Playboy. It's a magazine, a series of nightclubs, a website, a Mansion, a reality TV show,
and one of the most recognized logos in the entire world. It isn't enough to call Playboy a company;
it's an empire. To some people, Playboy is luxury, glamour, the mascot of the sexual
revolution. To others, it's filth, corruption, and the decay of American values. But what is it,
really? Let's open up the centerfold and take a look at the naked reality. They
may specialize in beauty, but today, we're digging into the Ugly Truth about Playboy.
In 1963, a budding 28-year-old freelance journalist decided to go undercover at the
infamous Playboy Gentleman's Club, where she would work as a Bunny and
document her experience behind the scenes. Her name? Gloria Steinem.
The woman who would become one of the most famous figures in American feminist
history responded to an ad that requested girls who were "pretty and personable,
between 21 and 24," and required applicants to bring a swimsuit or
leotard with them to their interview. She created a new persona for the job: Marie,
a younger woman with a resume filled with dancing and hostessing all over Europe.
From the first moment she arrived at the New York City club before she’d even been offered a job,
she was treated like a Bunny. That means the security guard calling to her, "Here bunny, bunny,
bunny," and the interviewer shaming her for being "awfully old" at the ripe old (fake) age of 24.
Round after round of application steps followed as she and the other potential
Bunnies stood around for hours at a time, feet aching in satin high heels,
posing for polaroids in their underwear. And then, the fitting, the test of whether she was suited in
the official Bunny uniform. It was constructed to provide the ideal Bunny silhouette, but even the
boning in the waist and meticulous structure of the garment weren't dramatic enough. The wardrobe
mistress stuffed some plastic dry cleaning bags into the top of the costume for good measure to
add extra dramatic cleavage. This was, Gloria soon learned, commonplace at the Playboy club.
Women used tissues, wool, gym socks, silk scarves, halved sanitary napkins, and,
funnily enough, cut-up Bunny costume tails to accentuate their figures. The costume was so
tight that even a sneeze could break the zipper, and several women reported feeling their legs go
numb after a few hours in it. But the fitting was a success, at least on an aesthetic level,
and Gloria (or rather, Marie) was officially hired as an employee of the Playboy Club.
Following a physical with a Playboy-approved doctor, it was time for Bunny training to begin.
There was an in-depth process to prepare her for the world of the Playboy Club, including makeup
training, Bunny School, floor training, a written test, and several lectures. Then, it was time
for Steinem to delve into the mysterious inner world of Playboy. It quickly became clear that
beneath all of the glitz and glamor of the club's reputation, there was a great deal of corruption.
The ads for the job had promised a Bunny would make 200 to 300 dollars a week, but that was
far from the truth. Bunnies were paid 50 dollars a week due to New York City minimum wage laws,
and they had to pour a lot of that money back into the club. They paid 2.50 a day for costume upkeep,
had to buy their own heels, and replaced their own nylons any time they ripped,
at 5 dollars a pop. Large portions of their tips on drink orders were taken away by the club,
and while they were permitted to keep cash tips given to them,
if they showed a preference for receiving tips in cash, they would be fired.
Though the Club's clientele were not permitted to touch the Bunnies, or at least that was
the official rule laid out by the club, this was arbitrarily enforced. Sometimes,
the Club's management would test the Bunnies on this, hiring undercover "secret shoppers"
of sorts to offer money to a Bunny in exchange for sex. If she accepted his offer, she would
be fired immediately. The "no touching" rule only applied to ordinary guests,
however. Number One Keyholders, the men who paid for a VIP Membership,
were expected to be accommodated by any Bunny whose company they requested.
A month after she first applied, her time as a Playboy Bunny came
to an end. Steinem went to see a doctor about the pain in her feet,
lingering as a result of hours standing in the uncomfortable high heels, and found that they
had permanently grown half a size. The doctor told her that other girls in that line of work
would have their feet swell up several sizes, never to go back down. But she had her scoop,
and her story ran in Show Magazine under the title "A Bunny's Tale." So, what happened
after the piece was published? Did it collapse the corrupt Playboy empire once and for all?
Well, not exactly. Hugh Hefner wrote Steinem a letter in response, saying that he had no
issues with the article and crediting her with the decision to get rid of the blood test and internal
physical required for Bunnies. However, as much as he tried to frame himself as a friend to feminism,
his own words indicated otherwise. In 1970, years after his seemingly friendly response to Steinem,
he wrote a memo in response to a planned feminist protest of the Playboy mansion,
saying: "What I'm interested in is the highly irrational, emotional, kookie trend that feminism
has taken...these chicks are our natural enemy. It is time to do battle with them."
