore recalled, adding that the sex “broke me like you’d break a horse.”
- He even drugged many of the Bunnies before having sex with them. Hefner’s former executive assistant, Lisa Loving Barrett, claimed that Hefner had a stockpile of Quaaludes that he referred to as “leg spreaders” which he believed were a “necessary evil” because it ensured women would do anything he asked. Hefner himself was reportedly addicted to cocaine and the amphetamine Dexedrine, which he is said to have taken daily to stay alert.
- Hefner destroyed so many lives. As Miki Garcia, a former director of Playboy promotions said in the series: “It was cult-like. The women had been groomed and led to believe they were part of this family. He (Hefner) really did believe he owned these women. We had Playmates that overdosed, that ended their life.”
Secrets of Playboy will premiere on A&E on January 24.
