Down the Rabbit Hole - Holly Madison

Meanwhile, I was taking Las Vegas by storm. Peepshow had quickly become the Vegas Strip’s
new smash hit. Ticket sales skyrocketed, prompting producers to sign me on through the end of the
year! I couldn’t believe it! I knew how hard I had worked trying to make the show and my
performance as successful as possible—and it actually paid off!
Speaking of paying off, I was finally doing well financially. Actually . . . very well. I signed a
multimillion-dollar contract with Peepshow (and even my breasts were insured with Lloyd’s of
London for a million dollars—not bad for a $7,000 investment!). People assumed I had been rich
beyond my wildest dreams at the mansion and that I must be struggling to get by in my post-Playboy
life . . . but, in reality, that couldn’t have been further from the truth.
I was carving out a pretty unique niche for myself, and the quirkiness of my new showgirl life
was becoming hard to ignore. I had been called “one of the most in-demand and beloved celebrities
in Las Vegas” by the Los Angeles Times. Performing full time in a live show made me different from
all the other talent on E! Most reality-show starlets on TV at that time were L.A. girls with a passion
for fashion, so being a new kind of Vegas showgirl at least set me apart from all the others. In the
summer of 2009, I began seriously discussing a spin-off with E! I was determined to make Vegas
work. Luckily, Brenda gave the idea another chance and we started exploring themes for a potential
series.
Season six of The Girls Next Door was a total disaster. After viewers saw what they were
getting on the season premiere, most never tuned back in. The new girlfriends pulled only about half
the ratings we did in previous seasons. When the new season ended in August, E! pulled the plug on
what had been, less than a year earlier, their number one series. In an effort to recapture some of the
GND loyalists—who were tuning in by droves to Kendra—the network green-lit production for a
pilot that would serve as an “E! special” that December called Holly’s World.
My initial vision for the show was Legally Blonde meets a PG-rated version of Showgirls.
Peepshow wasn’t enough for me. I wanted my day job to be interning at the mayor’s office, learning
how to run the city. My pilot centered on a silly plot: me visiting the mayor’s office with a complaint
about roadwork, resulting in my friends and me going on several misadventures trying to collect
signatures for a petition. It was a roundabout way of introducing the people in my life, what I wanted
to do, and taking a tour of some unlikely spots and meeting some strange people in the city.
I didn’t necessarily assume that my pilot would rate that well. I wasn’t an energetic, ditsy, madefor-reality-TV
blonde like Kendra. I was quiet and reserved and much preferred reading a book to
shaking my ass. While I knew my lifestyle was unique, would anyone really care? When I received
word that the special had not only done well, but that E! wanted to order an entire season, my jaw hit
the floor! Of course that was what I had hoped for, but I certainly hadn’t expected it!
It was official: Holly’s World was a go. In my head, I thought it was going to be my version of
The Mary Tyler Moore Show —girl moves to a new city post breakup in order to make it on her own.
With shooting to begin in early 2010, our first order of business was to lock down the cast. The three
friends I had chosen to appear in my pilot were asked back for the full season: Angel Porrino (my
bestie and new assistant), Josh Strickland (my charismatic Peepshow costar), and Laura Croft (my
crazy roommate) rounded out the crew.