Crystal Hefner Confirms Holly Madison’s Disposable Camera Story and More Reactions to ‘Secrets of Playboy’ Docuseries

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Crystal Hefner Confirms Holly Madison's Disposable Camera Story and More Reactions to 'Secrets of Playboy' Docuseries

Mixed reactions. Since the premiere of Secrets of Playboy, Hugh Hefner's family and friends have weighed in with their thoughts about the A&E docuseries. Some of the late Playboy founder's associates have slammed the series as "ridiculous," while others have corroborated the participants' claims. Crystal Hefner, who was married to the media mogul from 2012 until his death in September 2017, confirmed one of the stories Holly Madison told in the Monday, January 24, series premiere. The Vegas Diaries author, 42, claimed that Hugh would use a disposable camera to take photos of "intoxicated" women who visited the Playboy Mansion. The Holly's World alum lived in the mansion from 2001 to 2008 while she was dating the Chicago native. [jwplayer sMX7auLe-zhNYySv2] "So, if you were messed up and if you were in his bathtub with your top off and some other girl is doing some sexually explicit pose on you, and he took a picture of that on his disposable camera, he'd make a copy and give it to everyone that night and put it in a scrapbook," Madison recalled. After Secrets of Playboy premiered, Crystal, 35, tweeted that she later found "thousands" of the photos the Girls Next Door alum described. "I immediately ripped them up and destroyed every single one of them for you and the countless other women in them," she tweeted on Monday. "They're gone." Crystal hasn't always been so publicly supportive of her husband's ex-girlfriends. Last year, she said that some of the women who've spoken out against Hugh would never have become famous if it weren't for him. “I think everyone’s entitled to their opinions. I think for some it was a lot harder than for others,” she said during a September 2021 appearance on E!’s Daily Pop. “For some of them, you know, being there is what got them attention. So, to keep talking about it and talking about it keeps the attention on themselves. A lot of the women speaking out negatively wouldn’t be where they were if it wasn’t for Hef.” Earlier that year, however, she acknowledged that Madison "went through some very hard things" while she lived at the mansion. “I understand that Holly is probably finding healing by speaking about her experience, for sure,” the model exclusively told Us Weekly in April 2021. “I noticed because I’m trying to find my own healing as I reflect back." Keep scrolling for more reactions to Secrets of Playboy: [podcast_block]

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Kimberley Conrad

Conrad, who was married to Hugh from 1989 to 2010, denounced the show in an open letter signed by hundreds of former Playboy employees, models and Playmates. "All people should be encouraged to share their individual experience in this world, but no one should be emboldened to re-write the truth at the expense of another person's character," she wrote. "What the allegers who speak out now seem to ignore is that there were many of us throughout the years who were there with them as well. I'm saddened, mostly, that these accounts take light away from true victims of sexual abuse, and hope that in time those selling lies to defame Hef find peace within their own lives."

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Renee Baio

Baio, who overlapped with Madison at the Playboy Mansion, defended Hefner and slammed her former roommate's motivations for participating in the series. "I was there as Holly had just moved in right before me," she wrote in the letter. "I was there when she was moving her belongings into Hef's bedroom. Holly craved and eagerly longed to be the #1 girlfriend."

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Cooper Hefner

Before Secrets of Playboy premiered, Hugh's son Cooper Hefner defended his father via social media. “Some may not approve of the life my Dad chose, but my father was not a liar,” he tweeted on Sunday, January 23. “However unconventional, he was sincere in his approach and lived honestly. He was generous in nature and cared deeply for people. These salacious stories are a case study of regret becoming revenge.”

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Brande Roderick

Ahead of the premiere, Brande Roderick described Hugh as a "wonderful person" during an interview with Ashleigh Banfield. “How about the girls there preying on these rich men? I mean, come on, that’s ridiculous," the former Playmate, 47, said on Friday, January 21. "They were all there at their free will: No one was holding a gun to their head.”

The California native also voiced her disapproval of associates and models who only started speaking out after Hugh's death. "The fact that some women are coming out because maybe they have a book coming out, maybe they want 15 more minutes of fame, maybe they’re out of it, whatever, and to do it now, after he’s dead, when he cannot defend himself, to me is disgusting," she said, adding that the magazine founder was "very much against drugs."

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Playboy the Brand

Before the show's release, Playboy distanced itself from its founder in an open letter. "The Hefner family is no longer associated with Playboy, and today’s Playboy is not Hugh Hefner’s Playboy," the brand wrote in January. "We will continue to confront any parts of our legacy that do not reflect our values today, and to build upon the progress we have made as we evolve as a company so we can drive positive change for you and our communities."

The letter also noted that the company supports the women who have come forward with allegations about their time working with Playboy. "We trust and validate women and their stories, and we strongly support the individuals who have come forward to share their experiences," the letter read. "As a brand with sex positivity at its core, we believe safety, security and accountability are paramount, and anything less is inexcusable."

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Crystal Hefner

While Crystal supported Madison's claims about "scrapbooks" containing nude photos of women, she denied Sharmagne Leland-St. John-Sylbert's accusation that Hugh was fascinated by Charles Manson. During the Secrets of Playboy premiere, the photographer alleged that Hugh had "home videos" of the Manson Family. Sondra Theodore, who dated the former editor-in-chief from 1976 to 1981, also compared life at the mansion to the infamous cult, saying, "There were so many similarities with the way the girls followed everything he said, and we were all one big happy family."

Crystal slammed the claims in a tweet posted after the episode aired. "Saying he has interest is definitely a lie," she wrote on Monday. "Hef was friends with Vincent Bugliosi up until his death and that’s extent of being 'tied to' or 'interested.'" Bugliosi was the prosecutor in the Manson trial and the author of Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders.