NEWS'Own Your Choices': Hugh Hefner's Friends Slam Holly Madison After She Calls Group S-- With Late Playboy Mogul 'Disgusting'
Friends of the late Playboy mogul said Holly Madison's recent remarks about him were an act of 'betrayal.'
May 5 2025, Published 11:32 a.m. ET
Hugh Hefner’s friends were disappointed to hear what former Playboy bunny Holly Madison had to say about the late mogul.
In a recent interview with the “In Your Dreams” podcast, Madison shaded Hefner and called group s-- with her ex-boyfriend of seven years “disgusting,” prompting a group of Hefner’s longtime confidants to hit back at her words.
Holly Madison called group s-- with Hugh Hefner 'disgusting.'
“She was there for seven years. Seven. That’s not the behavior of someone who felt trapped,” suggested a friend of Hefner after she talked negatively about his behavior. “She knew exactly what Playboy was, and she knew the arrangement.”
Despite Madison calling Hef a “master manipulator,” a second close friend of the Playboy founder noted, “He loved her deeply and never lied to her. He was generous, honest and treated her with care. To paint him now as some kind of monster is just unfair.”
Hugh Hefner's friend slammed Holly Madison for profiting 'off the man who gave her the life she built her brand on.'
The source noted that Madison, an author and TV personality, didn’t vocalize her repulsion until long after they broke up.
“It wasn’t until she needed to stay relevant that the stories became darker and more dramatic. It’s hard to watch someone profit off the man who gave her the life she built her brand on,” they said.
A third insider expressed how Madison using the Playboy name for profitable gain felt like “betrayal,” adding, “It’s not that she didn’t have complicated feelings. But if it was as awful as she now claims, why stay? Why promote the brand? Why wait until the spotlight faded?”
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The former Playboy bunny hosts Season 3 of 'The Playboy Murders.'
A former Playmate added their opinion, saying Madison should stand firm in the decision she made to date Hef from 2001 to 2008: “She’s allowed to share her story. But don’t pretend like you didn’t benefit from it. Own your choices — just like he did.”
In one of Madison’s recent interviews during her press tour for Season 3 of The Playboy Murders, a true crime series about the deaths and disappearances of Playboy figures, she explained her long stay at the Playboy mansion was due to Stockholm syndrome.
Holly Madison dated Hugh Hefner from 2001 to 2008.
“I had this mindset of being in love,” she told The New York Post earlier this month. “And it was kind of tinged with a little bit of Stockholm syndrome.”
The Down the Rabbit Hole author continued, “So I look back, and I just see somebody who was young and impressionable. Just kind of in a fog, almost. I think the fog was more just having such a warped mindset, cognitive dissonance, thinking I’m in love with somebody and realizing I got in way over my head… but always trying to justify that.”
Sources close to Hefner spoke with journalist Rob Shuter about their opinion of Holly Madison.
