Lovett or Leave It - Lovett or Leave It Presents: Bravo, America! (with Holly Madison)

Episode Date: December 16, 2025

In our season finale of Bravo, America! Lovett sits down with The Girls Next Door star Holly Madison to discuss the dark side of life in the Playboy mansion on and off screen. Holly opens up about being the main character on the show, but feeling like an object to Hugh Hefner and the Playboy hierarchy. She also speaks about her decision to leave the show and what it’s been like to tell her story on her own terms as public sentiment has evolved pre and post #MeToo movement. For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail] and include the name of the podcast.  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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were not compensated for being on a television show. They didn't blur your face. You didn't approve your likeness being used. They didn't blur my vagina. Right. So, which is the face of the lower half of the body. Yeah. Hey, everybody. It's John Lovett and welcome back to Lovit or Leave it presents. Bravo, America. This is the finale to our first season where I have sat down with some of my favorite reality stars because you cannot understand politics in this moment.

If you don't understand the dynamics of reality television, these have been an amazing series. of conversations with Bravo stars and survivor winners and escapees from right-wing religious communities and more. I've loved getting to do it. And I've loved how much there is to learn about politics and culture in this moment from people who have been in a world where the only thing worse than being hated is being boring. Today, I'm joined by Holly Madison from the e-channels, the girls next door. She was one of Hugh Hefner's girlfriends at a time in which the Playboy Mansion was a cultural phenomenon and the glorification of the Playboy lifestyle took over TV. Holly is so smart and thoughtful in this conversation. We talk about what led her

to the Playboy Mansion, rising to the top in the mansion, and how she was often villainized both for being part of that world and then for walking away from it. We also talked about how since Me Too, she's found a much warmer reception from a lot of people, including a lot of young women. It was a great conversation not only about where she's been, but also what she's learned, advice she has for young people, and what her future might be up to and including being a candidate for elective office. So be sure to catch your rewatch podcast, Girls Next Level, with Bridget Markhart, as well as the Playboy Murders and Lethly Blonde, which she hosts on ID. So I hope you enjoy it. Here's Holly Madison. Holly Madison, welcome.

Thank you. So I want to get into the Girls Next Door, but I do think it's helpful before we do to understand what your mindset is before the filming of that show began. You've lived in the Playboy Mansion for several years at this point. You've described yourself as a zombie when the taping began. Why were you a zombie? That situation we lived in, I feel like, where do I start? Yeah, that situation we lived in was so crazy. When I started doing a rewatch podcast with my co-star Bridget, we did a whole, before we

even got into the first episode, we probably did like six episodes that I called the prequel episodes where we were just explaining like what happened up into that point. So we were all living at the Playway Mansion with Hugh Hefner as his girlfriends. And it was, for me, I can't speak for the other girls, but for me, it was something I felt like I thought was like a good idea at the time, but I got in way over my head. And it was just kind of this miserable experience where it was a lot of like mean girl drama and being pitted against each other and feeling like you're being judged by the outside world for the choice you made to be there. So you're not super eager to leave yet, but you kind of want to. So there's a lot going on. And I was trying to kind of audition. on the side for other things during the day. You know, we weren't allowed to do that. So you kind of had to keep it a secret. But I was trying to save money, get, you know, I was going to real estate school, do all the things, trying to get something else going on. And then this idea for the reality show came about. And we didn't have a choice like, do you want to do this? It wasn't like we all sat around

and made this collective decision, like, do the three of you girls want to do this show with me. It was like, I'm doing this show. And I was like, holy shit. I felt scared. Like I'd always want to to experience that feeling of like being famous or being in the public eye, but I always wanted to do it like as a TV host or something like that or in a role. I didn't want to, you know, be famous for my personal life, especially being in this relationship that I was confused about. I had a lot of issues with. There was a lot of shame involved in it. So, you know, dealing with the depression of being there for four years and everything, I was kind of like a zombie. I was also on the spectrum undiagnosed. So I don't really emote the way a lot of people do.

And sometimes I can zone out and look very dead behind the eyes. So I watch myself in season one and I'm seeing all those layers. And I'm like, I am a zombie. But I also knew that I hope the TV show could be a good opportunity. But like I kind of didn't really want to be there and kind of felt like I had to do it unless I wanted to leave that day and start all over with, you know, what I felt was nothing. And yeah. So did you have an agent at this time? Because there are periods of time where you had an agent.

Did you have one at this moment when when E is showing up to? do this show or no? In college, I did. But when I moved into the Playboy Mansion, I no longer had an agent and we weren't allowed to work or anything like that. So I would have, like, kind of a modeling agent on the slide and maybe go on a few auditions and things like that. And then, you know, once the show started, we were expected to be represented just by Playboy. So we didn't have any of our own representation. Even when contracts came up, we weren't allowed to have, like, our own attorney look at the contracts. We just were expected to sign right then and there like my co-star it was weird we didn't even sign contracts until right before season five so we went like

four seasons no contract that's but that's i that's i was gonna no you're saying you're in a reality show you are being filmed in a private home yeah day after day after day and you have signed nothing no contracts nothing yeah had you signed anything to be in the mansion like had you signed something so you as far you have not signed a document no as far as you know from the you come to the house and then you decide to live in the house, you are receiving $1,000 a week, you are required to be there at certain times and do certain events, then you are on a reality show and you've never signed anything. No, nothing. Not until right before season five. Wow. That's shocking. That's shocking. Absolutely. It really is. It's weird. And it was really strange. It's funny we were just on my podcast, Bridget and I were talking about the first episode of season five, rewatching that. So we were just. talking about this contract thing. And it was very weird the way it happened because there were three of us on the show, me and Bridget and Kendra, Kendra was doing a club appearance in the Dominican

Republic. So she wasn't there the day this happened. Bridget and I were at home. I think I was, I was working at the Playboy studio at the time. So like I was at work. She was at home in the shower. And that day, all of a sudden, at least the way it was presented to us, I feel like this is a little fishy and weird and probably not really the way it went down. But according to Playboy, E suddenly realized that we weren't under any kind of contract and freaked out and said, no more show, which were four seasons in at this point, even I who'd been the most reluctant to do the show. Like, I'd started to realize, well, this is how the show can work for me.

