Down the Rabbit Hole - Holly Madison

starting to panic inside. Was this really what I wanted? As becoming Hef’s one and only came closer
and closer to becoming a reality, the truth was clear to me. I didn’t want someone who wanted to
settle down with me because he was getting too old and tired to continue his playboy lifestyle. I
didn’t want someone who wanted to settle down with me because I was convenient and docile, the
“perfect” girlfriend. I had always wanted to find a soul mate who was creative, ambitious,
adventurous . . . and yes, Hef might have been the epitome of all three of those things at some point in
his life, but that point was long gone, probably before I was even born. What was left was an old man
running like crazy on the treadmill that was “life at the mansion,” desperate to live up to his image.
I felt horribly conflicted. I couldn’t quite admit it to myself yet, but I needed to find a way out.
In the spring of 2008, Playboy searched for the 55th Anniversary Playmate to be featured in the
January 2009 issue. Back in its heyday, when Playboy was still in the home of every red-blooded
American male, the magazine would host a highly publicized nationwide search—à la the
“Millennium Playmate”—to find the perfect girl for the anniversary issue, inspired by movie
producer David O. Selznick’s search for the actress to play Scarlett O’Hara in Gone With the Wind.
When Ukrainian model Dasha Astafieva happened across Mary’s desk in the pages of the Eastern
European country’s edition of Playboy, I knew she was perfect! The black-haired beauty with ice
blue eyes was the clear front-runner, but GND producers and I wanted to create a two-episode
America’s Next Top Model– esque storyline following five candidates as they competed for the title.
In addition to Dasha, I chose four girls Hef would consider for the coveted spot: Hope Dworaczyk (a
brunette standout from the Dallas casting call), Jessica Burciaga (a petite Jennifer Lopez look-alike
whom I found on Myspace), Crystal McCahill (a curvy Chicago girl whose mother had been a
Playmate in the ’60s—a connection Hef loved!), and Karissa and Kristina Shannon (blond twins that I
thought would make perfect TV drama).
After spotting the Shannon twins’ photos in a stack of Playmate test shots, I decided to research
them a bit further. It still amazes me what some people are willing to put up online. Both Karissa and
Kristina’s Myspace pages were riddled with the funniest posts imaginable. It’s hard to explain
without a visual aid, but just imagine two 18-year-old girls posting the most over-the-top, wild,
impressively illiterate entries. It was like something off The Maury Povich Show or Jerry Springer. I
couldn’t tell if they were serious or not, but either way, they seemed like they might be the right kind
of people to stir the pot.
“If they are anything like their posts,” I said, laughing with Angel, who was standing over my
shoulder as we were looking at their profile page, “they’ll make for great TV.”
The candidates were brought to Los Angeles that summer for their test shoots and invited to stay
at the Bunny House. Our Girls Next Door production schedule was tight, so we had a quick
turnaround and needed the girls nearby and available at a moment’s notice.
The shoots were going along right on schedule, until I received word from Dasha that Jessica
had left the Bunny House the night before her scheduled centerfold shoot at the studio.
If she were MIA, we’d lose an entire day of shooting and waste thousands of dollars. No one
had any idea where my runaway Playmate had gone.
“We really need you to finish your pictorial,” I reasoned with Jessica when I finally got her on