Crystal Hefner: Objectification, control, and Playboy
Happy Place
Fearne Cotton
4.6 • 15.2K Ratings
🗓️ 12 February 2024
⏱️ 50 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The Playboy mansion was supposed to be a place of freedom, expression and empowerment for Crystal Hefner, but it turned out to be the total opposite. As one of the girlfriends – and then wife – of Hugh Hefner, she had to be seen and not heard.
In this chat with Fearne, Crystal explains how living in the Playboy mansion saw her pitted against other women and picked apart for her appearance. Recognising the financial abuse in particular, she began saving her own money, which eventually created a foundation from which to rebuild her life, and self-worth, when Hef died.
Fearne and Crystal also chat about how to start discovering what you like, and what makes you happy, after previously living for other people. Plus, how to move away from feeling your self worth hinges on your appearance.
Crystal’s book, Only Say Good Things: Surviving Playboy and Finding Myself, is out now.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hello, I'm Fern Cotton, and this is Happy Place, the show that gives voice to silenced parts of ourselves. |
| 0:08.0 | Today I'm chatting to Crystal Hefner. |
| 0:11.0 | When I first moved in, I was told there was like a restaurant style |
| 0:14.8 | kitchen. I could order whatever I wanted. So I thought wow like let's let's test |
| 0:18.6 | that out and I got fatter. I remember He had like kind of tapping my thigh and said he said it looks like someone needs to tone up. So instead of just |
| 0:28.1 | lashing back at him at that time I thought oh I can do better. Oh no I'm slipping. need to be the best. That's when it started |
| 0:34.4 | unraveling when my physical appearance started getting controlled because more |
| 0:39.1 | stuff's more things started happening physically that he controlled. |
| 0:43.0 | Crystal is a world-renowned model, advocate and entrepreneur. |
| 0:48.0 | She was 21 when she went to a party at the Playboy Mansion. |
| 0:52.0 | Hugh Hefner picked her out of the crowd and her life changed forever. |
| 0:56.0 | Soon she was one of his infamous girlfriends. She travelled the world. |
| 1:00.0 | She went to all the glamorous parties, but as she's now revealed in her book |
| 1:04.3 | only say good things there was a dark side to this gorgeously alluring lifestyle |
| 1:10.1 | Heff governed the lives of his girlfriends with strict rules on everything from how they looked to how they spent their free time. |
| 1:18.0 | Crystal was made to compete with other women for a spot in the highly hierarchical system, something she did very well. |
| 1:25.4 | She rose to the top and married Heff in 2012. |
| 1:29.3 | She became Crystal Hefner, but the mansion became her prison. |
| 1:34.0 | Reading this book, I mean I couldn't put it down, there were bits that were sort of horrifying |
| 1:38.5 | to read and moments where my jaw was on the floor, but you really can't stop turning the pages. Before Hef died in 2017, |
| 1:48.8 | he made Crystal promise to only say good things about the time she spent in his world. |
| 1:55.0 | Now after all those years of silence, she's ready to expose the misogyny at Playboy's Core, |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Fearne Cotton, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Fearne Cotton and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.