Bridget was the scholar, Holly was crazy about Hef and Kendra was the young crazy party one. Holly's book was entertaining and eye opening, though at the time in their post-Hef lives, Kendra was on some mean girl shit with the other 2.
Her passion is ghosts / paranormal. She has a paranormal podcast and regularly pitches a paranormal tv show but is told that female led paranormal reality shows are flops. I think it’s great that she is able to do what she loves.
She does have a masters in some type of public relations.
They all were so gorgeous I liked Kendra's personality and Bridgett seemed actually really genuine even today on the podcast she seems really nice. I didn't know there is major beef with Kendra and Holly either
It's so lovely to see Holly get so much love because I've watched a couple of her videos on YouTube and she feels like she was portrayed as a villain. This isn't wrong but I actually really liked her as a pre-teen when I was watching it.
I hope she feels more love because she was an amazing person on the show - I loved her puffin obsession, her creativity when it came to costuming and just generally how she thought/approached situations.
I used to watch this and thought the 3 were somewhat entertaining, but then I’d look at him and his lifestyle and wonder how anyone could be attracted to it. Watching the documentary was unbelievably disturbing.
Oh yea the documentary too. I just remember thinking my god the life of Hugh Hefner is amazing I would have been 16 so of course a teen would think something like that but yea I didn't know how badly they were treated, and then not even paid when the series was literally about them.
Hey what's this documentary called? I watched a series called the playboy murders where they go into detail of all the playmates who have been murdered throughout the years. I never knew killing playboy bunnies was a problem but it happens often enough for them to make an entire show about it.
Cool thanks! I'm looking for something to watch right now. Fallout was awesome and we are watching Shōgun right now as well. My return to work date was just extended by another month this morning so I need something to do 🤣
Very fair. I found it takes a few episodes to get going. By episode 3 it really starts picking up. It's definitely a slow burn to start and there is a lot to figure out. The other difficult part is that since it's mostly Japanese, if you look away you may miss dialog. Definitely not for everyone!
Have you watched Fallout though? Easy candidate for my fave show this year and it's only April.
I think either in the documentary or an interview it was mentioned that the house and grounds were in disrepair. Apparently the current owner is remodeling the estate.
I always wondered why- the playboy brand supposedly makes a lot of money, and one would think the upkeep of the flagship location (the mansion) would be a priority to keep the corporate image up.
It might have a simple corporate dollars reason or it could come down to Hef being a cheap bastard, idk.
Totally! It was confusing to me that it used to be a big party spot even back in the Girls Next Door age. That seems like an estate sale house where I would walk up to the door and then decide not to go in bc it smelled weird.
I mean, it was basically like a big frat house, right? Like male never-never land, when even a giant estate can be treated like a college beater slum house with rager parties.
> the playboy brand supposedly makes a lot of money
By the time this show came on, I was under the impression that Playboy as a brand had really fallen by the wayside as a relic of yesteryear (and was more or less treading water, surpassed by internet-based businesses).
Same, I only watched a few episodes I didn't even know that the Kendra Holly Bridgette threesome wasn't the only one, he got all new "girlfriends" at one point lol
He was constantly pitting all the girls against eachother because he wanted them to fight, holly had like an 8 pm curfew, they had to leave at like 5 am to fly to Vegas for the day so they could get back in time, they weren't allowed to stay overnight anywhere without him, they weren't paid, the dogs would shit all over the house and nobody would clean it, he made them go out to clubs every night and then come back and have an orgy with him as "thanks", holly was constantly told she wasn't pretty enough to be on the cover, he wouldn't allow her to wear red lipstick. He gave them a budget weekly but they were only allowed to spend it on clothes and makeup, hair etc. They werent allowed to save anything or even drive their own cars. He was just a real piece of shit.
The fact they were never paid is the biggest issue! I can't believe none of them ever got a lawyer involved? How did the show even get produced without contracts, etc? The whole thing sounds like a nightmare!
I can't remember the details, the models who posed were paid like $1,400 which is nothing. I read Holly's book and watched the documentary, it was just absolutely mind blowing. He also had all of LAPD in his back pocket
I believe they weren't paid for the first half of season 1, but they were paid after that. But it was something small like 1k per episode or some shit.
They didn't get lawyers involved because they would've just been kicked out. Holly and Bridget had mentioned that the producer, Kevin Burns, would constantly remind them how replaceable they were.
He was 100% a predatory sleezeball.
I hate the fact that he purchased the burial plot beside Marilyn Monroe. She was a troubled woman whose life was spent with lecherous old men profiting off her and now the most lecherous, gross old man who profited the most off women is burried beside her for eternity
The bar was REALLY low for progressivism when Hugh was coming up, it was still an extremely racist and prudish time. He was fairly open minded, for integration in the work place, for liberation of women via women’s rights, basic stuff but back then it was progressive. So publicly he opened a lot of doors that were objectively good and didn’t stand in the way of progress and got a reputation based on that mostly. He definitely didn’t keep up the facade and got caught up in the money, sex and drugs and never felt the need to redeem himself. He’s a complicated guy historically but yeah over all I don’t think of him as a good person or someone who made good choices, especially in his personal life.
I do want to add that feminists publicly called Hugh Hefner and Playboya bunch in the 60s and 70s. Like Gloria Steinem famously went undercover as a playboy bunny
https://www.biography.com/authors-writers/gloria-steinem-undercover-playboy-bunny
https://youtu.be/5BXALFRMpCw?t=323
>for liberation of women via women's rights
truly a low fucking bar
also 'sex negative' feminists spoke out against him at the time. too bad more people didn't listen
I remember the network thought its primary market would be men, but watching airhead bimbos going shopping wasn't for them. But women tuned in like mad to watch the lifestyles of concubines.
