Grim reason Hugh Hefner didn’t want Playboy models wearing lipstick

Ever since the founder of the Playboy mansion, Hugh Hefner, passed away in 2017 - the revelations of what it was really like to spend time with him have been coming thick and fast.

One of his girlfriends, Holly Madison, has been open since his death about how the Playboy lifestyle led to her contemplating suicide.

In an episode of Ahead of the Curve with Coco Mocoe podcast, Girls Next Door's Madison opened up about some of the ways Hefner would exert control - including banning a lipstick shade.

Ultimately, he hated red lipstick and would stop some members of the Playboy mansion from wearing it.

Madison noted that 'new girls' were often allowed at the start before he had full control over them.

She said: "I think it was a control tactic, but also, when I was brand new, I wore red lipstick out a couple of times, and he didn't say anything about it, because when you were the new girl in the group, you were always treated well.

"Somebody said, like, the higher up you are in a cult the worse you're treated because they want the new people to bond and feel into it."

Madison detailed the moment everything changed.

She said: "It wasn't a big deal until, like, six months into it, when I was living in his bedroom and I was the main girlfriend, that he felt like he had the leeway to yell at me over it."

Things went from bad to worse when Madison explained why she thought the rule existed.

She said: "I think he didn't love it because when he invented the concept of a playmate in the '50s, he wanted the women to look very young and fresh-faced."

She continued: "He felt like the look in the ‘50s at the time was very - he described it as somebody's older sister, explaining what he didn't like.

She added: "He wanted skimpy and fresh-faced and very young looking."

She went on to explain that to Hefner, red lipstick was a choice made by 'older mature women', which put him off as it wasn't 'the barely legal thing anymore'.

Yuck.

Hefner died aged 91 in 2017 and had created an unfathomably large empire, characterised by Playboy magazine, the Playboy mansion and Playboy parties.

He was known for having various 'girlfriends', who started out as Playboy bunnies and went on to live in the mansion.

After his passing, a groundbreaking documentary called Secrets of Playboy aired, and various women who had spent time with 'Hef' detailed cases of coercion, sexual abuse, exploitation and more.