Down the Rabbit Hole - Holly Madison

I was hyperaware of the public perception of Hef’s harem of blondes, so part of me was
convinced that Kendra, Bridget, and I were a total laughingstock. While promoting the show in New
York, we were invited to be guests on the ABC daytime talk show The View. A producer placed Hef
on a chair and strategically organized the three of us to perch around him. It was uncomfortable and
awkward, but we were new to the game and wanted to be amenable. As soon as the cameras started
rolling, Barbara Walters asked the three of us, “Do you always sit like this?” As if it had been our
inane idea. In case I had somehow managed to drift off into blissful ignorance, Barbara Walters was
there to remind us of how ridiculous we all appeared—and what a joke we were. Bridget and I
wanted to crawl inside our own bodies and die. But Kendra . . . she just responded in an episode of
GND that the hosts were all “haters” who needed boob jobs.
JUST A FEW MONTHS after the final episode of our first season aired, E! renewed GND for a second
season. The premier of the second season would end up scoring a three-year ratings high for the
network. In a way, I got what I had wished for. The fame for fame’s sake I had grown to desire was
now mine. It didn’t make me happy, though. It was the emptiest kind of fame, not gained by producing
quality work, but by being a curiosity: one of Hugh Hefner’s three girlfriends.
During the filming of season one, a Playmate named Kara Monaco had come to live across the
street from the mansion at the Bunny House. Kara and I had become close friends over the year and
she even made quite a few cameos throughout the first season of the show. When 2006 rolled in, Kara
was bestowed the highest honor a Playmate can receive: “Playmate of the Year.” She was on the
cover of the June 2006 issue and featured in a gorgeous Cinderella-themed pictorial. Of course I was
beyond happy for my friend, but I was also melancholy. Not only was a friend moving away, but her
success reminded me of the dreams I had had when I moved in five years earlier. As Playmate of the
Year, Kara would be graduating from the mansion and traveling the world for appearances and
promotions. She was moving on with her life, in the same way I had once hoped to do.
At 27 years old, I felt positively ancient. It didn’t help that with every batch of Playmate test
shoots that trickled through Mary’s office, I’d see memos on certain photos denoting a girl who was
deemed “older.” “She’s 28” was always something the Chicago photo editor (a male contemporary of
Hef’s) had to point out as if a prospective candidate was at death’s door. After 28, according to them,
a girl might as well put herself out to pasture.
As production crews rolled back in to shoot season two, I reluctantly decided I would do my
best to accept my lot in life and aspire to one day be the only girlfriend at the mansion. After all, that
is ultimately what I wanted. Wasn’t it?