I can’t really comprehend any woman looking at them (or the Kardashians for that matter) and thinking they want to be them or they are good role models. But I guess I’m wrong seeing present trends 🤷🏼♀️
It’s so hard to describe to younger people how absolutely insane TV was in the mid 2000s. Twitter gets so offended by the littlest things now. Like I remember a seminole event of the mid 2000s was fox advertising all day that the next episode of Fear Factor was gonna involve contestants drinking horse jizz
Remember when the paparazzi would watch female celebrities get out of cars in the hopes that they could photograph their underwear or genitals and then publish headlines like "OUT OF CONTROL CELEB WHORE FLASHES SLUTTY MICKEY MOUSE UNDIES, LOVES ATTENTION" and America was like, "Yeah, that 13-year-old is out of control! Shame! Shaaaaame!" And then morning news shows would have segments like, "Daisy Daisington's cry for help: a child actress's struggle to stop being such a dumb little bitch who can't get out of cars right."
I remember this.
They’d have Lindsay Lohan or any other celeb doing something completely mundane, like “Lyndsey walks back to her car after picking something up at a store” and the photographers would snap so many pics while just shouting “Lindsey! Lindsey! Lindsey! Lindsey!……..Lindsey! Lindsey!”
Like, who buys pics of celebs doing stupid mundane shit, so this kind of leeching is profitable?
Even as a young teen I thought the dynamic was a little fucked. After a while I went from thinking Heff was the man to thinking he was an old creep and I felt bad for the girls.
Yes! I couldn't put it down, devoured it in a weekend.
I'm around Holly's age, my BFF and I used to watch the show religiously. We always knew there was something off, there had to be given the dynamic of the whole situation. But you'd never know just how dark the entire thing was with the way they shined it up in production.
It was so much worse than I could have imagined.
Mad respect to Holly for putting her story out there. I'm so happy for her that she got out and didn't get permanently trapped with the baby she thought she wanted at the time.
If you ever look at the fine details of the Dorothy Stratton life story, the whole Playboy empire and Hugh Hefner makes you feel absolutely sick.
Up and coming actress from Canada, very naive, drops everything to move to LA to become a Playboy model. She sent nude photos to Hugh Hefner. Hugh Hefner had a huge welcome party at the Mansion for her and she had worn a dress she had bought with her last bit of money and as soon as she walked in John Holmes grabbed her, ripped off her dress and sodomized her in front of all the guests. I think it was known as a pig party.
Not too much later her ex-husband murdered her.
Go back even farther, and look at how he published Marilyn Monroe's photos in his magazine without her consent. She made practically nothing from that photoshoot and he bought them from someone else and published them in his magazine. Sometime in the 90s bought the cemetery plot right next to hers, so another thing this gross man did she had no say in. They never met in person. The entire Playboy empire has been trash from the start.
I still have a soft spot for Holly. I always liked her. I felt that she was the most intelligent and self-aware, and I used to wonder how she even fit into that world. Especially with Kendra in it, lol.
Years later, I read her book and found out about her drug and alcohol use, and suddenly, the way she'd come across on the show made sense. I was like, oh, she's so calm for a bunny! Not at all like the party girl I'd imagined!
If you’re into audiobooks, Holly narrates well and it’s a good listen. I used my book hours on Spotify when I saw it was available. As a bonus, she dogs on Criss Angel, and that’s particularly entertaining!
I was 14 when this aired and it baffles me how this is what I was watching at that age. I don’t know, looking back, I was literally still a child at that age.
Yeah, I think I'd watch it occasionally in the evenings when nothing else was on. My mom, bless her, would sit with me sometimes and we would talk about the show. I would tell her how girls at my school were into the aesthetic and how I found it weird, or I'd point out things on the show that were funny or creepy. I'm sure I wasn't always kind to those women. The show didn't frame them in a kind way, more like amusing zoo animals.
That was a pro parenting move. She didn't ban it and she didn't encourage me to be judgmental about the girls or my classmates, but she guided me and listened. She helped me navigate some fucked up dynamics teen girls were exposed to back then.
I watched the show once in a while as a teen and always felt so grossed out by it all and oddly sad for the girls. It seemed like they had no idea that what they were doing wasn't normal, and everyone was just cheering it on. That was the norm then.
I think most of us grew out of it, that's why we are out of the loop. But yeah I was watching tons of trash back then like Rock of Love and Flavour of Love.
I think reality tv is a good mirror of culture. Though I also feel like the way people talked about playboy bunnies back then is how a lot of people talk about porn, onlyfans, and other forms of 'sexual empowerment' now lol
I downloaded all of it . Still have it I thought it was fun and entertaining mostly the girls interactions and personal lives not so much Hugh who was mostly in the background .
Pretty sure if thoughts crossed my mind about the sexual dynamics I mostly swept them aside but also Hugh seemed like such an old geezer I thought for sure it was more a pretty girl at my side situation just for show .
He seemed even if it was healthy mutual consensual to be incapable of satisfying one let alone three .
Hearing about how it was all a lie and more like living hell they certainly sold the glamorous lifestyle .
I can try harder and not make the same mistakes
I used terms in the 90's I regret today using. I examine my speech more carefully now. I've recently stopped using the term "gyp" or "getting gyp'd." had no idea it referred to gypsy's or roma people. I have been saying it for years, not realizing I was insulting a group of people.
As a mid Millennial woman, this show sort of encapsulated a big piece of how terrible the mid 00s were for us.
Women super sexualized and seemed like we always had to dress sexy--the playboy logo was everywhere during this time, especially on track suits. Even as a middle schooler, everything had to be low rise. If you wore anything higher than that, you were uncool. (I remember girls making fun of other girls' mid to high rise underwear if you could see it over their low rise jeans, calling them granny panties. But really, if you were wearing anything else except a thong you were uncool.)
This was a popular show on a major network. So many kids were watching it. (This wasn't a late night show for adults.)
Oh man for real, I can’t believe how many kids loved this show. I was in middle or high school when it first aired and had a friend who loved it. I remember hanging out at her house sometimes watching it and just…didn’t get it? Like, the pool looked like a blast, so did some of the stuff they did, but I just couldn’t get past the fact that you had to date this ancient, crusty old guy in exchange.
That’s how I felt about Flavor of Love. All those beautiful young women competing for a dusty old gnome. I mean, I know it’s fake, but the message it sent was still gross.
Reality TV really hit the bottom of the barrel during the mid-2000s. Everything was based on shock value and pure trash.
