My name is lisa guerrero. Playboy, in many ways,
is the reason I am where I am today.
Why would you try to take advantage of young women?
You might have seen me on "inside edition."
were you trying to rip me off?
In my early 20s, I was a "playboy" lingerie model.
20 years later,
I became a celebrity cover model for "playboy"
in January of 2006.
This series is about women like me,
who have an association with "playboy"
but are now looking back and questioning
some really serious things.
They've bravely shared their stories,
but the backlash has been swift.
Tonight, they'll share the aftermath of speaking out.
My name is sondra theodore,
and I was hef's girlfriend in the '70s and early '80s
for five years.
It was like living a fairy tale, and...He made me believe it,
and everybody else did, too,
'cause I don't know if they-- they all felt like
it was a fairy tale, too, that we were so in love.
I would have never thought she would speak about hef,
'cause boy, was she loyal to him.
Hefner--he broke me like you would break a horse.
Hef used, uh, cocaine. He had a drawerful of drugs.
The drugs fueled how many people you could get in your bed,
and all of a sudden, there's three of us,
and three girls became five, and it got ridiculous up there.
He twisted my mind so much that
if I loved him, that proved how much I loved him.
And I didn't wanna be with those people.
He scared me a lot at the end,
because you--you couldn't satisfy him.
He had to have more and more and more.
You know, pretty wild.
♪♪♪
one of the misconceptions
that some audience members might have...
-Uh-huh. -...Is, you know,
why didn't you tell this story earlier?
Because if I admitted it,
it made my story-- the fairy tale,
turn into a nightmare, and--
and so many people counted on that fairy tale
like my own children.
Thinking I had been a princess, at thyou know?Res,
when most people break up with somebody...
-Mm-hmm. -...They move on.
They're not involved -thwith their families.In.
They don't go back for reunions.
-Your situation was different. -Yeah.
Because when you and hef broke up,
you continued to be part of his life.
Yeah. You know, I'm not even sure how--
how I ended up back there,
because it was a painful breakup, but I did.
I ran from the bad by
working really hard at being normal, by getting married.
On my wedding day, I thought, "see?
See? I did it. I was able to get married."
hef came to my wedding, and he gave me my wedding reception,
and the pictures.
-You married one of his friends. -Yeah.
He was in the business.
He ended up handling a lot of the playmates.
He understood me and what I'd been through.
So I didn't have to explain myself,
and for a while, we had a great life.
We have two beautiful children,
and forever grateful for them.
All the girlfriends came back.
We brought our children up for easter.
Easter was very family-oriented, and so that really helped
make everything okay.
It was the only family we knew.
20 years after we'd been together,
if I showed up, hef would make a big show of "here she is"
and the fake, "I'm about ready to cry."
and so you believe it. You get sucked back into it,
and all the bad things-- you think,
"well, everybody else thinks he's okay. He's great.
So maybe it's me." he was that good.
It's charm and smoke and mirrors.
Everybody kept it alive-- that fantasy.
-And you bought into this. -I bought--well, yeah--
-forever. -Forever.
You brought your kids back. -Fyou kept going back.Rs,
...With these women. You kept in touch with them until what?
What was the breaking point for you where you said,
"enough. I'm not going to play into this fantasy anymore"?
It was a long journey to get here.
I had nobody to talk to back then.
And then I saw him indoctrinating my daughter.
Wait. What?
Well, he never touched her, or I would've killed him.
But the same thing-- when she would walk in,
he singles her out and made her feel special,
and I'd say to him, "you can't have her.
Don't you touch her."
and, um...
[voice breaking] and...
That's obviously a really difficult thing
for you to remember. -Yeah. Yeah.
[exhales deeply] because if he had touched her,
I would just have died. Um...
You knew more than anybody how dark...
-Yeah. -...Hugh hefner really was...
Yeah.
...And that there were no boundaries.
-Nowhere. -Would you have been surprised
if he would have tried to lure your daughter in?
He would've. He would've.
One of the things I was interested in asking you about
is how your family reacted to your story,
specifically your daughter.
It was not easy. It was not good.
I'm saying these things, and she's so confused.
We went through many years of I was feeling like an outcast
from my family, because I didn't have the support of them
in the beginning.
They loved me and they wanted to support me,
but they didn't understand it.
They couldn't-- they couldn't go there.
By the end of the documentary, they finally came around,
when their father finally said to my daughter,
"hef wasn't always a good guy.
