All right, Miki.
Are you ready?
I'm ready.
Who is Miki Garcia?
Her name was always in the air.
Miki Garcia, she has the facts.
She was Miss January of 1973
and served as director of Playmate promotions
from 1976 to 1982.
I myself believed the Playboy promise--
all these opportunities for women.
I was touting the brand.
I had dreams of going up the corporate ladder,
but Playboy was the culture of sexual power,
where somebody could fondle you or grab you.
It was nothing if you didn't have someone come up
and grind you from behind,
but I could never have said anything.
We didn't have a voice.
Women were disposable.
The sexual harassment and the abuse
that they suffered, it had to stop.
♪ ♪
My name is Hugh Hefner.
I'm editor/publisher of "Playboy" magazine.
When Hugh Hefner was just 27,
he fashioned himself and Playboy
as the face of sexual liberation.
Playboy is one of the most famous
brand names in the world.
I would like to be remembered as somebody
who played some positive part
in changing the social sexual values of my time.
I believe that Hef pulled one over on the whole world.
The fantasy of Playboy that he created did not allow
for the consent of the women.
When it came to Hefner's buddies,
you had to keep those secrets quiet.
What have you got for free?
When you get someone that powerful,
anything could happen, anything.
The people who were really there,
they're the ones who know the real truth.
I want to be a voice
for the women that suffered the most at his hands.
♪ ♪
This is my model release, okay?
This has never been shown before
because Playboy would not
give the Playmates a copy of their contracts.
I kept notes the whole time I was there.
I've done this research and documentation for so long.
It's really hard to trust anyone with it.
If I could, I'd sleep with it.
And all of this work that I do, it was meant
to bring Hefner to justice.
♪ ♪
Being director of Playmate promotions,
I really felt a responsibility to the Playmates.
I recognized whatever I could do for these women
in their ambitions and their careers,
that it would be good for Playboy.
I believed in the pitch because I had not seen the future.
♪ ♪
I didn't know the fallout that could come from it.
♪ ♪
When Playboy found me, I was competing
for the Miss California World Pageant
in the summer of 1972.
I really wanted to be a psychiatrist.
My father said, "You get the education, Miki."
We just didn't have the funds to do it.
And so I went ahead, and I did modeling.
When I entered the pageant, Marilyn Grabowski,
who was the West Coast photo editor at the time,
she was one of the judges.
I didn't win the pageant, but I got first runner-up.
She came backstage, gave me her card,
and she said,
"You should be a Playboy Playmate."
And I told her, "I'm never taking my clothes off."
I used to go to Mass every morning,
and my parents were very strict.
So I had that foundation of Catholicism,
but Marilyn really gave me an incredible pitch.
She kept saying, "Listen,
"do you know the money these women make?
"Do you know the opportunities that you would have?
"This is the time for women to be able to express themselves.
"Nudity is beautiful. What we do is art.
"This is not a sleazy operation.
The Playmate of the Month is the girl next door."
And I looked at her,
and I asked her about what she did for Playboy.
I don't know about you, but I was kind of surprised
to find out that the picture editor of "Playboy"
would turn out to be a girl.
Well, I think a woman can be
just as objective in a man in these matters.
And besides, I can second-guess Mr. Hefner pretty good.
Marilyn Grabowski was a woman in a top job.
Here was this incredible woman, very strong woman.
It was crazy how much power this woman wielded.
When she walked in the room, everybody was like...
"Marilyn's here."
She was powerful.
I was watching her very carefully, and I said,
"You know, I think I want to be you."
She looked at me a little bit differently...
But she didn't care.
She was thinking, "Hey, let's get her through.
Let's get her through."
I truly believed in my heart that I would do well
because I would apply mys-- my dad used that.
"Apply yourself, Miki." So I applied myself.
♪ ♪
I was Miss January, 1973.
I was one of the first Hispanic Playmates.
I was proud of that.
To get my leg up a little bit higher,
you know, when I was in that side pose,
they had me put my foot on a red bucket.
You know, isn't this funny?