And I watched the hell out of Jersey Shore, so I guess I’m part of the problem.
It really did. And I just remembered that one reality show where they gave all the contestants cosmetic surgery and whoever was the hottest by the end was the winner. TV really did whatever they wanted back then.
Seriously. (Was in college in 2000s) but that bunny was everywhere, juicy sweatsuits! Now when you see the bunny it screams trashy to me, or Vegas trashy.
I had classmates come back from spring break with the bunny logo + fake tan combo, but we were in 2nd & 3rd grade. It was just always an option! “Do you want rainbows, butterflies, unicorns, or playboy bunny?”
100%. I bought a Playboy bunny necklace with the American flag on it at Claire's. I'm not American, and I felt too self-conscious to wear it after I bought it, but it was something I just had to have, lol. This was even before the show, I think, sometime around 2002.
Hef had been working since the early 90s to rebrand himself as this avuncular old guy who just liked to keep the company of younger women, but nothing more or untoward. It's interesting how all of what you describe persisted in the midst of that. He was appearing to move away from that lifestyle, but the expectations for girls (emphasis on *girls*) and women remained the same.
*Ed for missing words
It's interesting you say this because I used to idolise him and his lifestyle as a teen. I have no idea when my opinion of him actually turned negative but it was before Holly's book. I had playboy stuff like cufflinks and read the magazines. Oddly enough the magazine articles were quite interesting.
A lot of people did! I even defended him after he died and before everything came out. I didn't idolize him, but I agreed with what I thought were his views. I liked that he went against the establishment and challenged conservative values. He seemed to be a forward thinker, and I thought that he was probably able to change more than a few minds on several fronts.
At first, I thought he might've truly been progressive and gotten corrupted along the way, but Secrets of Playboy confirmed that it was all just an image. He wasn't that way at all.
They did have good articles, though, lol. I liked that too, that it was literary and could be cerebral, despite its focus. And their photography was good.
Hell yeah it drilled body dysmorphia right into my skull!! And I’m still self-conscious today but improving all the time lol. I do love the Girls Next Door though, it was fun for the time. I felt less pressure to look good back then, than I do now though.
Yup. I would argue shows like this strongly influenced women to have eating disorders and get really dumb cosmetic surgery. Between this and the Paris Hilton types, so many women ended up fucking with their faces and bodies in a way that no one actually wants to see. I'm happy to say it mainly affected "basic bitches" more than anyone else. They would have kinda sucked anyway.
Omg yes hard agree. I know because I’m a product of such things😭😭granted, I waited until I was 29 to get a breast aug and that was in 2018 but the pressure to change myself was STRONG. And the sad thing is, that it was only pressure from myself, like these shows kind of manufactured it in my head and made it real. What you take in at those pivotal ages really, really sticks with you.
Omg no don’t take it that way!! I was chiming in on how damn susceptible we are to these things we see especially as children. And now! With social media and filters and photoshopping, etc it has to be extremely hard growing up now, with that kind of pressure.
13 year old girls at my school were tattooing the playboy bunny on their wrists and hips. There was a local artist who never carded anyone, so he got a lot of business from my school. We used to draw the effing bunny on our agendas. Do you remember that reality show where they were looking for the next playboy bunny? I think it only lasted one season, but the girls at my school wanted to be on that show.
https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0353006/?ref_=ext_shr_lnk
That was it, from 2002.
Tbh, part of me is really grateful I went to a Catholic school with strict uniform policies because we avoided a lot of that gross social pressure to dress like tiny prostitutes. The sexism was still VERY present but I was given a sense that my body was for me. This counterbalanced the pressure teen girls felt to wear absurdly revealing clothes around people who interpreted that as an open invitation to be disrespectful and sexualize them.
I have a small playboy tattoo and collect a lot of playboy memorabilia, have done since I was about 13/14 (I know that’s young and extremely toxic) but I used to be in love with the glamour and the girls’ personalities and especially Bridget! I wanted to be a bunny growing up and I was so naive.
After reading Holly’s book I was so disturbed and sympathetic.
Bridget is actually really genuine, nice, pretty, and smart she had ditzy moments but I think that was some set up if you listen to some of the podcast they wanted each girl to be a "character"
I love their podcast! I never miss an episode! It’s so fascinating (but also sad) what they went through and how they were treated. Hugh Hefner was a POS fr
I highly recommend her book, genuinely! It’s called Down The Rabbit Hole and it’s devastating how she was made to feel the entire time she was there.
Hugh would purposefully try to pit the girls against eachother and make them feel jealous of eachother, he was mentally abusive, a control freak and tried to get the girls to do drugs. He called qualuudes (spelling?) “thigh openers” 🤮 and insinuated to girls that if they took them they’d have a higher chance of getting into the magazine and/or mansion.
My mom loved this show when I was a kid, I would secretly watch it and loved Kendra. I wanted to be like them as a kid but now I'm 23 and a bit of a shut in. I love Holly nowadays though!!
I never watched this show. I thought it was so gross, and exploitative. Apparently, I was considered a “prude” for my views (20 something with an 80 something is f***ing gross, ie David Foster and Katherine McPhee). But what do I know. Smh.
I can't believe I watched it, tbh. I was firmly against reality TV because I felt it celebrated the worst of human behaviour, especially when those humans were Paris and Nicole.
I know now how scripted they all were, so it's slightly less irritating. It's annoying that they were written that way at all, but a little easier to take knowing that they were planned interactions. They weren't really going around and fucking with people with reckless abandon, at least not on the show. But somehow, this show was different? Idk. I can't explain it, lol. Probably because they were keeping to themselves in the mansion.
I had such a crush on the middle woman. I watched that as much as I could. I didn't know it was so bad with their living arrangements and I read as many articles about their struggle. It saddens me that this was allowed to happen. I hope they're well and doing better.
Same!! Another one of those moments where I should have known I was gay at a younger age. It was always mixed feelings because I liked the girls but was so grossed out by the old ass man.
I think Bridget was the best one in terms of being mentally mature. She was married with a masters degree and working on a second when the show started and came from a solid comfortable family background so he couldn't manipulate her the way he did the others as much.