He did some bad things to your mother,"
and that was the moment
she was able to let go of the fairy tale, too,
and that was really a huge, huge breaking point for us,
for my child to accept it.
I wanna ask you about the playboy family.
Can you describe some of the backlash,
once you told the story? -Yeah.
What has that been like?
I'm being chewed up and spit up by my own.
Not one of them picked up the phone to ask me why
I was doing this.
They're afraid to be shunned themselves.
I loved a lot of those girls. We were lifetime friends.
And to walk away from them,
self-exile was very hard because that's all I knew.
♪♪♪
tell me about the first time you went online
and saw the reaction to your story.
Ugh. The warrior in me wanted to just write back
and say, "are you kidding me?" but I, you know,
I just stopped myself. I thought, this will play out,
and hopefully, by the end of the documentary,
they will see the whole picture,
and they'll have to come to their own truth.
And--and they need to respect mine,
because nobody can tell you your story's a lie,
because it's not their story. Um, I'm not attacking them.
I'm just bringing to light another part of the reality.
-Your identity for decades... -Yeah.
Was connected to--to hugh hefner and this playboy brand.
Yeah. And to say that it was a lie,
that "I was hurt," that "I saw other people hurt,"
that "I saw him hurting other people"...
Yeah.
...That is a big, brave, bold thing to do.
Thank you.
And there are some people who support you.
Yeah.
Lisa loving barrett is somebody you haven't seen in a while,
and she plays an essential part of your...
-Story. -...Story, really.
-Yes. Yeah. -And so are you ready to...
-Yes, I am so ready. -Here's lisa loving barrett.
Oh, my god.
-It's been a minute. [laughs] -it's been a minute.
I don't know if I wanna hug you or feed you.
[laughter]
one of the things that I loved about the documentary
was how you women connected through something
that was a little dark, lisa.
What was your role there before you met sondra?
I actually was working part-time under the table,
helping someone invite people up for the movies
for fridays and Sunday evenings,
and I did that for months until I was introduced to mary.
She was ready for an assistant, so I segued into that position.
Hef came to me and said, "I've hired this secretary
that--she's your age, and I think--
I think you'll really like her, and I thought
that maybe you guys could hang out."
and I didn't think that I was hired to spy on her.
It segued into this thing where hef was saying,
"what are you doing Tuesday night?
Why don't you and sondra go do something Tuesday night?"
but he would say on wednesdays,
"oh, what'd you girls do last night?"
it didn't feel bad to say, "oh, no, we had a great time"
and kind of recant what we had done.
And it wasn't until it started to feel a little bit invasive
that I finally just had to say, "I can't do this.
I can't come back and report to you."
was he jealous? Was he worried that she was cheating on him?
What do you think he was worried about?
All of the above. Attention.
-Period? -Yeah. Yeah, don't you think?
-Yeah, yeah, yeah. -Yeah.
It drove him nuts when he thought of me having fun
outside of his clutches, you know?
Diyeah. What he was doing wasg otry to open up the timeslots.
He had other things to do.
Other people to do.
And that was heartbreaking for me, and she saw it all.
You know, she saw the pain that it caused me.
She told me a great story
I had completely forgotten about on thanksgiving.
-What's the story? Tell me. -On thanksgiving.
It's thanksgiving, and we're partying.
We're cooking in my little 2-bedroom,
above-a-garage apartment.
It's very innocent but very fun,
and mary called and said hef wanted to talk to sondra.
About five minutes after you hung up from him,
mary called back and said, "hef's coming over.
He wants to hang out with you girls."
he left whomever he was with to be with me.
So before hef comes a little car with a butler
who brought in satin sheets. -[laughs]
he goes into my bedroom and remakes my bed.
-With his sheets? -Yes.
Yes, with these satin sheets. So then a few minutes later,
security knocked at the door,
and hef came into my bedroom with sondra.
So I left, and about an hour, hef came back out.
So I scurried around upstairs and peeled her off the sheets.
I have to say, that just sounds so dark.
-And it was disrespectful. -It was all about him.
It went from being fun and adoring
to being exhausting and abusive. -Uh-huh.
Next, lisa and sondra reveal how hef blurred the lines
between business and the bedroom.
Lisa, now as you look back, do you have any regrets
about your participation?
-I do not. -No regrets?
I do not. I have no regrets.
I didn't have a-a perspective of evil or wrongdoing
at that point.
