Down the Rabbit Hole - Holly Madison

CHAPTER 3
“It’s really dreadful,” she muttered to herself, “the way all the creatures
argue. It’s enough to drive one crazy!”
—Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
It only took me one trip in my beat-up red Toyota Celica to move my entire life from a tiny
Westwood apartment into a Holmby Hills estate. No one offered to move me in, but I didn’t really
need the help. I didn’t have much to bring besides the few outfits I owned, some makeup, my college
books, and a handful of childish knickknacks, like Disney Princess picture frames and Star Wars
figurines. I don’t even think I owned a curling iron at the time. I left my single twin mattress next to a
Dumpster.
As I pulled up the iconic driveway on Charing Cross Road, it couldn’t have felt less like
“home.” The gates opened for me, and just like that, I was the newest resident of the Playboy
Mansion. I pulled my car through the driveway and gave the keys to one of the staffers, who then
made a call to one of Hef’s secretaries. She directed me to my room and presented me with my room
key.
Less than an hour later I had moved my belongings into the bedroom that Hef’s secretary
designated for me, and that was that. None of the girls even poked their heads out of their bedrooms,
let alone offered to help. I was pointed to my room and left alone. Now what? I thought. It was
entirely bizarre.
I didn’t tell many people about my decision to move into the mansion—I quickly learned that not
everyone had the most positive reaction. I had naïvely thought of myself as an adult who was free to
make her own decisions, out of high school, away from small-town Oregon, and far from the type of
people who would judge me for my personal decisions. I was so wrong.
When I told Nora I was moving into the Playboy Mansion, her jaw dropped so quickly I thought
it would hit the ground. Nora was hyper-materialistic and wasn’t expecting me to go from “rags to
riches” faster than her. In my excitement, I also told the first acquaintance I had run into while doing
errands. His reaction wasn’t what I had expected, either.
“You hooked up with an old dude?” he cried, his face scrunching up. “Gross!”
All I had said was that I was moving in—nothing about being intimate with anyone. I guess not
everyone was as naïve as I had been. Seeing the angry look that appeared on my face, he quickly
switched gears.