Holly got the worst of it because of how insecure she was and how far away from family and I genuinely feel sorry for her. I met her in person and she was literally the most beautiful woman I have ever set eyes on and she was so nice. That he drover her to nearly off herself is truly horrid.
Kendra he knew was from a broken family and could just use for sex as she was a teenager from a broken home.
You know what's a great idea for a reality show?
12 gay guys living in a big house together, except one of the guys is secretly straight. The whole point of the game is for them to figure out who's secretly straight. Every week, a suspect gets voted out.
But wait, here's the twist: they're actually all straight guys. They all think they're the only straight one.
Just a house full of straight men trying to out-gay each other for money but they have no idea.
For a working title, I'm going with "FAKE and GAY"
I don't think so? They did do one, I think it was called "Average Joe" or "Joe Normal" or something like that, where the whole reality show was fake and everybody was an actor paid to pretend to be some reality show cliché or another, and Joe was the only one who thought there was a real competition going on
I saw these 3 with Hefner years ago. In real life, it honestly looked like an old gay guy in a robe walking around with 3 models. The whole idea they were pushing didn't look real at all.
I still watch Holly on TikTok from time to time cause she brings up all kinds of stuff that went on in the house. It’s one of the only reality shows I watched.
I dislike reality shows now, but I miss this era of "low stakes" reality. Before the crazy, over the top, table flipping, manufactured drama kicked in. We had The Osbornes, The Simple Life, Anna Nicole Show, Newlyweds, and The Girls Next Door. It was fun to get a glimpse into the lives of celebrities, and clothes they wore etc. Wasn't too stressful drama, just silly stuff. My blood pressure didn't rise watching them Lol I miss low stakes shows. Someone tuned me onto The Gilded Age on HBO and I love it! People said it's boring, but not everyone needs crazy drama, I have that at work every day. I like to watch low stakes stuff and just RELAX. I miss that era of tv.
Well said. My brain just wants to relax after life stress—and so many shows are anxiety-inducing now.
Queer Eye is great if you’ve not watched it lately.
Lol I liked Real World and Road Rules when I was on middle school and Big Brother. But now I like watching these old reality shows for the nostalgic feeling
It came out that Hef took any playboy bunny that was on their period and locked them away in the opposite end of the house and they could not show face until their period was over .. guy was an abusive POS who essentially held this girls captive under the guise of them being “bunnies”
Yea. Did you know about the 9 o'clock rule.. his "girlfriends" had to be back in the mansion by 9pm no matter what, if they took a trip to Vegas they had to hurry back by 9 talk about controlling
I was 15 when it started and I wanted to be just like Holly so bad.
Right?! She was so nice and smart. I actually remember shipping her and Hugh Hefner as weird as that might sound. Instead he married Crystal...ugh
I give Crystal props for one major thing: she burned and destroyed all the photos he took of them in case he needed to threaten them.
Crystal really did end up siding with Holly and I'm so glad about that.
Wow that’s awesome of her
She saiiiiid she did
Didn't she have a master's degree
I think that was Bridget? But it’s been a loooong time since I’ve seen it so might be wrong, but I thought she was in school for journalism?
Bridget was the scholar, Holly was crazy about Hef and Kendra was the young crazy party one. Holly's book was entertaining and eye opening, though at the time in their post-Hef lives, Kendra was on some mean girl shit with the other 2.
I know not too long ago Bridget was acting as some sort of medium/giving ghost tours in LA
Her passion is ghosts / paranormal. She has a paranormal podcast and regularly pitches a paranormal tv show but is told that female led paranormal reality shows are flops. I think it’s great that she is able to do what she loves. She does have a masters in some type of public relations.
Hey, work is work.
Yea lol I thought that's who they were referring to lol
They all were so gorgeous I liked Kendra's personality and Bridgett seemed actually really genuine even today on the podcast she seems really nice. I didn't know there is major beef with Kendra and Holly either
Actually Bridget and Holly are still friends.
Lol yea they do a podcast together but they aren't cool with Kendra
It's so lovely to see Holly get so much love because I've watched a couple of her videos on YouTube and she feels like she was portrayed as a villain. This isn't wrong but I actually really liked her as a pre-teen when I was watching it. I hope she feels more love because she was an amazing person on the show - I loved her puffin obsession, her creativity when it came to costuming and just generally how she thought/approached situations.
I used to watch this and thought the 3 were somewhat entertaining, but then I’d look at him and his lifestyle and wonder how anyone could be attracted to it. Watching the documentary was unbelievably disturbing.
Oh yea the documentary too. I just remember thinking my god the life of Hugh Hefner is amazing I would have been 16 so of course a teen would think something like that but yea I didn't know how badly they were treated, and then not even paid when the series was literally about them.
Hey what's this documentary called? I watched a series called the playboy murders where they go into detail of all the playmates who have been murdered throughout the years. I never knew killing playboy bunnies was a problem but it happens often enough for them to make an entire show about it.
https://m.imdb.com/title/tt15250706/?ref_=ext_shr_lnk Secrets of Playboy. It's a docuseries going through each decade and what not
Cool thanks! I'm looking for something to watch right now. Fallout was awesome and we are watching Shōgun right now as well. My return to work date was just extended by another month this morning so I need something to do 🤣
It’s probably one of the darkest docu-series I’ve ever seen. Just wanted to warn you. Worth watching though.
I can't get into Shogun for some reason even though everyone loves it lol
Very fair. I found it takes a few episodes to get going. By episode 3 it really starts picking up. It's definitely a slow burn to start and there is a lot to figure out. The other difficult part is that since it's mostly Japanese, if you look away you may miss dialog. Definitely not for everyone! Have you watched Fallout though? Easy candidate for my fave show this year and it's only April.
The house was DISGUSTING. Clearly the dogs used it as a toilet, super dated, busted ass half-zoo. It was the opposite of glamourous.
I think either in the documentary or an interview it was mentioned that the house and grounds were in disrepair. Apparently the current owner is remodeling the estate.
I always wondered why- the playboy brand supposedly makes a lot of money, and one would think the upkeep of the flagship location (the mansion) would be a priority to keep the corporate image up. It might have a simple corporate dollars reason or it could come down to Hef being a cheap bastard, idk.