The article didn't always have the intended effect on its readers, either. Some read the piece and
were rightfully horrified by the treatment of workers at the Playboy Club, but others
saw things differently. Steinem received letters from women asking for advice on how they, too,
could become uncomfortable, underpaid Playboy Bunnies. When she tried to pitch other news
outlets and get new scoops, no one wanted to hire her unless she had more salacious,
sexy undercover stories to sell. Steinem went on to accomplish a great deal more in her career,
but for years, she struggled to escape her reputation as "the former Playboy Bunny."
Playboy has always been a brand that attracted controversy, from critiques of its treatment of
women and its workers, to protests like the one that made Hefner so angry in 1970. But in 1980,
the Playboy name became associated with something much, much darker than any of that: murder.
On August 14, 1980, 20-year-old Playboy Playmate Dorothy Stratten was found
dead from a gunshot wound. Her story made headlines. The one in the Village Voice read:
"Death of a Playmate." But what happened to Dorothy? How did she meet such a tragic end?
Dorothy was just 17 years old, working part-time at the Dairy Queen in Coquitlam,
British Columbia when she met a 26-year-old club promoter named Paul Snider. To a teenage girl,
Snider was impressive. He drove a Corvette, he bought her jewelry,
and he cooked her fancy dinners. He did everything he needed to do to win her
over and convince her to pose for nude photos, which were sent off to Playboy for consideration.
Because she was underage, she convinced her mother to sign the model release form for
her. Playboy accepted the pictures, and in August 1978, Stratten moved to Los Angeles,
California, where she found herself in the coveted position of Finalist in the
25th Anniversary Great Playmate Hunt. She was Playmate of the Month in August 1979,
and in June of the same year, she and Snider tied the knot. Peter Bogdanovich,
a film producer who met Stratten at the Playboy Mansion, cast her in "They All
Laughed," a comedy starring Audrey Hepburn. Shortly after, Stratten moved in with him.
From the outside, she appeared to have a glamorous life, but all was not as wonderful
as it might have appeared. Dorothy wrote about her experiences in the Mansion and as
a Playmate in a posthumously released 16-page memoir: "Sometimes I cried before I went to
sleep...A lot of men were entering my life all of a sudden, and a lot of them wanted me. No one
was ever pushy or forceful - but talk can be very powerful - especially to a mixed-up little girl."
Snider became suspicious of his wife and hired a private detective. Then,
he bought a 12-gauge shotgun. On August 14, Snider killed Dorothy with that very shotgun.
Peter Bogdanovich blamed Playboy and Hugh Hefner in part for Dorothy's death. In 1984,
he published the book "The Killing of the Unicorn," a biography of Stratten, an account
of their affair, and a scathing critique of Hefner himself. In it, he wrote: "If I had to
confront my own responsibility, there could be no way to ignore his," referring to Hugh Hefner.
He continued, "She could not handle the slick professional machinery of the Playboy sex factory,
nor the continual efforts of its founder to bring her into his personal fold,
no matter what she wanted." Bogdanovich claimed that Hugh Hefner, whom Dorothy
ostensibly saw as a father figure, had sexually assaulted her at age 18.
Hefner countered this accusation, stating: "I am, publisher of Playboy or no, a very
shy man. And I could no more force myself on a woman, psychologically or physically,
than could the man on the moon." He also accused Bogdanovich of causing the stress that led to his
stroke in 1985. Then, for good measure, he threw in a claim that Bogdanovich had
seduced Stratten's little sister following her death. Louise Stratten, the sister in question,
filed a slander lawsuit against him for this but later dropped it. In 1989,
when Louise was 20 years old, she and Bogdanovich did, in fact, get married.
But just because Hefner's accusation of Bogdanovich's interest in Louise Stratten
turned out to be true, that doesn't mean Bogdanovich's accusations of Hugh Hefner’s
conduct are also true. It will never be certain what happened between him and Dorothy Stratten,
but she is far from the only woman possibly linked to violence and destructive behavior on the part
of Hugh Hefner. It's uncertain exactly how many closets there are in the lavish Playboy Mansion,
but it seems like every single one of them is filled with skeletons.
