Former Playmate Holly Madison reveals Hugh Hefner's 'cult-like' tactics during 'weird' group sex parties
Topics: Sex and Relationships, Playboy, Celebrity, Hugh Hefner
Rhiannon Ingle
Featured Image Credit: Lawrence Lucier/FilmMagic
Topics: Sex and Relationships, Playboy, Celebrity, Hugh Hefner
Former Playboy model and ex-girlfriend of Hugh Hefner, Holly Madison, has opened up about his 'cult-like' tactics.
Hefner died aged 91 back in 2017 and, since then, many former Playboy Bunnies have come forward to share what really went down behind closed doors, with Madison being one of the most vocal.
Now, Madison, 46, lived in the Playboy mansion between 2001 and 2008, and, at one point, she was even crowned Hefner's 'Number One Girl'.
She recently sat down on the Let's Be Honest with Kristin Cavallari podcast to dish a little more about why life in the mansion felt so 'cult-like'.
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In the episode, which aired last week (5 May), Madison explained how things dramatically changed once filming began on The Girls Next Door reality TV series.
She recalled that, when she first entered the Playboy world, it wasn't a competitive environment, per Fox News.
However, ever since filming for the TV show began, she felt a noticeable shift.
"It was definitely coming mostly from Hef, also from the other girls, because before, it was just me, Bridget [Marquardt] and Kendra [Wilkinson]. There was like a rotating cast of six other slots, and nobody got along," she said.
"It was super competitive."
Elsewhere in the podcast, Madison claimed that Hefner actually enjoyed causing drama and 'engineering' tensions between the women as he allegedly 'liked to kind of play two different teams against each other'.
She continued: "So he always felt fought over, and he could always get his way, and we couldn't, like, you know… unionise against him."
"I was like, 'Oh sh*t, he’s been like engineering this the whole time. F*ck that,'" Madison recounted.
She added that Hefner was also very much used to his 'cult-like' following from those surrounding him, declaring that such individuals fawned over him in order to 'stay on the party list'.
In the same podcast, Madison detailed the group sex parties, which saw Playboy models 'kind of like taking turns' with Hefner.
"And then the girls who weren't active with him were kind of like, acting like they were active with the other girls, but not really," Madison explained. "It would be like kind of silhouetted because you'd have like these giant screens of porn going.
"And it was a really weird scene, and nobody liked it. And everybody tried to just get it done as fast as possible."
Madison went on to claim that Hefner's refreshed fame, due to the E! reality TV series, seemingly lowered his need for 'compulsive sex nights'.
"He was like high off the show," she continued. "It gave him, like, new relevance, like the ego boost, so he didn't really feel the need to like, 'Oh, I have to do these compulsive sex nights to make myself feel wanted and relevant,' I think."