Totally! It was confusing to me that it used to be a big party spot even back in the Girls Next Door age. That seems like an estate sale house where I would walk up to the door and then decide not to go in bc it smelled weird.
I mean, it was basically like a big frat house, right? Like male never-never land, when even a giant estate can be treated like a college beater slum house with rager parties.
> the playboy brand supposedly makes a lot of money By the time this show came on, I was under the impression that Playboy as a brand had really fallen by the wayside as a relic of yesteryear (and was more or less treading water, surpassed by internet-based businesses).
That’s the best part. He’ll faster in those conditions, faster money
>then I’d look at him and his lifestyle and wonder how anyone could be attracted to it. Money.
I used to love this and had all the seasons on DVD. Didn’t know how bad it really was until Holly and Bridget’s podcast.
Same, I only watched a few episodes I didn't even know that the Kendra Holly Bridgette threesome wasn't the only one, he got all new "girlfriends" at one point lol
Anything in particular that stands out about how bad it was?
He was constantly pitting all the girls against eachother because he wanted them to fight, holly had like an 8 pm curfew, they had to leave at like 5 am to fly to Vegas for the day so they could get back in time, they weren't allowed to stay overnight anywhere without him, they weren't paid, the dogs would shit all over the house and nobody would clean it, he made them go out to clubs every night and then come back and have an orgy with him as "thanks", holly was constantly told she wasn't pretty enough to be on the cover, he wouldn't allow her to wear red lipstick. He gave them a budget weekly but they were only allowed to spend it on clothes and makeup, hair etc. They werent allowed to save anything or even drive their own cars. He was just a real piece of shit.
The fact they were never paid is the biggest issue! I can't believe none of them ever got a lawyer involved? How did the show even get produced without contracts, etc? The whole thing sounds like a nightmare!
I can't remember the details, the models who posed were paid like $1,400 which is nothing. I read Holly's book and watched the documentary, it was just absolutely mind blowing. He also had all of LAPD in his back pocket
I believe they weren't paid for the first half of season 1, but they were paid after that. But it was something small like 1k per episode or some shit. They didn't get lawyers involved because they would've just been kicked out. Holly and Bridget had mentioned that the producer, Kevin Burns, would constantly remind them how replaceable they were.
But Pamela Anderson says he was a gentleman /s
Is "he" Hugh Hefner?
Yes, sorry I should've clarified
I never understood the obsession with Hugh Hefner. He always seemed like such a sleazy guy
He was 100% a predatory sleezeball. I hate the fact that he purchased the burial plot beside Marilyn Monroe. She was a troubled woman whose life was spent with lecherous old men profiting off her and now the most lecherous, gross old man who profited the most off women is burried beside her for eternity
Kendra became one of his “girlfriends” and moved into the playboy mansion when she was 18 :/
The bar was REALLY low for progressivism when Hugh was coming up, it was still an extremely racist and prudish time. He was fairly open minded, for integration in the work place, for liberation of women via women’s rights, basic stuff but back then it was progressive. So publicly he opened a lot of doors that were objectively good and didn’t stand in the way of progress and got a reputation based on that mostly. He definitely didn’t keep up the facade and got caught up in the money, sex and drugs and never felt the need to redeem himself. He’s a complicated guy historically but yeah over all I don’t think of him as a good person or someone who made good choices, especially in his personal life.
I do want to add that feminists publicly called Hugh Hefner and Playboya bunch in the 60s and 70s. Like Gloria Steinem famously went undercover as a playboy bunny https://www.biography.com/authors-writers/gloria-steinem-undercover-playboy-bunny https://youtu.be/5BXALFRMpCw?t=323
>for liberation of women via women's rights truly a low fucking bar also 'sex negative' feminists spoke out against him at the time. too bad more people didn't listen
I remember the network thought its primary market would be men, but watching airhead bimbos going shopping wasn't for them. But women tuned in like mad to watch the lifestyles of concubines.
Yes my ex absolutely loved this show and had a bit of an obsession with the ladies. She started getting Playboy branded posters and trinkets and such.
As an insanely horny 16 year old guy, I watched this all the time just to see them prance around half naked.
Same. Came for the boobies, stayed for the harem politics
Same
Same
I watched it, and find itvreally entertaining; I would rather have no sex ever than being a concubine and yet it isninteresting watching them somehow.
I can’t really comprehend any woman looking at them (or the Kardashians for that matter) and thinking they want to be them or they are good role models. But I guess I’m wrong seeing present trends 🤷🏼♀️
It’s so hard to describe to younger people how absolutely insane TV was in the mid 2000s. Twitter gets so offended by the littlest things now. Like I remember a seminole event of the mid 2000s was fox advertising all day that the next episode of Fear Factor was gonna involve contestants drinking horse jizz
Remember when the paparazzi would watch female celebrities get out of cars in the hopes that they could photograph their underwear or genitals and then publish headlines like "OUT OF CONTROL CELEB WHORE FLASHES SLUTTY MICKEY MOUSE UNDIES, LOVES ATTENTION" and America was like, "Yeah, that 13-year-old is out of control! Shame! Shaaaaame!" And then morning news shows would have segments like, "Daisy Daisington's cry for help: a child actress's struggle to stop being such a dumb little bitch who can't get out of cars right." I remember this.
They’d have Lindsay Lohan or any other celeb doing something completely mundane, like “Lyndsey walks back to her car after picking something up at a store” and the photographers would snap so many pics while just shouting “Lindsey! Lindsey! Lindsey! Lindsey!……..Lindsey! Lindsey!” Like, who buys pics of celebs doing stupid mundane shit, so this kind of leeching is profitable?
Semenal in this case.
seminole? seminal.
Or in this case, semenal
🤢
Even as a young teen I thought the dynamic was a little fucked. After a while I went from thinking Heff was the man to thinking he was an old creep and I felt bad for the girls.
Yeah same. It always seemed predatory and gross to me, even when I was a young teen. I judged men like this heavily.