Playboy Magazine, and the entirety of Hugh Hefner's empire, was built on a foundation
of lies and consent violations, starting with the magazine's inaugural cover. Printed right
there on the glossy front page were the words "the famous Marilyn Monroe nude." But there
was just one problem: Marilyn hadn't posed for the pictures, she hadn't agreed to their use,
and Hefner didn't pay her a cent. The photos were taken in 1949, when Marilyn, then without a job,
posed nude for a pinup photographer named Tom Kelley for 50 dollars so that she could make
her car payment. The shoot took two hours, and Kelley promised Monroe that no one would
be able to recognize her in the photos. She even signed the release with a false name, Mona Monroe,
refusing to put her name on the release. She had no idea that one moment of financial hardship
would one day be published for the world to see, with her name printed in bold on the front cover.
Kelley sold the photos for 900 dollars to the Western Lithograph Company, and they were later
published in a pinup calendar. Meanwhile, Monroe began to find consistent film work,
rocketing to stardom with All About Eve, Monkey Business, Niagara, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, and
How to Marry a Millionaire. In Fall 1953, Hefner purchased the rights to the photos and selected
one to be published as Sweetheart of the Month (the precursor to Playmate of the Month). Marilyn
never made more than that initial 50 dollars from the photo's run, and she once remarked:
"I never even received a thank you from all those who made millions off a nude Marilyn photograph."
Though the two never met, Hefner spent 75,000 dollars in 1992 to purchase the
burial plot next to hers at the Westwood Village Memorial
Park Cemetary. Meaning his body will likely be next to her’s for eternity,
despite their only meaningful interaction being a catastrophic breach of privacy.
In recent years, as the legacy of both Playboy and Hugh Hefner has been reassessed,
the allegations have begun piling up from former Bunnies, Playmates,
and partners of Hefner. The picture they paint of their time with him is grim, to say the least.
In 2015, Holly Madison, former Playmate and girlfriend of Hefner's,
published the memoir "Down the Rabbit Hole: Curious Adventures and Cautionary Tales
of a Former Playboy Bunny." The book recounted some of her most memorable
and upsetting experiences during her time at Playboy. In the years since its publication,
she has stuck by her stories and provided more details to those willing to listen.
On a December 2021 podcast appearance, Madison described her first sexual encounter with Hefner
as a rushed, uncomfortable experience where he was essentially pushed on top
of her. Six months into her time at the Mansion, Madison decided to cut
her hair short and was met with a torrent of screaming verbal abuse from a furious Hefner.
During an appearance on a different podcast, Madison claimed that sex with Hefner was a
prerequisite to moving into the mansion. They were also expected to participate in regular,
unprotected group sex with Hefner, lest they be kicked out. And when Madison did have one-on-one
sex with Hefner, she was never sober. She claimed that Hefner offered her Quaaludes,
or, as he called them, "thigh openers," the first time they had sex. The mention
of Quaaludes reappears in the stories of several other former Playmates as well,
including the accounts of Kristina and Karissa Shannon. The Shannon twins allege that Hefner
stuffed them with alcohol and Quaaludes on their 19th birthday, after which he had sex with them.
Another ex-girlfriend of Hugh Hefner', Sondra Theodore, spoke to the New York Post about
her relationship with Hefner, describing how he groomed her, starting when she was
just 19 years old. He introduced her to drugs, including, yes, his weapon of choice, Quaaludes.
In 2022, the most horrifying stories about Playboy and Hefner were exposed in "Secrets
of Playboy," a ten-part docuseries on A&E. The documentary featured former girlfriends,
Playmates, Bunny Mothers, business associates, and more. The allegations
made in the docuseries are truly harrowing, and if even one-tenth of them are true,
then Playboy was a vile place and Hefner a deeply destructive man. Sondra Theodore
alleged that Hefner kept tapes and sensitive photographs of everyone in the Mansion that he
could use as blackmail material if the occasion ever arose. If this is true,
it certainly would explain why so many people waited until he was dead to come forward.
According to accounts in the docuseries, Bunny Mothers (former Bunnies who became
managers of sorts) and security worked to cover up scandals at the Mansion and clubs. Former Bunny
Mother P.J. Masten and former bodyguard James Ellis both shared their stories on the matter,
claiming that the cleanup crews were threatened into silence,
and forced to cover up sexual abuse. This may have been a frequent occurrence,
since multiple witnesses claim that Hefner assaulted Playmates who stayed in the Mansion.
Former Playmate Susie Krabacher described her experience, in which Hefner drugged her and
took advantage of her once she was unconscious. Sondra Theodore also claims that Hefner had a
skeleton key that he used to unlock sleeping women's rooms at night whenever he wanted.