Everybody thinks, you know,
"Playboy" is so glamorous and all this,
and here I am--I've got my foot on a stupid red bucket.
I did do full frontal
because I believed that I had the right to do it.
Absolutely I was judged by people.
But this was the '70s,
and there was that liberation about the body
and the sexual revolution.
We were free.
♪ ♪
Over the years, there's been an increase in attacks
from radical feminists,
who view Playboy and Hugh Hefner as the enemy.
♪ ♪
My mother and I, we had had a tiff.
She got so involved in talking about the feminist movement.
I represented everything that she found disgusting
and what she was fighting against.
At Playboy, our opposition was feminists.
People were burning their bras, you know.
It was this whole idea of liberation for women
and women being equal to men.
They felt that women taking their clothes off
to pose for the pleasure of men
was sort of antithetical to feminism.
I was very proud to have women
who'd posed in the magazine saying,
"I have a right to do this. This is my body."
I was actually insulted.
I felt as if I was a feminist myself, for goodness sakes.
Why couldn't they see that I was forging my own path?
♪ ♪
I remember we were in Marilyn's office,
and she said,
"Miki, you're different than the rest."
♪ ♪
She got Hef on the phone.
She says, "I've got Miki Garcia in front of me,
"and, Hef, this is our next Playmate of the Year.
She's no bimbo."
♪ ♪
And he said,
"Yeah, she's the next Playmate of the Year."
♪ ♪
Well, you sure know how to pick 'em.
Well, let's say I've had more practice than most people.
- I'd say. - But, actually, of course,
I don't pick the Playmate of the Year by myself.
The editors of "Playboy" do the final selection.
We have...
Ultimately, Hef is the one
who chose the Playmate of the Year.
Was it a fair competition? I don't think so.
The girls did a lot to win that favor,
and he knew that they would,
so he usually played that up.
I know he's the one that made the final decision.
If you became Playmate of the Year,
you got more fame, you got more money.
You got more power. Who didn't want that?
♪ ♪
After they promised me Playmate of the Year,
Marilyn called me, and she said that Hefner wanted to meet me.
I was worried.
I had been asked to go to the Mansion.
I avoided it,
but I really had no more excuses left,
so I went with her.
I was extremely nervous because I just simply knew
that if I didn't go to bed with him,
I wasn't going to get Playmate of the Year.
I mean, I had that in my gut. I wasn't for sure.
I just thought, "If he asks and I say no,
"there goes that money out the door
and everything I worked for," right?
What a joke-- it comes to that.
♪ ♪
I mean, when I first arrived,
it seemed like most of the women
who are coming through and testing for Playmate
felt like they had to sleep with him
to get Playmate of the Year.
Not every single one of them did.
There were a few exceptions,
but I think a lot of people felt like they had to.
I think it was known that they were sort of expected to.
Yeah, in order to get Playmate of the Year,
you had to do some pretty wild things up in the bedroom
with Hef and his friends.
You had to vie for that position.
♪ ♪
It was Christmastime.
Hefner was opening up some presents,
and Marilyn said to me,
"Miki, you have to go talk to Hef now."
And I knew what that meant.
I said, "I don't think so."
And she said, "I'm telling you right now, it's now or never.
"I mean it.
Go talk to him."
And I knew it meant that I had to go over there
and beg for that Playmate of the Year title
and be vulnerable to him.
I knew that.
She didn't have to say it.
I just kept looking at Hefner,
and he was unwrapping this one present,
and it would say "large dildo."
And he had this big smile, this giggle.
It just turned me off so much inside,
I said, "No, I'm not going to do it."
And she says, "Well, then, okay."
That was it. We drove back.
She didn't say anything to me. We went into her office.
There were other women there, the gals.
It was all champagne flutes,
and poured it.
And then she made a toast...
to the new Playmate of the Year,
Cyndi Wood.
♪ ♪
That was--that was my first business lesson,
so to speak, from you Hugh Hefner.
I'm not saying that Cyndi slept with him.
I don't know what the relationship was.