And these are the benefits. So all three of us were very invested in the show and wanted it to keep going. And we were told one day, it's like, no more show unless you sign this today. And I was hesitant and I was telling half, I'm like, well, this is weird because, like, we're living here as your girlfriends. I don't know if I want to sign a contract that, in essence, means I'm signing a contract to be a girlfriend. That's weird. Granted, I mean, there's a lot of other weird shit that led up to that.

I don't know why that was the one thing. I finally felt like, oh, this is really, you know, pushing the limits here. I wish you had, like, one lawyer friend in this time. My God. I know, it was crazy. And Bridget was the one who said, you know, she had said, I think, to have secretary, who had been the one who called us initially and told us we all needed to sign. She said, well, I want to have, like, an attorney. Look at this.

And, you know, she's going about her day. in the shower and Huff comes into her room is yelling at her, opens the shower, literally yanks her out of the shower and says, you need to sign this fucking shit right now. He said, you're the last one. Everybody else has signed, which I don't even know if that was really true at the time. She's like sobbing, saying she doesn't want to sign it. She wants somebody to look at it. And he's just told, you're the only one. Everybody else wants to do this. You're the only one holding this up. You need to sign it now. And she's like, okay, like, let me get dried off. I know. It was weird.

know if that contract was retroactive to the previous seasons? Or was it just for season six? It was for seasons five and six. They ordered like a five and six, but also the contract with E also determined how we were going to do our spinoffs if we did spin-off. So when I eventually moved out on my own and then did a spinoff with E, which I was super excited to do, I had to do it under the same production company that had done girls next door, meaning somebody who's very close friends with he had to get a cut of it you know he had a credit on it so even when you're out there like on your own like they're still taking a cut so it was a it was a contract that had you know lasting effects down the line did you ever have i'm sorry to dive into this but i actually i thought

i assume the answer was you signed a shitty contract all the way through i'm actually genuinely stunned to find out that nothing was signed along the way did you ever talk once you got out and we'll get to getting out but did you ever talk to an entertainment lawyer about what you're options were, your rights were for, I mean, right now, you can go and stream seasons, all the seasons of the girls next door, presumably somebody's making money when people click play on this. I was on Amazon Prime. You don't get anything from the show. Nothing. Nothing. Even if I, when I first, before I did the rewatch podcast, I had a YouTube channel and people were saying, we love to have you react to these old episodes. And I tried to do a reaction video where you could kind of see the show

on the video where I'm talking about it, like tons of people do on YouTube. It's fair use. And I know fair use is a slippery slope, but I put that on there. And it immediately, like I'd uploaded it, but before it had even popped up on the channel, like Playboy has the software in there that like scans everything on YouTube, which is weird to me because I don't even think they own the show. I think it's Fox owns the show. But Playboy had this software that scans everything. So I immediately got an alert that my video was flagged and they were going to get the money from it.

So I took the video down. I was like, fuck that. I'm going to move off of this, but I'm just generally gobsmacked. But did you ever have a conversation with an entertainment lawyer once you were out of the mansion about what your rights were that you had, I think, a pretty good case to sue for a lot of money for the ways in which you were not compensated for being on a television show? Like they wouldn't, they didn't blur your face. You didn't approve your likeness being used like. They didn't blur my vagina. Right.

So, which is the face of the lower half of the body. Yeah. But did you ever talk to anybody about what your recourse was after you left? Did you think about that at all? No, I never thought about that. Like, it's one of these things where any time I speak up about it, I'm kind of told by a lot of people, shut up, just be grateful you got the exposure. So it honestly didn't even occur to me.

Like, I know it's not fair, but it didn't occur to me. I wonder if there's anything we can do now. Maybe I should talk to somebody. If you have a lawyer, if you're an entertainment lawyer, put jobs. something in the comments. Can't be worse than the current situation of getting nothing from this show. Okay. So the girls next door, it's happening all around you all of a sudden. You have no saying it. What were you feeling when that happened? Were you excited about the fame of it? Were you nervous about people finding out what it was really like? I was really, really

nervous. I knew they weren't going to find out what it was really like because I knew everything was kind of going to be sugar-coded and it was on E, so nothing was going to be too explicit. So it wasn't really that. I think I was just worried about being judged. And when I made the decision to move into the mansion, I always thought, oh, this is like the crazy thing I'm doing in college. And one day I'm going to go out and make it. And then people are going to find out about this after the fact. It's going to be this weird little, like, curiosity piece about my past. I never thought it would be like the thing I was known for. So I was nervous about that because it wasn't really the direction I wanted to go. But I hoped it could be some kind of

of opportunity. I thought, well, you know, maybe we can finally get that magazine pictorial we always wanted. Maybe I'll finally get noticed for something else. So, you know, I found maybe around the time of like season two, it actually had other benefits that I hadn't anticipated because living at the mansion was weird. You're in this weird bubble. You have a 9 p.m. curfew. You're not allowed to work, all these things. But because we need the plot lines for the show, you know, that came up like, oh, well, maybe we could like go to veil and learn how to snowboard, but we'll have to stay overnight. So that was so exciting to me because I'd been living at this house for four years and hadn't had like one night away. So I'm like, oh my God, like we can finally travel. And it's an excuse

for me to like apprentice at the Playboy studio, which I always wanted to do. And that turned into a job there. So I thought, you know, this is good just for the opportunities. So I was listening to you and Bridget talking about it. And I believe she described it. as in some ways the best of times and worst of times in the mansion because in the one hand there was all this tension and fighting and isolation that you felt and not to mention the ways in which you are kind of have lost all your independence because of the way Hugh Hefner controlled your life while on the other hand the show protected you in some ways can you talk about that like how did filming the show change what

it was like to live in the house? Oh, a lot of ways. One way was we became famous, so we had more value to have. Like, I felt like all of a sudden he was, like, so in love with me and, like, wanted to settle down with me and was like, okay, if the other girls left eventually, he wasn't, like, so hung up on, like, having a million girlfriends. You know, we got to travel, we got to do other things. There wasn't, like, these, like, compulsory, like, going out to nightclubs and, oh, let's all go upstairs afterward, or, like, him trying to, like, pick up on other girls and things like that because he was so obsessed with the show and having so much fun with it and like the ego boost it brought to be, you know, relevant again. He wasn't really seeking the

