Down the Rabbit Hole - Holly Madison

successful post-mansion life for myself and I wasn’t going to just hand over the reins for the chance to
be on a show roughly 40 people would end up watching (okay, maybe a little more than 40). It felt
like I was being used.
Despite sharing a friendship and a common experience at the mansion, Kendra and I were still
very much different people. There were times when I was compared to her and encouraged to follow
Kendra’s method, but it just wasn’t me. While she was quite a bit more mainstream than I was, her
“career moves” consisted of things like releasing an old sex tape or coming out with a line of
lubricants. While her tabloid coverage focused on positive things like her wedding and baby her first
year out of the mansion, lately her headlines had devolved to negative things like: “Why I Left Hank,”
“Kendra Loses Her Baby!,” “Kendra’s Secret Breakdown,” and “Sex Tape Scandal.” Ummm, no
thanks.
Since she moved into the mansion at 19 years old, Kendra had never had to work for a thing her
entire adult life. She went directly from having cameras follow her as Hugh Hefner’s girlfriend to
cameras following her being a football wife. Luckily for her, whether it was Hef or Hank, there was
always someone around to rescue her.
Were they seriously asking me to simply hand over the career I had built by myself so her life
could look more interesting on TV? It appeared so.
“I worked my ass off to promote Peepshow and make it a success,” I continued, firmly and
unapologetically. “The work I put into this production actually means something to me. If I tossed in
Kendra as my understudy, people would see that on TV and think Peepshow is just handed from one
ex-Girl Next Door to the other. It would tear down everything I’ve built to make myself an
individual.”
I was told that it wouldn’t and that Kendra wouldn’t even be able to do the show. That she
would think she could do it, but she wouldn’t be able to pull it off.
“The answer is no,” I maintained. “I’ll support Kendra on her show, but I’m not handing my life
over to her. No way.”
They finally conceded, before offering one final plea: “But think about it. It would get you back
on television!”
Did he really think I wanted back on TV that badly? I thought. I couldn’t begin to imagine
Kendra’s Peepshow run. First off, there’s no way Kendra had the self-discipline to perform in eight
live shows a week. She didn’t possess that kind of work ethic. And I could never unleash Hurricane
Kendra on my cast and crew.
Sure, we’d been on excellent terms since we left the mansion, but I knew for myself what a
nightmare she could be to work with. Her incessant tardiness, endless excuses, and toddler-like
tantrums had become a thing of legend.
After continuing to turn down the Peepshow understudy idea again and again (they really were
relentless), I finally agreed to shoot a simple scene with Kendra at her new home—Hank’s NFL
career had ended the year before and they had settled outside Los Angeles—for the debut episode of
her series.
The plan seemed organic enough: she and I would simply talk and catch up. Producers