Okay, but what is your response to people today
that say, "you worked for him. You should have known this"?
Well, I mean, look, it was very homogenized then.
It was made okay. It made--
it was okay for me to tell my grandparents
that I worked at playboy.
From an experience perspective, it's easy to see it differently.
With sondra, I saw a hopeful young woman in love.
I loved him, and I kept thinking,
"he'll tire of this, it'll change."
and 'cause he was telling me, "we'll be together forever,"
and I was the first girl he'd like to have a baby together.
He didn't just walk in one day and start doing, you know...
-Yeah. -...Monstrous things.
-It was--it was an evolution. -Yeah.
And the more she gave him, the more he wanted...
Yeah.
...The more he needed, the more he expected.
This picture, I'm being silly. I'm--I'm happy.
-Yeah. -And in this picture,
he's whispering in my ear, isn't he?
I wonder what he's saying. [laughs]
and then you look at my face in that one.
I'd been told to go up and orchestrate an evening,
and... [exhales deeply]
can you see it? It was like the feeling I had every day.
I could believe everything was wonderful and I was happy,
and I was in love.
♪♪♪
and then as the evening approached...
There it was.
There was the whisper. There was...
His wishes that needed to be met.
The group sex--it was at least five nights a week.
They had a protocol.
Everyone had their role they played,
but I wasn't in a romantic relationship with this man.
I was in a work relationship with this man.
And it isn't because I thought I was above it all.
It was because I knew the parameters of my job
that I knew was expected of me,
and I knew 90% of it was business.
Lisa, you were part of the business side...
-Yeah. -...Of the playboy brand.
Can you tell me about the really disturbing things
that either happened to you
or that you noticed happened to somebody else?
Yeah, there were a couple of times
that I put myself in a position.
When we were in the game house,
hef would ask me, "why don't you stay tonight?"
I just told hef that I-- I just couldn't do that.
My daddy told me you don't [bleep] where you eat.
The buffer was I wasn't a playmate.
I was with mary, and I had a job,
and that was the easy way for me.
But one night, I was working,
and hef was still out in the game house.
I had a date that night.
I wanted to go home, but we couldn't go home
until hef went upstairs for the evening.
So while he was still in the game house,
I quickly ran upstairs to the master bedroom,
and there were other women there that were showering
and dressing, and I think you were in the tub,
and I sat on the edge of the tub
and hiked up my skirt and shaved my legs.
And unexpectedly, hef came up much sooner than I thought,
and he came up behind me and...
-[laughs] oh, my god. -I'm trying not to picture it.
And he sort of squeezed my shoulders and said,
"oh, my god. You're joining us tonight?
-Oh. [sighs] -and I just instantly thought,
"oh, I put myself in this position."
that's where the decision was made that
I didn't wanna ever feel like that again.
I'm reading a lot of these criticisms
that say, "oh, I went to the mansion.
I never saw any of that happening."
the same people that-- that would tend to believe
somebody in an office or a different environment,
but they're not believing these women.
-Wi don't think--I thinks? They're believing us,
but they think we deserved it.
Mm, that's really harsh, but...
Why wouldbecause--rve that? Whbecause playboy's playboy.At?
It's sexual. It's not a convent. What do you expect?
I mean, I also am getting backlash from this.
"why did she wait so long? I stand by hefner."
and to come after us, we didn't do the harm.
It was done to us
and excused the person who did it.
You have had two very different experiences.
Lisa, can you just sum up why you decided to come forward
and support sondra during this experience for her?
-Because she is my friend. -She asked me to.
Every woman should have a lisa in their life.
Everyone should be more supportive of women
and their story.
[sniffles]
there's another story that is very similar
to your story, sondra.
This thing that happened with hef
set me back a long way.
Coming up, two hefner survivors reunite
after decades apart.
-It doesn't seem real. -No, no, no.
Sondra, you were so brave
to share so many of your traumatic experiences with us,
but I know that one of the reasons you did that
is in the hope that other people
would share their stories, too.
And there's one other woman that's joining us...
-[sniffles] -...That has had
some very similar experiences--
susie krabacher.
-Hi. [laughs] -[gasps]
you're--you're grown up now.
-It doesn't seem real. -No, no, no. [laughs]
I've only been visualizing you guys just as you were.
I know. You still scare me to death, you're so pretty.
-[laughter] -stop.
Don't be afraid. Don't be afraid. [laughs]
-hi. -I'm so glad you're okay.
I'm okay. I'm okay.