According to the stories, the abuse didn't end with Hefner, either. Many of the VIP celebrity
guests of the clubs assaulted Bunnies, and were allowed to return to do it again. A former
Playmate, Dona Speir, commented on the prevalence of abusers at the Mansion, saying: "What predator
is not going to go to the mansion? It's locked, it's secure, all the cookies are in the jar."
Another common thread in stories about Hugh Hefner is his preference for younger women,
who’d sometimes be underage. Russell Miller, the author of "Bunny: The Real Story of Playboy,"
claimed in his book that Hefner seduced a minor at his daughter's 16th birthday party.
Jennifer Saginor, daughter of Hefner's doctor and friend, alleged in her memoir
that Hefner tried to initiate a threesome with her when she was sixteen years old.
The abuse was not limited to the Mansion or the clubs, either. Miki Garcia, former
director of Playmate Promotions, has recounted the terribly misogynistic environment she faced
while working at Playboy. Garcia transitioned from modeling to the business side after she
was allegedly denied Playmate of the Year for not agreeing to sleep with Hefner in order to
"earn" the position. But she wasn't safe in the corporate offices. She and P.J. Masten
both described an executive at the Chicago office who would greet Garcia by groping her
breast and would greet Masten by pushing down on her head as if to make her perform oral sex.
We haven’t spoken about one of the most disturbing allegations, but we need to
include it to truly complete the story of Playboy and Hefner, so our more sensitive viewers might
want to proceed with caution. In the docuseries, Sondra Theodore talks about walking in on Hugh
Hefner performing sex acts with their dog. When she asked him what he was doing, he responded,
"Well, dogs have needs." This was not the only story of this kind, either. P.J. Masten
alleged that Hefner and the other men at the Mansion once made a drugged-up and drunk Linda
Lovelace perform oral sex on a German Shepherd. As she did, the men all stood there and watched.
These accounts are undeniably stomach-churning,
but many still consider one aspect of the Playboy brand to be an important part of cultural history:
the magazine. At the time, Playboy was one of the only magazines willing to
publish controversial material or work that wouldn't be accepted in other publications.
Shortly after Playboy's founding, the magazine published the short story "The Crooked Man,"
by Charles Beaumont. This extremely divisive story at the time depicted a world run by a
majority gay population in a bit of pro-gay social commentary. Though readers flooded
the magazine with angry letters, Hefner stood by the piece. Other vital voices
in civil rights were published in the magazine, including James Baldwin and
an interview with Malcolm X. Groundbreaking fiction writers contributed to the magazine,
such as Margaret Atwood, Ursula Le Guin, Ray Bradbury, and Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
When a young woman named Jessica Hahn was assaulted by her boss, famous evangelical
preacher Jim Bakker, Playboy published her account of the attack in an interview, their sensational
reputation bringing more eyes to the story. Some of them were there to see the semi-nude
photographs of Hahn, but she was still given the opportunity to discuss what happened to her in
her own words. Even so, it’s difficult to reconcile the groundbreaking journalism and
literature that appeared in Playboy with the horrors that hid deeper down the rabbit hole.
Playboy undoubtedly has a complicated legacy and a messy past. But what about its present?
With Hugh Hefner gone, who runs Playboy now? The magazine is no longer affiliated
with the Hefner family, and is instead owned by the private-equity firm Rizvi
Traverse. What about the Mansion? That was sold in 2016, to Daren Metropoulos,
the owner of Hostess. Hugh Hefner is dead, the magazine is no longer Hefner property,
and the Mansion was purchased with snack cake money. What does any of that mean for the
future of Playboy? Do the new owners and staff still run things the way Hefner allegedly did?
When Insider reached out to Playboy for comment on the allegations made
in "Secrets of Playboy," a representative from the brand responded: "We trust and
validate these women and their stories and we strongly support those individuals who
have come forward to share their experiences. As a brand with sex-positivity at its core,
we believe safety, security, and accountability are paramount."
They went on to say, "Please join us in doing the most important thing we can do
right now — listen. It is critically important that we listen as these
women share their stories and continue to fight harassment and discrimination in all its forms,
support healing and education, redefine tired and sexist definitions of beauty,
and advocate for inclusivity across gender, sexuality, race, age, ability and zip codes."
Here's hoping they really mean it, and that Playboy will become a better place than it was.
No watch “How the FBI Tried to Destroy Playboy” Or watch this video instead.