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One thing you talk about is the ways in which you were pretty isolated from the other girlfriends and that some of them were pretty nasty to you. And I wonder if you've thought about what prevented you all from seeing each other as allies, that you were in this situation together, like you were hating the players, but look at this game. Was this kind of, I don't know, a psychological reaction to the fact that people didn't want to be there? What explains to you why instead of directing frustration at Hugh Hefner, you were fighting with each other? Or people were really kind of targeting you? I feel like part of it was competition between the girls.

Like everybody wanted, you know, the next playmate pictorial in a magazine or they wanted to be bought something special or something like that. Or they were even competing for other things outside. Like they wanted to, like, date certain celebrities. Who could we meet at the parties? So there was a lot of competition between the girls for things like that. And there was a lot of him pitting the girls against each other, which I was really blind to from most of the years.

And a lot of it was me blaming the other women. And there were some nasty people that went through there. but a lot of it was me just blaming the other women and thinking because back then I just had such a binary way of thinking where I thought like if somebody is this, you know, accomplished and intelligent and like has the world at his feet. Why would he be so petty as to like pit all these girls against each other? Like it didn't compute to me. Like I didn't realize two things can be true at once. You know what I mean? Does it compute to you now?

Yeah, 100%. Look what, it is like the reality of life in the Playboy Imagine is shocking. In part, it is shocking because it was glamorized and celebrated and held up as this fantasy for a very long time. And then even though obviously that's not going to be true, the actual reality is so much worse than I think even cynical people would imagine. How did you feel about the image of Playboy and how did it change when you were there? Did it disappear immediately? Did you cling to it? like what did the fantasy become you know i think i clung to what i wanted it to be and i thought

i could change it into that because i felt so involved once i was there i had kind of this sunk cost fallacy where i moved in and was kind of surprised at how immediately everybody everybody i interacted with in the world kind of knew i was there and was so shocked by it and judgy all of a sudden and i was like wait nobody thought it was weird when i was just going to the parties like everybody thought that was so cool but you know it kind of of like pushed me into myself a little bit more I feel and I felt very isolated because of that. But there had been like a couple of documentaries put out about Playboy at the time that I think are really good examples of this. There was one I recently rewatched for a podcast. It's called

Inside the Playboy Mansion and I aired on A&E back in 2000. So right before I moved in. And if you go back and watch this thing, first of all, there's so much that doesn't age well in there, like Bill Cosby being interviewed as a talking head and stuff like that. That's rough. I know, but it just makes his lifestyle in the Playboy world look so amazing. Like anybody would want to be a part of it. Oh, and, you know, if you're really lucky, you get to be one of his girlfriends that live in the house, and they make it just look like this cute little sorority thing where everybody's having fun together.

So I fell for a lot of that. And then I moved in and not long after realized it wasn't like that at all. But I felt so involved. And I felt so branded by the whole thing, which, you know, I could have pulled myself out of that and told myself that's not true. Just go out and do something else. But that's how I felt at the time. I thought, no, I need to like make this better. I need to make this what I thought it was going to be. And in a weird way, I feel like, you know, Bridget and I kind of banded together and did that. And when girls next door came along, we did get something positive out of it through that experience. But yeah, it was a wild ride. So it's, it is clear that the, like, the Playboy fantasy was mostly a fantasy for men, but was being an object of desire exciting? Like, to decide even as a, from a young age, like, I want to pursue being in Playboy. I want to go audition. Yeah.

Like, how, you saw yourself as beautiful. You took a lot of pride in that. Like, what was the fantasy for you? Well, I think growing up, like, in the. the 90s, you saw, you know, a handful of like famous women who came from Playboy who started out being Playmates and you would see the ads on TV for Playboy subscriptions and it would show all the Playmate videos and everybody looked so gorgeous, you know, this was back before Instagram face and filters and everybody knew how to do their makeup from a YouTube tutorial.

So women just didn't look like that and I wanted to look like that. I thought, oh, if they could just take a chance on me and make me look like that, you know, that could be my stepping stone and life would be amazing. So I really wanted to be a part of it. And I just thought it looked like so much fun. And going to the parties was really fun. And back then that was like the cool guest list that you wanted to be on. And so now you're part of this male fantasy. Then a show comes in that really is, you know, it's strange the show because on the one hand, it doesn't show a lot of like the sexual parts of what life in the house was about. But on the other, it's really about, like, you as people, right?

And in the fantasy, you're objects. But on the show, you're the leads. Like, how did Hugh Hefner feel about that? About the fact that there was now this show about the mansion in which, in a lot of episodes, he kind of pops in, kind of wanders in, wanders out. And the pilot, like, you're at a party. And he's eating ice cream in his sort of hoarding bedroom. covered in things like it's it's not glamorous for him at least that's in my viewing of it i think from

his perspective you know reality tv was like the cool new thing at the time and this idea came up and a couple different iterations were passed by him like it started on a and e they were doing a show called growing up goddy about john goddy's grandsons so what they wanted to do was growing up hefner because he was divorced and next door his wife and two kids lived so they wanted like hughner going to pta meetings and he's like absolutely not i'm not doing that So then they tried to do a version that was kind of like Downton Abbey upstairs, downstairs. It was about the staff.