All I know is
that I didn't like anyone putting me in a corner.
I hate corners.
No, I wasn't going to be a bed partner to him,
but he was gonna damn well respect me.
I was going to move forward and get more power
as an executive and call the shots.
I had an opportunity when the person
who was running Playmate promotions left.
The promotions department was the big revenue for Playboy.
The job was to go out there
and be the best representative of Playboy that they could.
And so any kind of event that somebody might have,
oftentimes they would want a Playmate
at that event to draw in customers.
Not everyone got to do Playmate promotions,
but if you could have a pleasant personality
and be able to work with people and take pictures with fans,
you know, hey, you're gonna make $200 a day.
I did Playmate promotions for 31/2 years.
I was sent to do car shows.
We would visit veterans,
hospitals, stereo shops, whatever.
I had done it all, and I thought,
"Okay, I have this opportunity."
I become head of it. I'm gonna make them look great.
If I could bring something to the interview
that they couldn't discount...
then maybe I had a chance.
So I went to a good friend of mine,
Robert Larivee who started all the Autoramas.
He said, "I'll tell you what, if they make you head
"of Playmate promotions,
"I'm going to swing all of my business
"to Playmate promotions.
You go tell them that."
And so I did.
I went in, and I sat down, and I laid it out,
and I said, "I will be director, not coordinator.
"The position deserves that respect.
"These women deserve the respect.
They are the heartbeat of Playboy."
♪ ♪
"I'm one of them. I know who they are."
I was then told that I got the job.
♪ ♪
They let me have the title.
I had reached my goal, I thought, right?
I did it. I did it.
I was going to be an executive with Playboy.
I was gonna be like Mo Grabowski.
Yeah, that's what I was gonna do.
Next thing I knew, I was behind these double doors,
and they seated me right in the reception area
like a secretary.
The woman who was heading up the agency at the time--
she says, "Okay, well, make up get these composites,
"put them together in a book.
Do this, do that, do"--
And I went ahead and did it. I just went ahead and did it.
♪ ♪
When I was director of a Playmate promotions,
I booked publicity with Dorothy Stratten,
with Deborah Jo Fondren,
with Sondra Theodore.
I was traveling with the girls
and also searching for Playmate candidates.
I was working with women, women who wanted to work.
They loved to do promotions
because that's how they paid the bills.
If you stayed in good with Playmate promotions,
you weren't a problem on the road,
you showed up when you said you would,
you were guaranteed to have work.
There was a lot of promotions, a lot of signings.
I was so humbled by the fact that these people
are waiting for my autograph.
Like, me?
We would rehearse with them before radio and television.
The trick with the spin that we were teaching them
was always to be...
gracious, ladylike, but also,
"I'm your ready
"and willing girlfriend.
However you like me, I'm right here."
You just can't get enough pictures
of them beautiful things.
That's the message. And I'm "the girl next door."
I'm so clean.
You know, I'm rosy-cheeked, et cetera.
I always told the women
that this was a very sexually charged environment.
You had to be careful on the road.
They expected you to be their personal Playmate.
It had happened to me.
Some guy comes in after a long day,
walks me to the door,
just rushes right in,
sits down on the bed and starts taking his clothes off.
♪ ♪
This guy just took for granted
I was going to be his sex partner for the night.
Anyway, I said, "Get out, get out."
There he was on the balcony,
and I slammed it shut and locked it.
I mean, nine floors up?
Nine floors up, what did I expect?
He was going to fly?
I didn't give a
that he was going to have to grow wings.
♪ ♪
I was so angry with all of the garbage
that I had put up with,
and I heard the other girls saying,
"The guy, you know, just wanted to touch me,"
or, "He made me do this."
These women were trying to do a job.
They were trying to get paid for it.
They didn't need the sexual harassment on top of it.
So that spurred me forward,
that I would get into the position
where no woman had to put up with that crap.
♪ ♪
Oh, I was so proud of Miki Garcia's career.
I mean, she was the first female director
of Playboy promotions.
