Down the Rabbit Hole - Holly Madison

He assured me I could take my time and there was no hurry, but I was anxious to get my stuff out
ASAP.
The next day, while Hef was working in his office, I went into the master suite for my last round
of packing. When I went to grab my things from a shelf near the bed, I noticed one of Hef’s file
folders sitting neatly in the middle of what was formerly “my side of the bed.”
That’s weird, I thought.
Hef never leaves important documents lying around. They’re always locked up in his bedroom
safe or his office, or being hand carried by him personally. He was a man of routine—and this was
entirely out of character.
Curious, I picked up the stack of papers, which were obviously left for me to see. Inside was a
copy of his last will and testament. I spent seven years living with the man, so I can tell you on good
authority that he would have never have left something this important lying around by accident. It was
clear to me that this was meant for me to see.
It carefully outlined the division of his estate. After death tax, his fortunes would be divvied up
starting with roughly 50 percent to his charitable foundation and the bulk of the remainder divided
evenly between his four children: Christie, David, Marston, and Cooper. No surprise there.
What came next was shocking to me. For the better part of a decade, Hef used money as a means
to control each girlfriend. Anything he shared was temporary: a weekly allowance, monthly payments
for leased cars, etc. At a moment’s notice, he had the ability to pull the rug out from under us.
But it was there, in black and white. The will stated that $3,000,000 would be bestowed to
Holly Madison at the time of his death (provided I still lived at the mansion). At the time, it was more
money than I’d ever know what to do with.
We had never spoken about his will—and I never expected anything like that. In the past, he had
casually mentioned leaving me the Bunny House, but I never took the bait. Disgusted by the golddigger
image the public had of me, I tried to stay away from those kinds of clichés as much as
possible in my real life. I still held on to a shred of hope that I would one day be financially
independent. I had saved enough of my GND salary to put a down payment on a Santa Monica condo I
hoped to rent out. And once I had started making some money, I stopped accepting the “clothing
allowance” that made me feel so cheap.
Eventually, I would go on to find my own success, but I didn’t know it back then. My future was
a gamble. Despite spending seven years in one of the most expensive homes in Los Angeles, living a
relatively lavish lifestyle, I had no wealth of my own—just the illusion of it. Three million dollars
was a lot of money to me.
But I didn’t want it. I actually pitied him for stooping to that level. I couldn’t help being
offended. Did he really think he could buy me?
I put the folder back on the bed just as I had found it and never breathed a word of it.
During one of our final encounters at the mansion, Hef spotted me as he shuffled down the
hallway.
“You’re not wearing your bunny necklace,” he said, a sorrowful look plaguing his eyes. I didn’t
know what to say. I was only glad he didn’t know that I had already started the process of removing