Yeah, I saw that. The spoiled bitches they have to wait on. Right, the unaired pilot. Yeah. And they're all kind of like dreading having to bring him the soup. Yeah. And it's like, oh, I drew the wrong. Literally they draw cards to bring Hugh Heffner the soup.

He must have hated that. Yeah. But eventually, the people at E saw the pilot and they saw, you know, the three of us girls had been interviewed. And the lady at E said, I want to see this world through the girl's eyes. I want it to be like Alice in Wonderland. So that's what ended up happening. And I think by the time that happened, Huff felt invested enough in the idea of having a reality show about himself. And, you know, he felt he had enough control over us that we weren't really going anywhere. And

when we would go out and do press about it, he'd always kind of joke like, Daddy doesn't have to do the work, which gag. But that was his thought. It's like, I get to have this cool TV show about my world, but they're doing all the work. And then as the show became more and more popular, he wanted to be a part of it more. So they would stick little scenes in there. Like if the three of us would be like out of the country for my sister's wedding, they would do these scenes back at the mansion that really had no point, but just a reminder that like Huff's still there. And he wants to be in the show, kind of. So the show then becomes a hit among young women. Like young women are really watching this. So you're opening the doors to this like icon of old school male

fantasy. And then the people that are watching it are girls. And why do you think that is? What do you think made the show so exciting or appealing to women? Well, I think that was a surprise to everybody, because at the time we came along on E, they were mostly showing just like videos of the Howard Stern show. So I think they thought this would be like a show for men, but women really attached to it. I think just because it was playful, you got to see us having fun all day, and it was this really like oversaturated, bright, fun look into a lifestyle, which today you can see anybody's lifestyle on Instagram, but back before social media, this was really, really novel. Yeah, I was thinking about this too, and the fantasy really falls apart.

The idea of this sort of glamorous mansion disappears the second you actually see people, living it and Hugh Hefner kind of stumbling out of his bedroom in a robe for his girlfriends because he's an old man and you're young women and he doesn't belong there and it doesn't seem like he wants to be there or at least he wants to want to be there. And I wonder what it was like for you to watch the show as it was airing and see what this look like from the eyes of the young women who are watching it. I never really watched it through those eyes. I watched it through the eyes of like, oh my God, I hope they don't completely humiliate me in the edit. You know, because in season one, I didn't know what to expect. Like this, I always use this as an example.

Like, back then, what was like fresh in my mind was there was a season of the surreal life where like Vern Troyer, who played mini me and Austin Powers, got super wasted, got naked, started rolling around on a scooter, got caught masturbating in bed on camera. And I'm like, this is what they want. So I was like so scared of like stuff like that. Or I was scared of like a really crazy bad edit. And they did a few edits I didn't really care for, like trying to make me look jealous of people. I wasn't jealous of and things like that. But when it turned out, it wasn't that. And I started to see the show as like, this cute thing that's getting a fan base and seems to make people happy. And it's kind of giving us these kind of other opportunities

and the ability to do things that we weren't allowed to do before. I started to embrace it more. But that didn't happen until like season three was when I really started to get into it. So the relationship between you and half, as portrayed on the show, is at times infantilizing, but there was, like, a genuine connection or at least the portrayal of a genuine connection. You'd love of old Hollywood and classic films. Was that reflective of life off camera? Was their genuine connection between the two of you where the rest of the kind of life there disappeared? Yeah, and I think that was one of the problems with me is very early on, you know, he and I kind of attached. You know, we like to do some of the same things. I was always very fascinated with him as like a businessman and a creative and everything he'd accomplished. And later on, we'd end up working together when I was directing the playmate pictorials and things like that. So we bonded pretty early on. And he's the type of person that likes to, you know, have a very romantic relationship with one girl, but also have all these other girls on the side. And he's very big on like love bombing. And I was 22. and hadn't really had many relationships up until then and kind of like fell for it like hookline and sinker and thought it was just going to be us and like well why haven't you got rid of the other girls yet you keep talking about it you know what i mean while the other girls are like who's this fucking bitch who's trying to get us kicked out but they don't know about the conversations we're having behind the scenes so it was a mess but i mean there was connection in a way in a way yeah but why what do you mean in a way because i think he's manipulative i think if he thinks of a girl is smart she's just smart for a girl i think

He always wants to have the control, you know, and I think of, you know, he would always describe himself as a romantic, and I think in a way he believed that, but I think his idea of romance is more like playing house. It's more like, you know, talking the talk, but not actually, you know, investing in anyone or, you know, being monogamous or anything like that. Did he ever talk about, like, vote? Did he vote for Obama in 2008? Like, did it ever come up? Yeah, I mean, he was always like very democratic. So I always knew where he stood 100%. He didn't love to like talk about politics with his friends. His friends were mostly conservative. And I heard and nobody really talk about politics there because they're interests, you know, they were interested in other things. Like he would have a night where his friends would come over and they'd talk about old film. And then he would have like a card night where they'd play poker or whatever. But I heard after I left that the, of course, because I left, you know, before like 2016. But I heard after I left like the. social life just got crazy, like people arguing about politics, like the second he went upstairs, like people screaming in the dining room. Like even like the girlfriends? No, just like his older friends and things like that. Wow. Even 2016, even the Playboy Mansion was not immune from 2016. You know, you said that like he would refer to himself and others would refer to him as daddy. There's a pretty horrifying moment when a woman you refer to as the recruiter

invites daddy to the bed with Bridget is really kind of hard to listen to. Did he think of you as daughters? Did he treat you like daughters that he also wanted to have sex with? Like there's something uncomfortable about the way in which he kind of was a parental figure. Yeah, definitely not like daughters. I just think it was super controlling and just super like stereotypical, creepy old man who's old and wants to date a 20 year old. I think with a daughter, I mean, he actually had a daughter. And I think with a daughter, he thinks of that as an extension of himself.

