Down the Rabbit Hole - Holly Madison

Occasionally, when I was on my computer, I’d have the TV on in the background. Once I caught
a commercial for the new season of The Girls Next Door.
“I’m not the new Holly . . . she’s the old me,” Crystal snapped sassily in the season’s first
promotional trailer.
Ouch, I thought when I first heard it. Honestly, I didn’t even blame Crystal for the snide remark.
I’d been in that same interview chair for five long seasons before she even came along and I assume
the producers fed her that line. Crystal just didn’t come off as comfortable or clever enough to think
up even a lame zinger like that. In fact, most of her dialogue on the show was painfully awkward at
best.
I was terribly disappointed in the producers. For four years, I had (literally!) bared my life for
that show, but as soon as I left, they were taking potshots at me. There is no doubt in my mind that,
had the new cast succeeded and the show remained on the air, they would still be bagging on me to
this day if it was good for ratings.
From the reports I read and the little I did see, season six felt like a stale rehash of old storylines
mixed with some of the ideas we had tossed around but had not gotten around to using over the years
(like “camping in the backyard”). And when promos began airing, I couldn’t help but see my name
popping up on websites and blogs because of some hurtful jab being made at my expense. It felt like
they were trying to encourage a war between the old and new guard. Or perhaps they felt that by
throwing our names around as often as possible they could distract viewers and keep them from
realizing what a snore-fest the once energetic and bubbly series had become.
When asked in an interview what I thought of the new season, I was honest. Maybe I should have
just said that I hadn’t seen any of it, but the constant jabs had begun gnawing at me—after all, I’m only
human.
“The girls need to focus on what makes them unique and not doing the same things Bridget,
Kendra, and I have already done on the show,” I said candidly. “I don’t want to look behind, I want to
look forward.”
A week letter I received a letter from Hef reprimanding me for my remarks. Hef loved to send
letters. Prior to sending one, he’d usually make a copy and place it neatly in one of his countless
scrapbooks. I don’t think he writes the letters with the purpose of getting a response or closure (which
is why I never bothered to respond), I think he does it so he can have the last word in even the tiniest
event in the story of his life. It’s Hef’s version of reality, all the time.
When I filmed a guest spot on Kendra’s self-titled spin-off, my former housemate confessed to
me (off camera) that she got disapproving letters from Hef fairly regularly as well. She told me she
was forced to apologize for a quote she gave the media referring to the “whores up there” at the
mansion, which Hef assumed referred to the Shannon twins.
I would end up receiving many “reprimand” letters from Hef—it seemed nothing I said in the
press met his approval. The whole thing felt sort of creepy—as if he thought he was my dad or
something and had some sort of jurisdiction over me. Eventually, when I would see letters from the
mansion in my mail, I would throw them away without even opening them. They just creeped me out
and brought forth negative feelings. I didn’t want him to have that sort of power over me.