Down the Rabbit Hole - Holly Madison

and . . .”
“Ha!” he shouted into the receiver, going on to accuse me of having had an agenda all along and
reprimand me for not showing up at mansion events post-breakup.
“I wanted to give you your space!” I near screamed into the phone. “I’m not going to show up
and push whoever you’re seeing out of the way. I was never that kind of girlfriend. I’m not Tina. I’m
not going to play that game.”
I was fuming. For so long I tried to be—had been, in fact—a model girlfriend, and here was Hef,
characterizing me as if I were no better than all the two-faced manipulators he dated before me. I was
just trying to move on and live my life, but my 80-something ex wouldn’t stop talking smack about me
to anyone who would listen. So much for exiting with any grace!
He could only respond by ranting about how much I had supposedly changed and what a
different person I was.
He was right. I had changed—and in my opinion, it was for the better. And for the first time in a
long time, my opinion was the one that mattered to me.
After that call, I quit my job at Studio West. While I adored my position and the people I worked
with, staying felt awkward. I needed to leave Playboy totally behind me. Plus, I was no longer feeling
challenged. Hef had very cookie-cutter preferences when it came to Playmate shoots and layouts, so it
wasn’t long before I could do the job in my sleep. I felt like I wasn’t learning anything anymore.
Over the next year, I would routinely pick up the latest issue of Playboy to see the published
pictorials. I was surprised to see the take on the Shannon twins in their pictorial. While the sunny,
fresh-faced tennis-themed photos that I directed (the same shoot that was seen on The Girls Next
Door) were still included, the rest of the pictorial had a distinctly different flavor. The girls had been
styled as “Mansion Mistresses” lying on top of each other on a floatie in the mansion pool, one of
them donning Hef’s signature captain’s hat, seductively straddling each other on Bridget’s former bed
and climbing the grand staircase in nothing but cheap, stripper-store rhinestone jewelry.
So much for the girl next door, I thought. The title of our reality show was inspired by the way
Hef described the ideal Playmate back in the ’50s when he launched the magazine. Most women
pictured in other publications of the era wore heavy makeup and very stylized hair. Hef wanted
something different. He wanted his Playmates to look young and fresh-faced, not like “someone’s
older sister,” which was how he described the look of most models at the time.
Criss seemed absolutely thrilled that I had quit my job. He’d been pestering me to leave and
insisted I use his publicity and management teams. Since Playboy PR had long ago started giving me
the cold shoulder, I accepted.
Over the few months that I was with Criss, my heart would sink any time I would see magazine
articles featuring Bridget and Kendra together. It seemed as if Playboy PR was still working for them,
and suddenly the two girls were pushed like never before. I was never contacted to be a part of the
photo spreads and interviews, though, and it hurt to be the only one left out. Despite the other two
girls moving on to new men, I was the only one Hef was determined to punish. In the media, Hef
would always say what a great girlfriend I had been and that I was welcome back in his life at any
time (which would always send Criss into a fury), but in reality he wasn’t being friendly towards me.