I'm so glad you're okay and strong.
And I'm so glad you are, too.
I was just talking in the makeup room.
I never could come up to you and talk to you
because you were so beautiful and so intimidating
and so perfect. -Oh, I'm so sorry.
No! I just...I'm so amazed that you pulled off
being so strong during all of that.
None of us had any idea.
Yeah. I was hiding it.
If we had only talked, can you imagine?
Yeah. Yeah.
-It's been many years... -Yeah.
...Since the two of you have seen each other in person.
-How many years? 20 years? -Well, we were girls.
-Oh, it's longer than that. -We were girls. We--
-35? -35 years, maybe.
-35 years. -Both: Yeah.
Can you first tell me, susie, a little bit
about what brought you to playboy
and what--what your story was back then.
Well, I started playboy because I needed the money.
I was making $3.25 an hour at my job,
and I was approached by a photographer from "playboy,"
and you know, at first, I said, "yes, you know,
this sounds great," but then when the offer came
to actually go to the mansion, it became really real.
I had this moment as I was going through those gates,
you know, I can run now.
[laughter]
I did believe that what I was doing was wrong,
but I thought, you know, god's gonna forgive me.
I need this opportunity, and I'll never be able
to make this kind of money.
I was playmate of the month of may 1983.
I was staying at the playboy mansion.
It was all very intimidating and really new.
I felt safe in my room, and that's where I stayed.
Hef--he was telling me, "susie, I've heard that
you're nervous and that you've been staying in your room,
but I want you to know it's safe here."
and I'm thinking to myself, you know, okay,
I've never had a strong father figure in my life,
and I don't know if you knew it, but I--
my grandfather was a pedophile. -I did not know that.
And I was his victim from 4 years old...
-Oh, my god. I'm so sorry. -...To 8,
and so I'm thinking, finally I have a grandfather figure
that's nice and safe.
One day, I was talking to hef, and I said, "you know,
I just--I-I need to know about my future.
Will I have to go home? Or you know, what will I do?"
I trusted him so much.
He really made me feel like he cared for me...
-Mm-hmm. -...As, you know,
as like a family member.
You were special. Yeah, you were special.
So he gave me a pill. I don't even remember
ending my sentence, and I woke up,
and then, you know, I'm coming out of it.
I'm coming out of what's actually happened.
This is happening. This is not a dream.
This is happening. Am I-- am I a rape victim again?
Could this possibly be happening?
The next day, I said, "I need to talk to marilyn."
so I went into her office, and I just broke down.
I was so ashamed and felt so gross.
All I could say is, "he did it to me,"
and then she said, "don't worry. It's okay,"
and so I'm like, "okay, so it's okay. It's okay.
It's okay. It's okay,"
and then I went back to the makeup room,
and the entire time, you're being told,
"well, you know, you could be playmate of the year,
and this is so important, and the money--
your life will be changed forever."
ever, yeah. [sniffles]
"you'll never have to worry about money again."
and you're, like, what? What's gonna happen after this?
If I'm not playmate of the year, I can't go back home.
I mean, at least I couldn't.
I think a lot of girls did have their family's support,
but I had nowhere else to go.
He was always nice in front of other people.
Yes, yes.
I didn't like going to the parties.
Boy, did I get in trouble for that. That lasted--
oh, yeah, if you didn't socialize, ooh.
Yeah. It's like, "oh, well, just go to the party.
Have your meal." that's not what it was.
Socialize is flirting, older guys.
Older men.
Not anywhere near our age range.
And they said inappropriate things also.
-They said inappropriate things. -Touched you.
Like, uh, "how would you like a 36dd?"
he wants to buy me breast augmentation.
-I just met the man. -Yeah, yeah, right.
This is unbelievable because what you're describing
is, uh, kind of a circle of people
that expected you to be sexually available...
-Uh-huh. -...For these men.
-Is that fair to say? -Day and night.
So there was this uncomfortable experience
that a lot of women were traumatized by,
and yet if you talk about it to each other,
then it makes it real.
It's a problem, and it becomes a problem, see?
-It becomes a problem. -Yeah.
Okay. What did you do instead?
We talked about everything else.
You never really talked about what happened in there.
Susie, you wrote about your experience 25 years later
in your memoir.
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
This is important.
Sondra, you heard that susie wrote a book.
It helped me...
-Really? -...Come to terms
with what I had, yeah.
And you hadn't talked before then.
