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She hung up her bunny ears years ago! Kendra Wilkinson took to Instagram on Tuesday, March 7, to let fans know that she is tired of being labeled “a Playboy girl” nearly a decade after calling it quits with Hugh Hefner and moving out of the Playboy Mansion.
“Sometimes it’s hard always being labeled a Playboy girl cuz I’ve never ever seen myself that way,” the former centerfold, 31, captioned a sexy bikini pic of herself. “I left the playboy world almost 10 years ago n have moved on in my life.”
Fans first met Wilkinson at the tender age of 18 when The Girls Next Door premiered on E! in August 2005. The San Diego native appeared on the reality series alongside Hefner’s other girlfriends, Holly Madison and Bridget Marquardt. Wilkinson, the youngest of the three, stood out for her blunt personality, hilarious one-liners and, of course, her distinctive laugh.
Though Wilkinson’s relationship with Hef, now 90, and her spot on the show ultimately launched her career — she went on to appear in an E! spinoff series, Kendra, and currently stars on WE tv’s Kendra on Top — the blonde beauty is hopeful that she can break free of her affiliation with the men’s magazine brand once and for all.
“Comparing me now to that 18 year old girl then is apples n oranges,” she continued. “I can give a f–k about meeting standards and impressing people. Who I am is who I am n the people who follow my journey know what’s up n I love you guys. Got a lot coming up n can’t wait to share it with all of you.”
Since parting ways with Hefner and Playboy, Wilkinson has gone through many major life milestones (both good and bad), as documented throughout her reality TV tenure and covered in the press.
The Sliding Into Home author married football star Hank Baskett in June 2009. Together, they share son Hank Jr., 7, and daughter Alijah, 2. The couple dealt with a highly publicized marital crisis in the summer of 2014, when Us Weekly confirmed that Baskett, 34, had cheated on his wife with a transgender model. The affair went down when Wilkinson was eight months pregnant with their second child.
Baskett had denied the allegations until he finally came clean to his spouse of six years during their stint on Marriage Boot Camp: Reality Stars in 2015. Since then, Wilkinson has found it in her heart to forgive the man she has affectionately called “the love of my life.”
In an April 2016 interview with Us, the “Lost in Space” singer insisted that she and Baskett are in it to win it despite their problematic past. “I said, ‘I do,’” she said at the time. “That’s why I married him, to be partners through life, to be friends through life, to experience life together, not to have everything perfect.”
