NEWSOK! EXCLUSIVE: Kendra on Writing Her Book — "I Was Worried Hef Would Be Mad"
July 15 2010, Published 4:34 a.m. ET
In Kendra Wilkinson Baskett's new memoir, Sliding Into Home, she doesn't shy away from the topics that everyone wants to know about — including her life as one of Hugh Hefner's girlfriends in the Playboy mansion. But even though the general public has an idea of what living in that house entailed, Kendra tells OK! it was still really difficult to write about. "It's hard. It was very touchy to talk about it," she explains. "Yeah, I did it and it's not a private situation. Everybody knows what goes on there. It seems like it would be easy to talk about, but it really wasn't."
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Although everyone might know what being a girlfriend to Hef meant, Kendra says she struggled to put that part of her experience down in words.
"It's easy to answer the question, 'Did you have sex with Hugh Hefner?' It's so easy to just answer yes," Kendra confesses. "But when it comes to writing the book, you have to tell a story. That was the hardest part about writing my book is trying to make that story sound as best as I could with the situation."
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It wasn't just revealing personal details about her own life that gave Kendra trouble as she wrote, her worries about what Hugh would think also played a big part in her writing process.
"I didn't want to offend Hef, and that was probably the hardest part because I wanted to tell my honest thoughts, what was going through my mind at the time, and I didn't want to lie about anything," she tells OK!.
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"Hef and I are like best friends, we're all great friends now. I wanted to be honest. I could've easily said everything was great, flowers, roses, the whole bit — but I wanted to really be real with what was going through my mind at the time," she adds.
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In the end, everything worked out for the best.
"I was really worried that Hef would be mad at me, but he read it himself, and he emailed me and said, 'I'm very proud of you. You actually told the truth. You didn't write this book out of anger or jealousy. You wrote this book because it's your story,' " Kendra tells OK! of how the magazine magnate responded.
All's well that ends well! Kendra's book, Sliding Into Home, is available at bookstores everywhere now!
Interview by Valerie Nome
FOR MORE ON KENDRA & HER NEW BOOK, PICK UP THIS WEEK'S ISSUE OF OK! — ON SALE EVERYWHERE NOW!
