Only Say Good Things

November 27, 2023
This juicy debut memoir from Hugh Hefner’s widow provides an intimate account of her decade-long stint inside the Playboy Mansion. Adrift during her senior year at San Diego State University in 2008, Crystal was encouraged by a friend to send a photo to Playboy during one of the magazine’s open calls. She was swiftly invited to a Halloween party at the mansion, where Hefner picked her out of a lineup to join him in his private quarters; the next day, he invited her to move into the mansion full-time. Crystal enthusiastically accepted, and, over the next five years as one of Hefner’s “girls,” she unsuccessfully attempted to establish an emotional connection with the much older man, who occasionally exhibited tender feelings toward her but mostly treated her with coldness and cruelty. After Crystal left the mansion briefly to date Jordan McGraw, the son of TV personality Dr. Phil, Hefner proposed to her. She accepted, feeling that he “needed her.” Married in 2012, the two remained together until Hefner’s death in 2017. Crystal writes at length about the mansion’s chilling atmosphere: Hefner kept keys to every door, and insisted Crystal and his rotating roster of other girlfriends maintain their hair and weight (at one point, he taps Crystal’s hip and tells her it’s “time to tone”). The mogul, who comes across as narcissistic and obsessed with his legacy, insisted that his close contacts “only say good things” about him—when Crystal doesn’t, it lands as liberating rather than petty. This tell-all is surprisingly empowering. Agent: Lara Love Hardin, True Literary.

December 15, 2023
One of Hugh Hefner's widows discloses the joys and pitfalls of life at the Playboy Mansion. A self-described "good girl" born in Arizona, Hefner (b. 1986 as Crystal Harris) grew up in a family fractured by the early death of her father. In 2008, as a "dazzled, starry-eyed" 21-year-old San Diego State psychology major, she was "chosen" to attend the annual Playboy Halloween party. She soon began dating Hefner, and she moved swiftly from girlfriend, to centerfold, to a member of Hef's "modern harem," to becoming his third wife in 2012, and, ultimately, his caretaker. The author reveals intimate details of the regimented structure inside the estate's "exotic zoo of girls and animals" and some rather unsurprising behind-the-scenes bedroom antics--which, even on their first night together, felt "odd and robotic--like Hef was just going through the motions of something that had once been fun and sexy." Instead of the lavish fantasy life she'd imagined, things became "transactional," with "no wiggle room to say no," including mandatory unpaid appearances on the TV program The Girls Next Door. The author was required to adhere to cruelly critiqued appearance, weight, and fashion standards, as well as a tight curfew ("the pantry staff would start frantically calling my phone at exactly 6:01 p.m."). She ended up retreating to her tiny vanity to enjoy peaceful minutes to herself away from the all-seeing eyes of Hef and his "bossy" longtime secretary. "Playing the role of someone else's image of you every day and every night is exhausting," she writes. When Hef died at age 91 in 2017, the author promptly left the property and began resuming the kind of life she'd left behind many years before. Her frank memoir scratches some of the glitter off Playboy's notorious legacy of sexual freedom, luxury, and excess. An illuminating tell-all.

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