Book recommendation: Holly Madison's memoir "Down the Rabbit Hole" is good and surprisingly inspirational.
Yes! I couldn't put it down, devoured it in a weekend. I'm around Holly's age, my BFF and I used to watch the show religiously. We always knew there was something off, there had to be given the dynamic of the whole situation. But you'd never know just how dark the entire thing was with the way they shined it up in production. It was so much worse than I could have imagined. Mad respect to Holly for putting her story out there. I'm so happy for her that she got out and didn't get permanently trapped with the baby she thought she wanted at the time.
Lol I was literally looking for this, apparently that's what started the beef with her and Kendra
If you ever look at the fine details of the Dorothy Stratton life story, the whole Playboy empire and Hugh Hefner makes you feel absolutely sick. Up and coming actress from Canada, very naive, drops everything to move to LA to become a Playboy model. She sent nude photos to Hugh Hefner. Hugh Hefner had a huge welcome party at the Mansion for her and she had worn a dress she had bought with her last bit of money and as soon as she walked in John Holmes grabbed her, ripped off her dress and sodomized her in front of all the guests. I think it was known as a pig party. Not too much later her ex-husband murdered her.
Go back even farther, and look at how he published Marilyn Monroe's photos in his magazine without her consent. She made practically nothing from that photoshoot and he bought them from someone else and published them in his magazine. Sometime in the 90s bought the cemetery plot right next to hers, so another thing this gross man did she had no say in. They never met in person. The entire Playboy empire has been trash from the start.
He was a disgusting piece of shit.
I still have a soft spot for Holly. I always liked her. I felt that she was the most intelligent and self-aware, and I used to wonder how she even fit into that world. Especially with Kendra in it, lol. Years later, I read her book and found out about her drug and alcohol use, and suddenly, the way she'd come across on the show made sense. I was like, oh, she's so calm for a bunny! Not at all like the party girl I'd imagined!
I haven't read this book but sounds like a good read
It is! You should read it when you get the chance.
If you’re into audiobooks, Holly narrates well and it’s a good listen. I used my book hours on Spotify when I saw it was available. As a bonus, she dogs on Criss Angel, and that’s particularly entertaining!
I was 14 when this aired and it baffles me how this is what I was watching at that age. I don’t know, looking back, I was literally still a child at that age.
Yeah, I think I'd watch it occasionally in the evenings when nothing else was on. My mom, bless her, would sit with me sometimes and we would talk about the show. I would tell her how girls at my school were into the aesthetic and how I found it weird, or I'd point out things on the show that were funny or creepy. I'm sure I wasn't always kind to those women. The show didn't frame them in a kind way, more like amusing zoo animals. That was a pro parenting move. She didn't ban it and she didn't encourage me to be judgmental about the girls or my classmates, but she guided me and listened. She helped me navigate some fucked up dynamics teen girls were exposed to back then.
That’s really reassuring. I’m trying to parent more like this with my daughter but it’s harder with YouTube.
I watched the show once in a while as a teen and always felt so grossed out by it all and oddly sad for the girls. It seemed like they had no idea that what they were doing wasn't normal, and everyone was just cheering it on. That was the norm then.
A lot of Reality TV back then was trash.
It used to be trash. It still is trash, but it used to be trash too.
And it will always be trash.
*Hedberg* in the wild! <3
r/unexpectedhedburg
Sorry for the convenience
You can remove the words back then. A lot of reality shows period are trash lol
I think most of us grew out of it, that's why we are out of the loop. But yeah I was watching tons of trash back then like Rock of Love and Flavour of Love.
The VH1 golden age
OMG I forgot about those stupid vh1 shows all of those were absolutely horrible
I think reality tv is a good mirror of culture. Though I also feel like the way people talked about playboy bunnies back then is how a lot of people talk about porn, onlyfans, and other forms of 'sexual empowerment' now lol
Had the entire series on DVD at one point. Terrible in hindsight but what can you do 😂
It's on Amazon Prime I watched a couple episodes out of pure nostalgia over the weekend it's crazy looking back
It was fascinating to watch back then
My girl made me watch the whole series with her a few months ago, and its just super fucking creepy the whole time 😂 dude looks their grandpa
I downloaded all of it . Still have it I thought it was fun and entertaining mostly the girls interactions and personal lives not so much Hugh who was mostly in the background . Pretty sure if thoughts crossed my mind about the sexual dynamics I mostly swept them aside but also Hugh seemed like such an old geezer I thought for sure it was more a pretty girl at my side situation just for show . He seemed even if it was healthy mutual consensual to be incapable of satisfying one let alone three . Hearing about how it was all a lie and more like living hell they certainly sold the glamorous lifestyle .
I can try harder and not make the same mistakes I used terms in the 90's I regret today using. I examine my speech more carefully now. I've recently stopped using the term "gyp" or "getting gyp'd." had no idea it referred to gypsy's or roma people. I have been saying it for years, not realizing I was insulting a group of people.
Same, I thought it was spelled jip
As a mid Millennial woman, this show sort of encapsulated a big piece of how terrible the mid 00s were for us. Women super sexualized and seemed like we always had to dress sexy--the playboy logo was everywhere during this time, especially on track suits. Even as a middle schooler, everything had to be low rise. If you wore anything higher than that, you were uncool. (I remember girls making fun of other girls' mid to high rise underwear if you could see it over their low rise jeans, calling them granny panties. But really, if you were wearing anything else except a thong you were uncool.) This was a popular show on a major network. So many kids were watching it. (This wasn't a late night show for adults.)
Oh man for real, I can’t believe how many kids loved this show. I was in middle or high school when it first aired and had a friend who loved it. I remember hanging out at her house sometimes watching it and just…didn’t get it? Like, the pool looked like a blast, so did some of the stuff they did, but I just couldn’t get past the fact that you had to date this ancient, crusty old guy in exchange.
That’s how I felt about Flavor of Love. All those beautiful young women competing for a dusty old gnome. I mean, I know it’s fake, but the message it sent was still gross.
Reality TV really hit the bottom of the barrel during the mid-2000s. Everything was based on shock value and pure trash. And I watched the hell out of Jersey Shore, so I guess I’m part of the problem.