And we didn't have any of that egotistical investment. Right. So you live at the Playboy Mansion from 2001 through the first few seasons of shooting the girls next door. Was that like seven years? I left in 2008. So I was seven years. What was the moment where like, all right, I'm good. I'm out.

I'm finally ready to leave. Like, what was there a singular? event? Was it you changed? What happened? Well, as the show went on, the relationship between half and the other girls just got completely platonic. And, you know, we were presented on the show, all his girlfriends, but it wasn't really operating that way. And Huff and I, you know, like I said before, like the second I got famous, then I was okay to settle down with. You know, he'd been love bombing and talking the whole time, but it wasn't until I became famous and the fans of the show really thought our relationship was cute and liked our relationship that he was like, oh, yeah,

Maybe this is my next step because he loved to reinvent himself. He was a creature of habit. But if you look at his life, like, every 10 years or so, he'll like reinvent himself and do another thing. So we were actually doing in vitro. And then that didn't work out. I was told his sperm was too old, never going to happen. And I was like, I don't know if I can stay here. Like I always knew I wanted to be a mom and that wasn't something I wanted to give up. But I was so emotionally invested in him and that world. And so it was hard for me. I was kind of, you know, struggling. with a lot of depression around that time and didn't really know what I was going to do. And I was in Vegas one night and went out with a guy. Nothing happened. It was just a guy I thought was cute. But I'm like I feel I'm so confused. I feel like I need to go out. And then if I miss Heff and want to go back, then I know.

And if I don't, then I know. And unbeknownst to me, he had security following me that night. I'd only been in Vegas because I was doing a shoot, a playmate shoot. So I was there to stay one night. But he had security follow me. And he called me instead. I gave him the worst night of his life. I'm like, oh, I can't do this anymore. And then he was begging me to stay. And I'm like,

absolutely not. Like, I knew he was going to hold this over my head for the rest of my life. And I was already wanting out anyway. So I left. Why did he care? Why did he want? Like, he clearly has like such a narcissistic worldview. He has objectified you in a long list of other women. Why would he care if you wanted to leave? He had another woman in the house already that he could elevate to promote to the number one spot. What do you think it was? Other than your incredible qualities, I want to start by saying that. I'm not saying you don't have, you're a special and wonderful person, but it doesn't seem like he saw you as a full-fledged human being. So what was in it for him?

I think one thing is he didn't like change. And it's a pattern I've noticed with him over the years. Even, you know, he used to tell a story about how when he got married in the 50s, you know, he'd been seeing this woman and he'd been in the military and he came back and she confessed that she had cheated on him. that made him want to marry her more because he had to win. And then, you know, he went on to start Playboy. They got divorced, blah, blah, blah. We all know what happened after that. But even throughout the years, like, if you look at, you know, the story of, like, him dating Barbie Benton or, you know, the woman he dated right before me, like, when they wanted to leave, he would always chase after them.

Because I think he didn't want things ending on someone else's terms. You know, he was a creature of habit if he felt comfortable with somebody and they one day, you know, out of the blue in his mind. say they want to leave. You know, he doesn't want that. And that kind of activates him to chase more. But it would usually get to that point when the woman was like completely done. I mean, even after me, he was dating a woman and they were supposed to get married and she like bailed on him like right before. And it was like this huge embarrassment in the press. And all his friends were just horrified when he took her back. But that was kind of his pattern. I feel like that's what he felt he had to do to win, you know? One of his wives had left and come back. And then on the cover of Playboy, he made

her runaway bride. Yeah, yeah, that's the one. Hey, don't go anywhere. There's more of Love It or Leave It coming up. Love It or Leave It brought to you by Blinds.com. If you ever thought about upgrading your window treatments but didn't want the hassle, blinds.com is here to change the game. They're the only company that lets you shop custom blinds and shades online,

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way? Like, what was it like when you left? Immediately, I didn't see it that way. I didn't want to think about it. I wanted to tie it up in this nice, neat bow, and just move on with my life. The patterns I'd seen when I was at the mansion were most of have sex girlfriends, not everybody, but most of them would come back for events, and he'd be excited to see them and give them a big hug and they'd be welcome back and all this stuff. So that's kind of what I thought would happen for me just because it's the pattern I had seen. So I didn't want to think about it. Anytime anybody would ask me about the show or fans would come up and ask, oh, how's heff doing? How's so-and-so doing? I would always

say nice things because that seemed like the nice thing to do. And I didn't really want to think about it. I was more concerned about hitting the ground running and creating a life and career for myself. It wasn't until maybe like four years after I had left, I'd wanted to post an Instagram photo of a certain outfit I had. And to find that photo, I had to look back at this coffee table book we'd made like a girls next door coffee table book. And I was looking through it. And I don't think anybody else would be able to tell by looking at the photos, but I can tell because it's me. I was like, holy shit, I'm like fake smiling in all of these. And I'm so miserable. And that kind of brought it all back. And I sat with that for a while. And it was a couple more years of just

fans coming up to me out in the world every day saying, oh my God, do you miss the Mansion. How's Heff? You guys were so cute together. And I'm still like saying the nice thing, because I think that's a nice thing to say, but I'm lying. And when you're lying that much, it starts to like eat away at your gut. You don't want to do it anymore. And I'm just like, okay, I just need to write a book and like air this all out. So nobody ever asks me how heff is again. So I think a lot of people were pretty shocked by what you described in the book. and it must have changed how people talk to you about your time in the mansion after. What did that feel like when you sort of lay all this out and then people like,

