Down the Rabbit Hole - Holly Madison

understood that if we chose to continue living at the mansion, we had to agree to be featured on the
series. I’ve always been a private person despite my public life, so I was wary about the
repercussions. Would Hef feel the need to bring in more girlfriends for ratings? Would the spotlight
bring out our worst? Would producers try to stir up drama among the three of us?
Jerica waited patiently for me to fill the silence, probably hoping I would break.
“After all, she is an adult,” I said, rounding out my thought. I had shown up for the interview
intending to look as wholesome as possible, wearing a pastel print button-up dress shirt, my hair
pulled back into a ponytail with newly cut bangs, and very light, fresh-faced makeup. Despite my
years of acting classes, I’d never watched myself on camera being “myself.” When we finally
screened the first episode months later, I was absolutely horrified by my appearance. I looked so dour
on camera, realizing that the corners of my mouth naturally turned down when I spoke. I looked
washed out. Moving forward, I would take to caking on makeup like a beauty pageant contestant and
grinning ear to ear for every interview.
“Well, I just meant that she’s young and sort of like the kid sister,” Jerica continued calmly. The
suggestive remark struck a chord with me for a few reasons. First off, I was only 26 years old myself
at the time. Given the relationship I was in, I didn’t really feel like age should matter. We were adults
and free to date whomever we chose. Let’s be honest, our dramatic age difference wasn’t an
uncommon question, but Jerica asked it in a way that made me feel like there were ulterior motives at
play—like she was using some sneaky back-door approach to get me to say something I didn’t intend
to.
“If I say that, it makes it seem like he’s a pedophile, and that’s just gross,” I said, point-blank.
No sense beating around the bush.
Second of all, I hadn’t seen an episode pieced together yet and was still pretty untrusting of the
process. Were they going to paint Hef as this villainous, predatory man? Part of me was still
protective of him. Hindsight offers many luxuries, but in that moment my view was still clouded by
the fantasy that Hef was my boyfriend.
“The idea that one of his girlfriends is still ‘growing up’ feels wrong,” I explained, more
politely than before—aware of all the eyes currently on me.
“Okay, fair enough,” said Jerica. She continued to the next question, lobbing me a softball.
“What do you see life like five years from now?” Mechanically, I jumped into my spiel.
“In five years, I would love for it to be just me and Hef,” I said, smiling and trailing off into my
standard response. I was a part of Hugh Hefner’s publicity machine and made sure that everything I
said publicly was what I thought he would want me to say. Part of me wanted to please him, but
mostly I was terrified of being reprimanded or losing favor by simply saying something he felt was
off-color or didn’t paint him in the godliest of lights. This was hardly my first dalliance with press
interviews, so I had most of the answers down pat.
I think the “growing up” question struck a nerve even deeper than I cared to admit. Frankly
speaking, I’ve always been pretty uncomfortable by Hef’s fascination with extremely young women.
He was obsessed with women looking as young as humanly possible. Everything—absolutely
everything—about that skeeved me out. Jerica’s needling pushed some button to cause all this