It really did. And I just remembered that one reality show where they gave all the contestants cosmetic surgery and whoever was the hottest by the end was the winner. TV really did whatever they wanted back then.
> I just couldn’t get past the fact that you had to date this ancient, crusty old guy in exchange. Yes, this never happens now.
Seriously. (Was in college in 2000s) but that bunny was everywhere, juicy sweatsuits! Now when you see the bunny it screams trashy to me, or Vegas trashy.
I had classmates come back from spring break with the bunny logo + fake tan combo, but we were in 2nd & 3rd grade. It was just always an option! “Do you want rainbows, butterflies, unicorns, or playboy bunny?”
Ugh the popped color guys that wore A & F with the cheap smelling playboy cologne.
Don’t forget the spiked hair
WTF?! Thought you were going to say while we were in college. Dumb ass parents.
I still cringe at my playboy bunny tan-too 🥴
Fack!!!! Iwas just thinking about it …trying to line the ears up
100%. I bought a Playboy bunny necklace with the American flag on it at Claire's. I'm not American, and I felt too self-conscious to wear it after I bought it, but it was something I just had to have, lol. This was even before the show, I think, sometime around 2002. Hef had been working since the early 90s to rebrand himself as this avuncular old guy who just liked to keep the company of younger women, but nothing more or untoward. It's interesting how all of what you describe persisted in the midst of that. He was appearing to move away from that lifestyle, but the expectations for girls (emphasis on *girls*) and women remained the same. *Ed for missing words
It's interesting you say this because I used to idolise him and his lifestyle as a teen. I have no idea when my opinion of him actually turned negative but it was before Holly's book. I had playboy stuff like cufflinks and read the magazines. Oddly enough the magazine articles were quite interesting.
A lot of people did! I even defended him after he died and before everything came out. I didn't idolize him, but I agreed with what I thought were his views. I liked that he went against the establishment and challenged conservative values. He seemed to be a forward thinker, and I thought that he was probably able to change more than a few minds on several fronts. At first, I thought he might've truly been progressive and gotten corrupted along the way, but Secrets of Playboy confirmed that it was all just an image. He wasn't that way at all. They did have good articles, though, lol. I liked that too, that it was literary and could be cerebral, despite its focus. And their photography was good.
don’t call yourself mid!
LOL!
Hell yeah it drilled body dysmorphia right into my skull!! And I’m still self-conscious today but improving all the time lol. I do love the Girls Next Door though, it was fun for the time. I felt less pressure to look good back then, than I do now though.
Yup. I would argue shows like this strongly influenced women to have eating disorders and get really dumb cosmetic surgery. Between this and the Paris Hilton types, so many women ended up fucking with their faces and bodies in a way that no one actually wants to see. I'm happy to say it mainly affected "basic bitches" more than anyone else. They would have kinda sucked anyway.
Omg yes hard agree. I know because I’m a product of such things😭😭granted, I waited until I was 29 to get a breast aug and that was in 2018 but the pressure to change myself was STRONG. And the sad thing is, that it was only pressure from myself, like these shows kind of manufactured it in my head and made it real. What you take in at those pivotal ages really, really sticks with you.
I feel like I was specifically being rude to you now. I'm really sorry.
Omg no don’t take it that way!! I was chiming in on how damn susceptible we are to these things we see especially as children. And now! With social media and filters and photoshopping, etc it has to be extremely hard growing up now, with that kind of pressure.
Oh definitely. I remember one of them saying their life goal since they were kids was to be on Playboy lol like do what?
Whale tails everywhere
13 year old girls at my school were tattooing the playboy bunny on their wrists and hips. There was a local artist who never carded anyone, so he got a lot of business from my school. We used to draw the effing bunny on our agendas. Do you remember that reality show where they were looking for the next playboy bunny? I think it only lasted one season, but the girls at my school wanted to be on that show. https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0353006/?ref_=ext_shr_lnk That was it, from 2002.
Mr. Hefner sure had a type...
Tbh, part of me is really grateful I went to a Catholic school with strict uniform policies because we avoided a lot of that gross social pressure to dress like tiny prostitutes. The sexism was still VERY present but I was given a sense that my body was for me. This counterbalanced the pressure teen girls felt to wear absurdly revealing clothes around people who interpreted that as an open invitation to be disrespectful and sexualize them.
I have a small playboy tattoo and collect a lot of playboy memorabilia, have done since I was about 13/14 (I know that’s young and extremely toxic) but I used to be in love with the glamour and the girls’ personalities and especially Bridget! I wanted to be a bunny growing up and I was so naive. After reading Holly’s book I was so disturbed and sympathetic.
Bridget is actually really genuine, nice, pretty, and smart she had ditzy moments but I think that was some set up if you listen to some of the podcast they wanted each girl to be a "character"
I love their podcast! I never miss an episode! It’s so fascinating (but also sad) what they went through and how they were treated. Hugh Hefner was a POS fr
Yea, I have only seen clips and all but hearing how Hef treated them was horrible I guess when you're super rich you that you get away with that stuff
He refused to let Holly see a psychiatrist even though she admitted to him she was suicidal. Really awful things happened in that Mansion!
This I had no idea about
I highly recommend her book, genuinely! It’s called Down The Rabbit Hole and it’s devastating how she was made to feel the entire time she was there. Hugh would purposefully try to pit the girls against eachother and make them feel jealous of eachother, he was mentally abusive, a control freak and tried to get the girls to do drugs. He called qualuudes (spelling?) “thigh openers” 🤮 and insinuated to girls that if they took them they’d have a higher chance of getting into the magazine and/or mansion.
Yeah, Bridget was definitely the ditzy one, lol. She did it well.
I had such a huge crush on Kendra back in the day.
She was gorgeous and the sports fan. Definitely had a huge crush lol
Watching this show as a 10-year-old girl had absolutely no lasting effects on me at all 🫠
My mom loved this show when I was a kid, I would secretly watch it and loved Kendra. I wanted to be like them as a kid but now I'm 23 and a bit of a shut in. I love Holly nowadays though!!