I had no idea, oh my God, like this is an abusive situation. This is a situation in which women are describing being sexually assaulted. This is a situation in women feel like they are captive. They feel like they can't leave, that they've been, you know, a term that we would use later as a groom, like to be there. was that like when you kind of put this forward and let people know what it really was what the experience was really like for you it was a huge relief because i could finally be honest and i felt understood and seen by some people not by everybody i mostly got attacked when the book came out because this was back in 2015 so like the me too movement wasn't mainstream back then

people didn't have a thought as to why like a casting couch could be problematic people were just like fuck you bitch you wanted to be there you know why didn't you leave you know that was kind of the stuff I was getting. But I think people understand better now. And I think especially the younger generation is more open to just hearing people's stories and knowing that there's nuance to stories and that it's possible to want to get into a situation and then get there and realize you are in way over your head and now what the fuck do you do, you know? Yeah, I was going to bring that up. So Hugh Hefner dies in September of 2017. And in part because of the book that you wrote, a few other people had begun speaking out in obituaries.

And there's this reflection of, like, hold on a second. We had treated this man like he was an icon of liberation, but that came at the expense of a lot of young women's independence, self-worth lives. What did you feel in that moment when he died? What was your reaction? My personal reaction. I mean, my experience with him was so specific. It's hard for me to look back on, like, his legacy or his whole life. life and just come to one, like, neat little conclusion. But I just remember at the time how it

affected me personally was everybody wanted me to make a statement. I'm like, I don't feel like it. And you didn't. I thought that was cool. You didn't. You didn't say a fucking thing. My heels in. That's cool. Which I think, aside from my situation or any situation like it, I think it's kind of gross that people are expected to mourn publicly. Like, I was disconnected from him. I haven't spoken to him in years. So it wasn't probably the emotional impact people might think. But what if you really did lose someone so close? to you and you're expected to just come out and talk about it on social media within a week. Like, that's gross.

So that's just a weird phenomenon, period. But, yeah, I didn't say anything. And then one week later, I didn't realize this timing. One week after Hugh Eiffner dies, the New Yorker in the New York Times publish exposés around Harvey Weinstein's abuse of women around the casting couch. that sets off, obviously, the Me Too movement. It must have been, it must have brought up a lot for you when this was unfolding. And all of a sudden, women are telling their stories about ways in which they felt like a powerful man had either coerce them or abuse them in some way. Like, how did you see your experience fitting into like Me Too as it was unfolding?

Well, my situation isn't the same as a lot of people's. I don't want it to get mixed up with, like, say, a violent rape or something like that. But I was just so glad that women were finally able to be listened to and have a voice. I have a close friend who was raped by Harvey Weinstein, and she told me about that years ago. So I knew this kind of thing was going on. So I was just relieved that it was all brought to light, really. But there are, like, just having listened to you and Bridget talk about it. The way she describes the first time she had sex with Hugh Hefner,

It is, at the very least, in a gray area of someone who's, like, all of a sudden having sex with this man in a way that they were quite surprised was happening. There are others that have accused him of sexual assault. Like, even now, like, do you think we still, as a society, gloss over some of the ways he mistreated women? Are we still attached to the kind of glamorous version? I mean, when Secrets of Playboy came out on A&E, I think in 2021, I think a lot of people paid attention to that. But I do think there's a danger of it kind of getting glossed over again. I mean, even on our podcast where we talk about girls next door, like, we try to include everything. We try to include like the good parts of being on the show and, you know, what we did learn and gain

from it as well as the bad things. But I do worry about that. I do worry about just, people being fascinated with the aesthetic and just the whole time period. And, you know, I was always so fascinated growing up with like old Hollywood and, you know, the more morbid the story, the better, you know, the more salacious undertones, the better. And I know there's probably like a new generation who probably looks back on my story and sees the same thing. So I just hope that it doesn't get glossed over again, you know? Yeah. And I think people can handle a complicated scenario. And I think You talk very openly about people as being fully complex, have a lot of qualities. But there is a way in which it felt like what Playboy represented was that liberation had to come at the expense of women.

That the only liberation was like in order to live in a sexually liberated society, it was one in which men were still going to have the power. And I wonder if even now we have, like, I think we still in some ways live in that world where we're still kind of, there's the conservative model that requires women to be a certain way. And if you don't want that, like, well, you have to build an alternative. And it seems like we're still grappling with the option that isn't the Hefner style kind of sex without consequences. Yeah, I think one thing that people don't hold a lot of space for still. is just the emotional impact sex has on women a lot of times it's a biological thing granted not everybody's the same i'm sure there's a lot of women out there who can fuck like a man and not think about it the next day and i wanted to be that person when i was young i you know in the

culture i was raised in just pop culture in the 90s that was kind of where everything was headed like women should be able to just have sex like a man and not care and who cares but that's not the reality you know what i mean like i can't have sex with somebody and not be like severely emotionally impacted by it. It's just a thing. Right. Well, I've actually, like, I'm a gay person, and I, I've often thought that in the gay world, there's an assumption that all the men have that kind of male version of what it's like to, like, not have an emotional attachment to sex. But I actually think, in part because being gay is in some ways feminine, there are probably maybe more gay guys who are like women in the sense of feeling really emotionally attached

to sex and in that world like that's not really something people it's assumed that people have this sort of completely detached psychological relationship but it's not the case and i do think we struggle with that like how to talk about that when it means that like sex sometimes has just a greater emotional toll for women even if everybody is free and equal and making their own decisions a hundred percent yeah go anywhere. There's more of Love It or Leave It coming up. Love it or Leave It is brought to you by AG1. AG1 is the daily health drink that combines your multivitamin, pre and probiotic,

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I had a banana yesterday, but that's sheer luck. That never happens. I'll go forever without having fruit. Are you eating fruit every day? Yeah. Every day? No, maybe not at. every day, but most days. It's just around my house a lot. That's so cool. Kids love strawberries and

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for all the ways in which this was harmful? Like, is that changing? Oh, 100%. I feel like for the past, you know, six or seven years people have been so much more open to hearing my story and understanding and I feel seen and heard. What is that like? Amazing. And you have to understand too, and this is something everybody can take away, is not everybody's going to get you. Like, Bridget and I were just talking about this the other day.

