Down the Rabbit Hole - Holly Madison

control game. I could never accuse him of doing it on purpose, because he would simply brush off my
accusation by declaring how preposterous it all sounded. And he’d be right. It does sound insane, but
that didn’t make it any less true.
Quickly I shut off my pride and put on the biggest smile I could muster. If he can pretend he
doesn’t remember, I can too. I can’t let him believe he succeeded; he wouldn’t use Kendra as a pawn
to get the best of me. But believe me, he would end up trying.
DESPITE MY ATTEMPTS TO befriend Kendra, she continued to push me away. Hungry for her own
“team,” Kendra desperately tried to make each new Playmate who arrived at the mansion her friend
—and her friend alone. Kendra’s plan rarely worked, though. Most of the new Playmates were nice
girls who were eager to get to know all of the girlfriends. And, let’s face it, Kendra wasn’t the easiest
person to have a conversation with. When the new Playmates would make an effort to spend time with
Bridget or me, they were confused when Kendra suddenly lost interest in being their friend. A girl
was not allowed to play both sides of the fence, so Kendra would toss her aside and find the next
person to entertain her.
And as is true with any caged animal, it was dangerous when Kendra grew bored.
Her frustrations had been mounting for a while. She had been at the mansion for a few months,
and Hef hadn’t asked her to be a Playmate yet. Even though she was well aware that Bridget and I had
never been in the magazine, she thought she was somehow different (perhaps because of the “Painted
Lady” pictorial she posed for in the September 2004 issue) and couldn’t understand why she wasn’t
already on the cover.
“I’m locked down,” she would frequently say, referring to her new life behind the gates. It’s no
secret that Kendra was a pretty hard-core party girl before coming to the mansion. She battled drug
addiction throughout her teenage years and eventually became a stripper to make extra cash. When
Hef finally asked her to move into the mansion, Kendra thought she hit the jackpot. After all, wasn’t
Playboy all about excess? Money, parties, and sex.
But, as she quickly realized, those nights were few and far between—and rarely as much fun as
you’d think. The public’s image of the freewheeling leave-your-inhibitions-at-the-door atmosphere of
the Playboy Mansion was not a reality for any of Hugh Hefner’s girlfriends. The atmosphere
resembled the court of Versailles, with each guest obsessed with rank and standing. There was even a
hierarchy among Hef’s friends when it came to seats at the dinner table. At 19 years old, Kendra was
stuck with a 9 P.M. curfew, a 78-year-old boyfriend, and a stricter set of rules than she had ever had at
home. And now, adding insult to injury, she was finally realizing that she wasn’t as special as Hef
made her believe. She was just another blond girlfriend—and life at the mansion wasn’t all she
imagined it to be.
Much like the battle I endured—and ultimately lost—years earlier, Kendra was desperately
searching for an identity of her own. Being a clone was soul sucking; you were simply another blond
number on Hef’s arm.
In the beginning, Kendra was very quiet. The raucous deep-throated cackle that became her