I saw that the glass ceiling was cracking
and it was great to see.
I wanted to meet her
'cause I thought we had a lot in common,
and, sadly, it was a male-dominated atmosphere,
and they kept us separate.
I thought they didn't want us together
because we could share stories
about what was really going on with Playboy.
This my ID card
when I was the assistant Bunny Mother in New York City.
I had dreams of going up the corporate ladder,
from being a bunny to an assistant Bunny Mother.
You just worked your way up,
and that's what my dreams and aspirations were.
They changed my name 'cause it wasn't corporate enough.
They said that it sounded like "Petticoat Junction,"
so they changed it to PJ, and it lived.
In 1979, I moved to Chicago as a Bunny Mother.
That's me up on the top there with Christie Hefner
and me as the Bunny Mother.
Part of the reason I thought I'd have an opportunity
as a female was because we had Christie Hefner.
I thought it was a great opportunity.
I saw a female in a position of power,
and that's what I wanted to do.
I wanted to be like Christie. I wanted to move up the ladder.
♪ ♪
Christie went to work for Playboy after she graduated
summa cum laude from Brandeis university.
In six years of on-the-job training,
she has worked her way up the organization chart,
from assistant to the president
to vice president and member of the board
of Playboy Enterprises, Incorporated.
It was wonderful at 30 years old
to see a female breaking through that glass ceiling.
My father said after I'd been with the company
only about a year that if I hadn't existed,
he would have wanted to go to the promotion department
and have me invented.
For Playboy, Christie Hefner's advancement
to company president
should represent a formidable publicity weapon
in Playboy's ongoing battle with the feminists.
Christie was this new branding,
this new image for the magazine.
We still had the feminists
with their attacks against Playboy,
and so putting her face as the leadership of the magazine
was very smart, and she was very smart.
How can you justify a magazine
which doesn't liberate women but exploits them?
I have never felt that way because it's never seemed to me
that a photograph of a beautiful woman
without her clothes on is exploitive of the woman,
the reader, or anybody else who has any part of it.
She was the reset
of the whole idea of Playboy.
Because Playboy is so misunderstood
in a number of quarters
related to the women's movement and related to sex,
I think the fact that...
the Hefner who will one day run the organization
is a woman is a very positive thing.
I was never, like, crazy about Hefner.
You know, I sort of thought he was a joke,
but Christie, she was together, and I admired her.
I still do admire her.
She had a lot of wonderful ideas
on what she wanted to do.
She did a lot of charity work.
She was a philanthropist,
and she was a young female executive.
I saw hope in that. I saw a promise in that.
So I aspired to be like her.
♪ ♪
As a Bunny Mother in Chicago, I was excited
because it was the largest club
and I had about 70 bunnies who were under my supervision.
♪ ♪
I had all these lovely girls working for me.
I developed a merit system so that I can raise them up
so that they would have an opportunity
to go on promotions, make extra money.
I helped them with babysitting if they had to go out of town.
And for me, it was exciting because I thought,
and I was told, "You work for corporate,
you'll move up the ladder."
♪ ♪
But then they pushed
that ceiling right back into my face.
♪ ♪
I don't think Christie ever knew about the behavior
of the executives towards the females.
♪ ♪
Working at Playboy, a man in upper management above me,
clearly my boss,
touched me on the rear end with an object
and then asked me
if I considered that sexual harassment.
You just expected it.
I worked for a man in silk pajamas.
You know, so, when you see the photos,
that automatically lended itself
to a degree of casualness
that you would never experience in any other office atmosphere.
You know, I mean, it was nothing
to be loading the Xerox machine and have someone come up
and, you know, grind you from behind.
And even now I get so squirmy inside
at that moment,
but I did--I could never have said anything.
I couldn't have said like, "What the hell?"
You know, I mean, I just couldn't have.
I wouldn't. I couldn't.
♪ ♪
When I was director of Playmate promotions,
I wanted to change
the way the company treated their women--
how they made sure that they had safety
and to make sure their environment
was the appropriate environment,
because I had been out there.