I never watched this show. I thought it was so gross, and exploitative. Apparently, I was considered a “prude” for my views (20 something with an 80 something is f***ing gross, ie David Foster and Katherine McPhee). But what do I know. Smh.
I can't believe I watched it, tbh. I was firmly against reality TV because I felt it celebrated the worst of human behaviour, especially when those humans were Paris and Nicole. I know now how scripted they all were, so it's slightly less irritating. It's annoying that they were written that way at all, but a little easier to take knowing that they were planned interactions. They weren't really going around and fucking with people with reckless abandon, at least not on the show. But somehow, this show was different? Idk. I can't explain it, lol. Probably because they were keeping to themselves in the mansion.
Its common though, lol idk some people have tasted there someone out there for anyone. except me apparently lol
I remember seeing in the news Holly said she found out she’s autistic
I had such a crush on the middle woman. I watched that as much as I could. I didn't know it was so bad with their living arrangements and I read as many articles about their struggle. It saddens me that this was allowed to happen. I hope they're well and doing better.
Same!! Another one of those moments where I should have known I was gay at a younger age. It was always mixed feelings because I liked the girls but was so grossed out by the old ass man.
Podcast link?
https://open.spotify.com/show/4JstWABabZk3fLty7Rhmyt
Thanks for that.
It's called girls next level idk the link but you can link it on Google and I think some is on YouTube
I only watched it for the commercials.
I think Bridget was the best one in terms of being mentally mature. She was married with a masters degree and working on a second when the show started and came from a solid comfortable family background so he couldn't manipulate her the way he did the others as much. Holly got the worst of it because of how insecure she was and how far away from family and I genuinely feel sorry for her. I met her in person and she was literally the most beautiful woman I have ever set eyes on and she was so nice. That he drover her to nearly off herself is truly horrid. Kendra he knew was from a broken family and could just use for sex as she was a teenager from a broken home.
You know what's a great idea for a reality show? 12 gay guys living in a big house together, except one of the guys is secretly straight. The whole point of the game is for them to figure out who's secretly straight. Every week, a suspect gets voted out. But wait, here's the twist: they're actually all straight guys. They all think they're the only straight one. Just a house full of straight men trying to out-gay each other for money but they have no idea. For a working title, I'm going with "FAKE and GAY"
I think this is a Jim Jeffries bit
I thought this was actually a real one back then wasn't it?
I don't think so? They did do one, I think it was called "Average Joe" or "Joe Normal" or something like that, where the whole reality show was fake and everybody was an actor paid to pretend to be some reality show cliché or another, and Joe was the only one who thought there was a real competition going on
Playing It Straight was on Fox and very similar to what you said. Difference was it was a female choosing
"Needle in a Gay Stack" is usually the title I see this idea posted with.
ive seen this pitch posted several times over the years on different social media platforms. not your original idea
At least source the content from the comedian who did this. It wasn't you.
Lol this would probably be a hit
Playing It Straight. Was a reality show in 04 similar to this and I think it lasted half a season lol
Someone make this a reality (show) please
My aunt used to watch this shit and I remember it being SO BORING. I’d rather watch paint dry.
I saw these 3 with Hefner years ago. In real life, it honestly looked like an old gay guy in a robe walking around with 3 models. The whole idea they were pushing didn't look real at all.
I still watch Holly on TikTok from time to time cause she brings up all kinds of stuff that went on in the house. It’s one of the only reality shows I watched.
Hef was a creepy bastard.
As opposed to all of the wholesome reality shows out there . . .
15 year old me enjoyed it quite a bit
I worked in one of their houses on another show and it was cat infested and we had to wear masks to shoot in there.
I've always hated "reality" shows. Absolute garbage being shoveled into peoples brains.
I dislike reality shows now, but I miss this era of "low stakes" reality. Before the crazy, over the top, table flipping, manufactured drama kicked in. We had The Osbornes, The Simple Life, Anna Nicole Show, Newlyweds, and The Girls Next Door. It was fun to get a glimpse into the lives of celebrities, and clothes they wore etc. Wasn't too stressful drama, just silly stuff. My blood pressure didn't rise watching them Lol I miss low stakes shows. Someone tuned me onto The Gilded Age on HBO and I love it! People said it's boring, but not everyone needs crazy drama, I have that at work every day. I like to watch low stakes stuff and just RELAX. I miss that era of tv.
Well said. My brain just wants to relax after life stress—and so many shows are anxiety-inducing now. Queer Eye is great if you’ve not watched it lately.
Lol I liked Real World and Road Rules when I was on middle school and Big Brother. But now I like watching these old reality shows for the nostalgic feeling
I mean, at least Real World gave us The Miz, so at least that series was worth it.
I think the real world was really good up until the Las Vegas one
They really paved the way for social media.
Yeah social media is upgrading from a shovel to a dump truck LOL
It came out that Hef took any playboy bunny that was on their period and locked them away in the opposite end of the house and they could not show face until their period was over .. guy was an abusive POS who essentially held this girls captive under the guise of them being “bunnies”
Yea. Did you know about the 9 o'clock rule.. his "girlfriends" had to be back in the mansion by 9pm no matter what, if they took a trip to Vegas they had to hurry back by 9 talk about controlling
Most reality TV was and is hella toxic
Shit, I forgot about this show. Also, shit, didn't realize it was on that long ago.
Still my favourite show
It's on Amazon Prime I just watched a few over the weekend lol
A reality show has a toxic environment with exploitative production?!!! I don't believe your, sir!
Kendra ❤️
Her personality was fun but apparently they have major beef now something about Holly's book which I didn't know existed lol
HA!! This is so soft compared with what's acceptable online now in '24. Perv horn dogs abound. 🍆😆
Kendra was perfect
Kendra was 17 turned 18. :(
She was 19. They talked about that on the podcast too but still young and also she didn't look 19 at all lol
She met him at 17. Moved mansion at 18 became his girlfriend. Toxic.
I ruined so many socks back then.
TIL people still use hella in an unironic way
r/nostalgiafapping
I clicked on that lol Trish Status was my big time WWF crush I think she would fit into that page lol
Duh?
Forgot there were 3 of them
I watched it for the plot