Sometimes you can say something. And then somebody will comment online and they're trying to say you said the opposite of what you said. Do you ever have that happen to you? It's incredible. It's insane. People, it's people. And also just people taking them like least general.

interpretation of your point. Or saying, like, I can't believe you're complaining about this when so-and-so has had it so much worse. What about them? It's like, well, I'm not talking about them. I'm not saying this is the worst thing that's ever happened to anybody in the history of planet Earth. You're just describing your own experience. Or sometimes people think because you cross the threshold into, like, being famous or having money, that that means you can't ever complain about anything that happened to you or talk about it in a negative way or talk about in a way where somebody else could take value from that story, which is silly. Do you ever miss the time in the Playboy Mansion?

Do you ever look back on aspects of it to think, well, I miss that part of it? There are little, little slices of it. But sometimes those tend to be things, or most of the time, those tend to be things where it was just like me and the girls getting to do something. Like there was a time on the show where we all took a motor home and we went up to the Madonna Inn for Bridget's sister's birthday. And that was just such a fun night just to be away with the girls. So it's always kind of stuff like that. It's like stuff where the girls just got to be by ourselves and have a girl's day. It's been interesting listening to you and Bridget on the podcast because you're so thoughtful

and you're such a smart and conscientious person. And it's interesting and you're precise too. Like you're a very precise way of speaking and there's moments where you'll catch yourself and you'll correct it to make sure it's exactly accurate. And you know, you're a young person and you have this idea of. of like how you're going to make it. And it's going to be this Pamela Anderson path or the Carmen Electra's and those people. And those are paths that started with how you looked, that started with the fact that you're beautiful.

You must have been told you were beautiful from the time you were a little girl, right? I mean, my mom would. I think she was being nice. I think I knew I had potential to be beautiful. I think I thought, oh, if those makeup artists at Playboy could just get their hands on me, I'd be so hot. Like that I wasn't like thinking I was already hot it was more like that like I was always told I was smart from a young age I was always the kid that was like put in the gifted class and got the best SAT scores and stuff like that. So it's kind of the thing where like a beautiful woman wants to be told

she's smart, but a smart woman wants to be told she's beautiful. But you were both. Thanks. But so but then why? But like that's why I'm trying to like of all the paths to like so Pamela Anderson is on Baywatch at the time roughly this time like when I was growing up. And it was it was part of the story that she started here and that's how she got there. What made you think that was the way for you? Like there was a bunch of. bunch of different ways you could have made it, right? You were in the gifted classes. You could have, you were pursuing an education. Like, what made you think that this was like basically a route through how you looked? It's hard to explain other than it was kind of this innate want that I wanted to

experience that for whatever reason. I would see these images on TV and oh my God, these women are so beautiful. And I always had this fascination with old Hollywood and Marilyn Monroe. And I always felt like I wanted to experience that. And I think as a kid, kid who had trouble connecting with other people. I think I thought that fame would be a shortcut to connecting with people, which, spoiler alert, it's absolutely not. Fame does not make you feel loved in any way. But as a kid, I think I thought that. And I think that's kind of what pushed me in that direction. So I think I just wanted to experience that life for whatever reason. Like, I wanted to be seen as sexy, and I wanted to be in Playboy, and then I wanted to

have some kind of a career in the entertainment industry. Do you think it was because you were on the spectrum that you could see a path that involved your beauty, but maybe one, not one of all your personality and your intelligence. Because it is of all the things to choose. It's a very specific thing because it's not as though there was the internet where you could dial up all these different options. You had to go out and seek Playboy. You had to know what it was and go find it. And if you were a kid, nobody was going to give it to you, right? Like it was a, it was like kind of a forbidden thing. Yeah. Yeah, that's a really interesting question because when I was younger and picturing myself like being famous or being seen or being in Playboy or whatever,

it was really all about the appearances and what kind of fun clothes I can wear and things like that. And can I be seen and known? I wasn't really thinking about how my intelligence was going to play into it other than I thought it might help me make it there, period, you know. Do you feel seen now in some way outside of being part of girls next door? I do 100%. Like I know it's still like the predominant thing people remember me from, but I think people know my story too. I think it's hard for people to know who I am at all without knowing like the story I've told and what's come after. So that's satisfying. What are you hoping to do next? You're sort of revisiting this chapter of your life, but what are you hoping for in the coming years?

I have a couple of true crime shows on ID Network, which I would love to keep doing those. I love those. I live in Las Vegas most of the time and I really love the community there. I'd love to be more involved in the community. When I first moved there, I was like, I'm going to be mayor of Los Vegas one day. So something like that. That's a great idea. I love it. What would you do to make Las Vegas great again? No, don't answer to that. If you were the mayor of Las Vegas, what would be your platform right now? What are some things you think that the government of Las Vegas should be doing better? Well, it's actually really tricky the way it's divided up because if you're the mayor of Las Vegas, you're only the mayor of like downtown. Right, because it's unincorporated. Yeah. So then you have

the whole entire strip, which is so much a part of what Las Vegas is. So, I don't know how much control you actually have over anything. But I think what the community is really concerned with right now is just affordability for tourists. Everything is just so expensive. And I've noticed people are starting to make changes and offering like the $1.99 huge margaritas again. And, you know, they know that that kind of thing is what's going to bring people back. So I think that's the direction the city's going. So last question, there was like archives of photos and Havner kept all these diaries and this little black book where he took notes on