I knew how tough it was.
And...
there were some sponsors that had to go.
Well, one was my rapist.
There is always a situation where you become powerless.
♪ ♪
Somebody comes in,
and they can do what they want to with you,
because in their mind,
they're living this fantasy of what Hefner projected.
♪ ♪
I was raped early on as a Playmate.
I was going to appear at this particular auto show.
It was late. I had taken the red-eye.
There was a group of men in the hotel bar area.
♪ ♪
I said, "Does anyone have any shampoo?"
This particular person, I recognized him.
He was a very popular actor
on a very well-known series.
♪ ♪
He was booked just like I was, as a celebrity.
And I knew that he had worked the circuit.
And he said, "I'll go get some for you, and I'll bring it.
What room are you in?"
And I told him.
♪ ♪
He knocked on the door.
And I opened it,
and he just came in very forcefully.
♪ ♪
And in that moment...
I knew I was trapped.
♪ ♪
And I went to the phone, and I said,
"I'm going to call the police."
And he said,
"Look, you've invited me in your room.
"You wear the rabbit head logo
"on your sweater.
"Who are they going to believe?
You or me?"
♪ ♪
I didn't want to become a problem to Playboy.
I didn't want for them to perceive me as a whiner
or a person that couldn't handle the job.
And so the tough part of me kicked in.
I knew this is the way it was going to go and that was it.
♪ ♪
What happened to me...
♪ ♪
Is that I got raped twice.
After the first rape...
he sent me into the bathroom to take a shower.
♪ ♪
Apparently he liked someone fresh
after he had done what he had done to me.
♪ ♪
Next day, I went out there and got onstage.
I had a stack of autographs, and I signed them.
This disgusting pervert, my rapist,
was working close by me, and I worked all day.
♪ ♪
If I allowed that to break me,
I couldn't move forward in my life.
What I wanted to do...
I was going to get into a position of power
so that no woman had to put up
with that kind of behavior from any man
just because she had a rabbit head logo on her.
And so, when my rapist
ordered up a Playmate for a job,
I simply instructed my secretary
to tell him to never call again...never.
He would never, never, ever get a model from Playboy...
never.
Hey, Miki, how you doing, doll?
You always call me doll.
You're so full of New Jersey. - You are a living doll.
♪ ♪
It wasn't until later years and social media
that I finally got ahold of Miki Garcia,
and we became very, very, very close friends.
When PJ and I speak,
we are also filling in blanks.
We share a lot, and so many of the stories
were exactly the same,
like this guy who was way up there in corporate...
I can name the name of this man.
His name is Nat Lehrman, and...
I have a picture of him. I found it.
And he put a note on it. I have it right here.
No, but he was grabbing me as he always did.
- Oh, my... - Yes.
Whenever he hugged me,
he was always trying to touch my breasts.
I would just shove it away
and say, "Oh, Nat, you keep on going"
Well, your greeting was a boob grab.
My greeting was push the back of my head down.
Did you gals report this?
Who are you gonna tell when they're all doing it?
No, that's true.
♪ ♪
At the corporate office in Chicago,
it was a male-dominated atmosphere
where somebody could fondle you,
or somebody can grab you,
and it was made very clear to me
after I transferred up there.
♪ ♪
They appointed a general manager, Mr. Walk.
He had no experience at all working for Playboy.
He had control over every one of us.
He didn't know what bunnies were.
He thought of them as sexual objects.
It was always, "Why, PJ, why can't you go out with me?
You have boobs. You don't have to wear a bra."
He would go up to the young ladies
and ask them if they got any last night,
and he would touch them and grab them.
It's exactly what Playboy was all about.
The "Mad Men" experience.
Women didn't have a voice, and they were accosted,
and they were made fun of.
Women were subservient.
♪ ♪
One day I was walking out of the club,
and one of the upper executives,
he says, "I'll walk you home."
He said, "Listen, it's pretty hot out.
Can I get a drink of water from you?"
And I said, "Sure."