-Yeah. Yeah. -So you had no idea...
-None. -...Susie, that you were
the catalyst... -No!
...For sondra deciding to come forward.
-No, and... -My god. [laughs]
it was one of the-- one of the things
that just triggered me,
and, uh, I just--I didn't want the girls to think
that I was condoning these things.
Um...It's still a phenomenon to me that
the very girls that we know were involved
in this kind of activity will not, um,
hold him accountable for it.
But the thing is, it was not that we got ourself
completely into it.
We thought we were doing something
that would better our lives.
I felt like this was-- this was it for me.
I have such a huge amount of empathy
because it could have been me. I went to--I went to--
could've been anybody.
I went to the mansion when I was 20.
Sondra, you had... A new friendship in your life,
someone who wanted to tell their story to you.
Coming up, a new hefner survivor comes forward
to share her story.
One of the amazing parts of doing this special
is hearing the feedback from people
that have seen sondra's story,
and, audrey, you're somebody that came forward
with your own story.
So can you tell me a little bit about
what brought you to playboy to begin with?
Well, when I was younger, I wanted to model.
So everyone told me I was not tall enough.
So I thought, hmm, well, maybe "playboy."
and I sent my pictures in when I turned 18,
and they sent me a letter accepting me,
and I was thrilled.
I flew out to the mansion, got to stay in the guest house
and meet hef.
So you were a teenager. Did it feel safe to be with him?
-Yeah, very. -You felt safe?
Yeah. He was married, number one.
He was married to kimberley at the time,
and I read it in an article.
He had plenty of women, but through his marriages,
he was always faithful.
I do.
As you reached into the '90s, it was a big, big change.
Kimberley was the lady of the house,
and the partying kinda ended.
Kimberley's presence was definitely known
around the mansion.
Hef did not hit on any of the playmates.
As far as talking to him,
we were told that's a good way to get yourself blacklisted
from the mansion.
You know, if he--if we saw him coming one way,
we'd go the other way.
So it's 1994. You came out to shoot for "playboy."
-mm-hmm. -What you thought would be
potentially a centerfold.
-Yes. -And then what happened?
We did shoot for a day or two,
and kimberley wasn't there. She was skiing.
-Hef, though, was there. -Yeah.
-Okay. -I spoke with him.
Um, that's when he invited me to his room.
He said, "I have some photos of you
you might wanna take a look at."
everybody left, and I was sitting
at the bottom of the stairs
deciding whether or not if I should go upstairs.
But then I'm thinking,
you only live once. This is my opportunity.
This is my chance to make connections
and get out there and go in my career and...
I had no thoughts in my mind that anything would happen.
So you decided to go upstairs.
What happened?
He showed me the pictures of me.
They were right there by the door,
and then immediately, he walked me over to the bed,
and I sat down.
He was to the right of me,
and he pulled out a joint to split it,
and now I'm starting to get speechless.
I'm not talking. I'm like, what? This is all happening so fast.
-Yeah. -What's--and he gave it to me,
and then he's pulling down his pants,
and I-I just started--I froze.
And...He got on top of me.
[whispers] I'm sorry.
And, um, I just froze.
Did he have sex with you without your consent?
Yes, he did. I didn't say anything.
I didn't give him permission.
What was I gonna do?
If I said no, would he have stopped? I don't know.
-I just-- -but no. He wouldn't have.
I laid there, and when he was done,
he walked me down to the guest house.
I didn't know what to think that night.
I just--I cried myself to sleep.
So, you know, this isn't a fairy tale.
This isn't what I signed up for.
What are you feeling right now, sondra?
Lots of girls have ambitions. Many have ambitions.
If that's what she was thinking,
it didn't give him the right to do what he did.
The next day, I had a shoot,
and I couldn't move. I didn't get out of the bed.
And I-I didn't go, and the makeup artist, missy,
came at the time and to check on me,
and I said, "I just don't-- I just don't feel
I wanna do this right now,"
and they said, "okay," and then they flew me home.
Did you tell anybody that this had just happened to you?
No.
I-I didn't know what to think. I was scared.
I thought I was gonna get in trouble.
-Yeah. -His house, his power,
she should've known better, his enterprright?D be quiet--
right. So I had to just shut my mouth and go home,
and I did, and then I got a letter in the mail--
a termination letter.
There was a moment, wasn't there,
where kimberley, his wife at the time,
reached out to you? -She did.
What happened?
