Former Playboy model Holly Madison shared life-changing experience with late autism diagnosis
Topics: Hugh Hefner, Playboy, Health, Mental Health, Celebrity
Mia Williams
Featured Image Credit: Victor Spinelli/WireImage
Topics: Hugh Hefner, Playboy, Health, Mental Health, Celebrity
Former Playboy model Holly Madison revealed that she has 'only recently learned to make eye contact' after being diagnosed with autism.
The 45-year-old has only just opened up about her autism diagnosis in the last few years, after an appearance on the Talking to Death podcast in 2023.
The former model has been honest about her experiences with the condition throughout her life, and opened up about now being able to explain why she has acted in certain ways throughout her career.
She said: "The doctor told me that I have high executive functioning, which means I can pretty much go about my life and do things ‘normally'."
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The star describe herself as 'quiet', despite having lived in the chaotic Playboy Mansion for nearly a decade when she was just 21.
Madison explained: "I’ve only recently learned to make eye contact, I’m often in my own thoughts, things like that, so people take that as offensive."
She added: "They’re like, ‘Damn, you’re not super interested in me, f**k you.’
"Like, I’m just not on the same social wavelength as other people but don’t take it personally. So I like being able to explain that.”
The former girlfriend of Hugh Hefner also wishes that people were more patient with others who struggled with the spectrum disorder.
She noted: "Everybody operates differently and [when] interacting with anybody, just have a little bit of patience because you don’t know what they’re dealing with or what their level of social function is."
The National Institutes of Health described autism as 'a neurological and developmental disorder that affects how people interact with others, communicate, learn, and behave'.
Madison does not have fond memories of her time in the Playboy Mansion, having previously described is as 'a cult', and 'very Stockholm syndrome'.
She also noted that she had been through a lot of therapy following her experiences, saying it left her with ‘unhealthy thoughts’ and ‘a little bit of a problem when it comes to thinking about sex’.
She started dating Hefner when she was 21 and he was 75. They were together for seven years from 2001 to 2008, though Hefner had multiple girlfriends during this time.
Opening up on A&E’s Secrets of Playboy back in 2022, she added: "I remember there were times probably within the first couple years I lived there when I felt like I was just in this cycle of gross things and I didn’t know what to do.”