So he came into my apartment, and he started kissing me,
and he started grabbing me, and I said, "Please"--
This was a big executive. I said, "Please don't do this."
And he said, "Why do you think you came to work in corporate?"
He said, "You have to play the game
if you want to do anything in corporate."
And I was not an active participant.
He just did what he had to do and turned around...
♪ ♪
Raped me...
♪ ♪
And walked out.
I was not an isolated case, I will tell you that right now,
'cause I heard many stories about the corporate executives
and their hands all over these girls.
It was rampant in Chicago,
with the sexual abuse of women.
It changed my world...
changed my perception.
This is the way the corporate executives were.
They could do whatever they wanted to do,
and they didn't answer to anybody--that's the thing.
♪ ♪
I was concerned about the Bunnies.
Our general manager, Mr. Walk,
he continued to harass all these young girls
that are trying to make a living.
♪ ♪
So I called a mandatory Bunny meeting
about the general manager.
I asked the girls, if they had any personal situations
that they wanted to talk about, to write them,
but don't sign them, because if they had their name on there,
I knew that they would be attacked.
You're never gonna believe what I found in the garage
as I was going through boxes.
I found all of the notes from the general manager's meeting.
All of the complaints and the sexual assaults,
every-[bleep]-thing is on there.
Oh, here's one of them,
"We're tired of the condescending attitudes."
"Could conversations regarding Bunnies' sex lives
and if they got a little last night stay out of the club?"
♪ ♪
"We want it to be understood,"
and this is in big letters,
"Hands off all the Bunnies."
♪ ♪
I thought that was it.
When I brought all of these notes
from the Bunny meeting to my boss, Harriet Bassler,
she got angry.
She said, "This can't be true"
and took all my notes and turned around
and sided with the general manager.
♪ ♪
He denied everything, and everybody believed him.
Forget about, you know, the 30 Bunnies
that had complaints against him.
They just wanted me out of the picture and shut me up.
♪ ♪
I really cared about these girls,
and I tried to protect them.
Instead, they told me that they were transferring me
out to Great Gorge.
And they kept him.
♪ ♪
I had so many plans and dreams.
None of it was true.
♪ ♪
There was no power there.
I thought I broke the glass ceiling
when I went to corporate.
I didn't. I was silenced.
And I didn't know what to do.
I wanted to be an executive.
I worked so hard for nine years.
I wanted to be an executive.
But in order to be an executive for Playboy,
you had to play their game.
And women were disposable.
If one was gone, they'd replace it with another one.
Women were disposable.
When I became director of Playmate promotions,
I believed that I could take that woman from the centerfold
and give her opportunities.
I thought that's what Playboy was about.
And it was hard.
It was so damn hard, because I carried the stories,
the heartbreaks, the pain...
♪ ♪
The desperation.
These women who thought it was Shangri-la there
and all these opportunities they could get
only to end up in a very bad way.
♪ ♪
My job required making sure that nothing negative
was printed in the media
that would hurt the brand or Hugh Hefner.
I did damage control.
If a girl got in trouble,
I protected Playboy and squelched it.
Oh, yes, there were--
Yes. Yes.
♪ ♪
I didn't believe they would ever get through.
♪ ♪
There was one particular Playmate
that was holding over Hefner's head
that he had given these young women drugs,
including herself.
And that was a very serious threat.
That's part of the cleanup I did.
Women did bring things to me that were not good,
but they didn't want the exposure and the scrutiny.
So I counseled them
and informed Hefner...
and then he took care of it.
♪ ♪
I felt guilty.
I was complicit in it,
but I did it believing that it was right.
And if I could buy into it, what chance did they have?
♪ ♪
Many of them started taking drugs to cope.
♪ ♪
It was painful.
♪ ♪
There was a pattern.
They walked through the damn Mansion door,
and they exited
in a horrific, horrific way.
Dorothy Stratten,
20 years old from Vancouver, Canada,
was on her way to becoming a celebrity.
At 19, at the urging of her husband, Paul Snider,
she entered "Playboy" magazine's search
for a Playmate of the Month.