everybody, Playboy had all kinds of pictures of you and all this stuff that belongs to you that you never signed over. Yeah. And that now belongs to this estate, I guess. Have you ever thought about trying to get it back, of trying to take back what you had never contractually given over to them in some way? Like, have you thought about what you are still owed, even all these years later? I don't know about what I'm still owed, but I would absolutely sue them if they tried to put those scrapbooks in, like, a library. Because I found out while I was there that that's what you wanted to do with his extensive scrapbook collection. And I was horrified because, you know, he takes nudes of all these girls who come upstairs when they're just completely wasted,

probably don't even know what they're doing. He puts like their full name in the caption. It's horrifying to think that that would just go to like a library. And that's not where they are now. They're in the control of his foundation and his ex-wife is in charge of that, which is weird. So they're like locked away in a salt mine somewhere. But if they were to be. put anywhere publicly or, like, scanned and put online or put in a library, I absolutely would sue. Not just because of me, but because of every other girl who doesn't even know she's in there because she took too many quailudes or whatever. And you don't have any lawyers then, but you got lawyers now, right? Yes. Fuck yeah. Fuck yeah. How do you have so many, fuck. Quailudes,

they stopped making them in like the 70s. I think there was a stockpile because on Secrets of Playboy, they tell a story. They talked to a woman who was a 19-year-old secretary of his at the time and a woman who was his 19-year-old girlfriend at the time and he would get these prescriptions of quailudes and he would take them out under different people's names so he could get more. It wouldn't just be his. It would be like he'd put his secretary,

she's getting a prescription, but he's really getting them. His girlfriend's getting a prescription. This other secretary is getting a prescription, you know, so he just had this stockpile. Because I believe it was, they stopped making it in the 1980s. I think so how many, what's it?

There's some secret vaults filled with 1980s that he was giving out for years after? Yeah. Have you seen that scene from Wolf of Wall Street where he's like taking the old expired quailude? Right. He was giving out these quailudes.

Yeah. It's not funny. I don't know why I'm laughing. It's not funny. Well, I think what's so what's so. It's just absurd. It's absurd that like I was struggling with this because I, like I grew up in the 90s and Hugh Hefner was then.

Like he was this like larger than life figure that was. like so cool it was cool the playboy mansion the playboy bunnies and like obviously it's your experience but like just as an outsider can seeing it it's like oh this is a monster this is a a monster who has abused i don't know how many girls who were vulnerable and kind of beholden to him and someone who like even if you don't see it as the same as sort of a forcible rape was coercive and women having sex night after night who did not want to and woke up feeling bad about it the next day. And even still, there is this sort of ambivalence about him. He's calling these drugs that he's giving to young girls thigh openers. Like, are we, aren't we, isn't this a

monster? Like, aren't you talking about the time you had to live with a monster? And that even now, you are trying your best to see it in a way that doesn't kind of hurt as much. Yeah. But that for all the good qualities and nice moments, this is a monster. Oh, yeah. I mean, even when I look back at like good qualities and nice moments, to me, it seems very artificial. Like, even before I really faced what my time at the mansion was like and really dove into it emotionally, like I was telling you for like the first four years I left, like I was still doing a spinoff under like this executive producer who was close with him. And he was always like, you know, why don't I just get you on the phone with Huff? Let's just you guys talk. And I absolutely refuse to do it. I didn't want to do. do it. There are a few scenes I did for my show to go, congratulations, you're getting married, you know, things like that. But he would always want me to have like this one-on-one conversation. And they didn't want to do it because I felt like I'm going to be talking to a robot, basically. Like, this is somebody who's just so manipulative and is just going to say whatever he can say to me to get the reaction he wants back. It would feel like such a fake

conversation. So even then before I'd really processed everything, I was like, no. And do you have any, like, what's your advice to anybody out there that feels stuck in that kind of circumstance? Lean into yourself and don't be afraid of what other people are going to think. I think I was afraid to speak out for so long or afraid to make a move or try anything different because I felt so strongly that everybody was so judgmental against me and thought I was a bad person or, you know, that I was a horror for being there or whatever. And I just let it make me miserable. And I would just encourage people to not make fear-based decisions and just it's never too late to step out or find something new for yourself. Holly Madison, thank you so much for taking the time to talk.

And I hope everybody checks out the podcast. And I think it's actually like an amazing thing that, you know, here you are in 2025. And you have kind of lived through all these eras and survived being attacked all along the way. And now we're finally, at least hopefully in a moment where people are able to to hear you without wanting to hold you responsible for what was a really ugly and misogynist environment. So thank you for being here. Thank you so much. If you're already scrolling endlessly, which we know you are, don't forget to follow us

at Crooked Media on Instagram, TikTok, and all the other ones for original content, community events, and more. You can also find love it or leave it on YouTube for videos of your favorite segments and other YouTube exclusive content. And if you want to type our praises or rip us a new one. Consider dropping us a review. Finally, you can join Crooked's Friends of the Pod Subscription Community for ad-free Lovett or Leave It and Pod Save America episodes, subscriber-exclusive pods, and more. Sign up at crooked.com slash friends. Love it or Leave it is a crooked media production. It is written and produced by me, John Lovett, and Lee Eisenberg. Kendra James is our executive producer, Bill McGrath and Caroline Restin are our producers, and Kennedy Hill is our

associate producer. Hallie Kiefer is our head writer. Sarah Lazarus, Jocelyn Koffman, Alan Pierre and Suba Argoal are our writers. Jordan Cantor is our editor, Kyle Segglin and Charlotte Landis, provide audio support. Stephen Colon is our audio engineer. Our theme song is written and performed by Sure Sure. Thanks to our designer, Sammy Coderna Rees for creating and running all of our visuals, which you can't see because this is a podcast. And thanks to our digital producers, David Tolls, Claudia Shang, Mia Kelman, Dilan Villanueva, and Rachel Gieski for filming and editing video each week. Our head of production is Matt DeGroote, and our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East.

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