She was named Miss August 1979,
and less than a year later,
she was chosen the Playmate of the Year.
Early today, the bodies of the Playmate of the Year
and her estranged husband were found in his house.
Dorothy Stratten's death...
♪ ♪
Was the final straw.
That did it. That did it.
It was...
♪ ♪
So shocking to me.
Dorothy Stratten was a very beautiful young woman
who came to Playboy
with very high hopes.
She had the potential to be a big star.
She made the fantasy come to life.
♪ ♪
Hefner saw her as someone who could sell
an incredible amount of magazines.
She was his meal ticket.
♪ ♪
This is August 24, 1979.
I resorted to writing the memo,
and the subject matter is Playmate Dorothy Stratten.
"Dorothy's husband"-- and I put Paul Snider.
"It is rumored among the car-show people
"that Paul was arrested in Vancouver
for dope peddling and pimping."
This is a memo that I wrote
because I wanted to warn Hef
that...
Dorothy Stratten was with a very dangerous man.
No one ever answered me,
and security came back with-- they knew nothing.
Really?
That's impossible. It's impossible.
They knew all along that he was a dangerous pimp
and he was attached to Dorothy.
Hef didn't care. He just didn't care.
That's it.
♪ ♪
She was a Playboy centerfold
and an aspiring actress at the age 20
when she was killed by her husband,
who then killed himself.
Snider killed her.
And Dorothy's death made such a huge impact on me.
By that time...
I had seen a lot with the women.
♪ ♪
And to actually have one tortured,
raped, and...
♪ ♪
A shotgun blast to face...
♪ ♪
It was all wrong.
It was so wrong.
♪ ♪
Everything was handled so poorly.
♪ ♪
When I got the call...
♪ ♪
Around 6:30 in the morning...
♪ ♪
I was told, "Call all the Playmates
"and make sure that they understand
"that they are not to speak to any...
newspaper people."
You could not do any interviews.
♪ ♪
Well, again...
My job was to go in there and silence them.
And I did.
♪ ♪
I came into the corporation
wanting to make things better for women.
There was no way that I wanted to further harm them,
but being a Playboy Playmate is a dangerous thing.
♪ ♪
And I was starting to realize that...
[sniffles] Playboy was a business...
where it was easy for someone to get hurt.
♪ ♪
And I was part of it.
I began hating myself.
♪ ♪
And I couldn't leave at the time
because I had a damn job...
♪ ♪
To help clean it up, to--
And I'm not just talking about damage control with the press.
I'm talking about trying to watch over the women
and trying to..
♪ ♪
Trying to make something right
that could never be right in a million years.
♪ ♪
It was a wake-up call to me.
I was one of Hefner's best ambassadors.
♪ ♪
Maybe take a good look at the business aspect.
♪ ♪
I had to reevaluate everything,
everything in my life.
♪ ♪
I had to look at everything. I had to look at who I was.
I had to look at who I worked for.
♪ ♪
Most of all, I had to look at the Playmates.
♪ ♪
This guy, he drugged me.
He did a lot of really horrific things.
It was, like, 20 guys.
They wanted to take a picture with us in this hot tub.
And he said, "Get in here. I paid for you."
Really, is we were prostitutes.
I was doing drugs, and I was so thin and ill.
I was wilting away.
It scared me so much to see myself like that.
I felt like I was lost in this world
that I would never get out of.
I knew that there were other women
and that they had no power.
They had no voice. They had no one to go to.
♪ ♪
Who could that be?
♪ ♪
It was me.
Appearing before
before the U.S. Attorney General's commission
on pornography,
Miki Garcia has come forward
with what she claims is the inside story
of Playboy's Playmates.
♪ ♪
Playboy was becoming more explicit,
and it became what I considered flesh peddling.
There was a push to show more
and be a good girl and get the shot.
They had made me a porn star against my will.
Hefner and his staff encourage Playmates
to use illegal drugs.
I testified about rape,
abuse, coercion.
Playboy was dangerous to women...
and I was going to stop it any way I could.