She called my house phone, and she's like,
"um, I heard that you were up in the room with hugh,"
and she asked me if I went up there willingly
or did he invite me?
Yeah, of course he invited me, but I didn't tell her that.
I didn't wanna get him in trouble.
-I didn't wanna get him-- -you didn't wanna get the man
that raped you in trouble? -Yeah. Yeah.
I mean, that is so crazy.
He didn't care about me or...
What happened to me,
and I was protecting him.
After this happened to you,
did you ever see hugh hefner again?
No. That was it. I was thrown away,
and I shut my mouth.
Can you describe how that experience back then
changed your life and your image of yourself?
It does change you, especially the way
you allow men to treat you sexually.
And it took me a long time to figure it all out.
Never let a man ever disrespected me.
He altered your destiny for your life.
He altered it, and not in a good way.
Audrey, can you tell me what it was like for you
to try to track down sondra?
It was just divine intervention.
A friend of mine said,
"audrey, they're doing something about playboy,"
and then I saw her, and I was like, oh, my god.
This could be the chance that I get to...
-Yes. -...To tell what he did to me.
-Yeah. -I just said,
"I have to talk to her. I have to tell her what happened.
She needs to hear this."
sondra, what did it feel like the moment
that you got that phone message?
It was a voicemail I got, and listening to it,
I was stunned. It was like
the air had been sucked out of me,
and--and I was shaking.
I called her immediately,
and she just started talking, and she told me the story,
and... [sniffles] and I told her it wasn't her fault,
and she started crying, and then I started crying.
It--it touched me so deeply.
The whole reason why I came forward
was being brought to me and showing me
that I was doing the right thing.
You just believed me instantly, and that just felt so rewarding.
Deep, deep, deep in my soul, I was just... [sighs deeply]
sondra, you start the show.
One of the very first things you say
in the very first episode while you're getting miked up is...
I'm not doing this for 15 minutes of fame.
I mean, who would wanna throw themselves
under the train for that?
And you're kind of making fun of it 'cause you're not here...
-No. -...For publicity.
-No. -You're not here for publicity.
No, freedom.
-Freedom. -Freedom.
-Yeah. -What does that mean?
Freedom from keeping
such a dirty secret inside for so long.
Freedom for everyone out there who is having to...
-Yeah. -...To just stop and speak up
and say no and--and...
And say, "you're not getting away with this."
whether you're dead or not,
you're not getting away with this.
You were part of a sisterhood, as you called it,
with the other playmates. -[sniffles] yeah.
Do you think it's possible that you're now starting a movement
with a new sisterhood? -Well, I hope so.
Women coming together for women and holding each other up,
whether it's the good times or the bad times.
I can't even imagine how strong you are
and how brave you are and...
-See? [laughs] -I endured one night of it.
-You endured years of it. -[sniffles] yeah.
I-I can't even imagine what that
would do to you mentally and--and spiritually.
Yeah. Thank you.
I wish I had the courage to say something a long time ago.
You have the courage today.
-Yeah. Yeah. -I do. I do.
Here we are, left with these stories from these women,
and what do we do with it now?
And we wanted to bring somebody onboard
that can give us some insight, and that's dr. Kate balestrieri,
and I wanna ask you first, dr. Kate,
there's a real...Confusion for a lot of us
that were part of the playboy family
because we feel on one hand that we're proud
of being able to powerful in our femininity...
-Yeah. -...And our sexuality
and take control of that. -Yeah.
But the other part, especially after watching
what has transpired over the last 10 weeks--
there's a part of me that feels really awful about it.
In reality, human beings are incredibly messy,
and we're complicated and we're dimensional,
so there's room for there to be really positive aspects
of anyone's experience there, as well as really
terrifying and really horrifying experiences and elements of it,
because if they were all bad, people would have left.
-Yeah. -Right?
Sit there and take that -over and over and over againt
if there weren't some positive aspects
to being a part of this world.
You know, it's easy for people to judge
when you're not in that situation.
Yeah.
I wanna understand why people would hear these stories
and either not believe the stories,
or believe the stories and still choose to be critical.
Let's get to a tweet from cooper hefner.
And for those that don't know,
cooper hefner is hugh hefner's son with kimberley.
So, um, here's what he had to say on twitter.
"some may not approve of the life my dad chose,
but my father was not a liar.
However unconventional,
he was sincere in his approach and lived honestly.
He was generous in nature and cared deeply for people.
These salacious stories
are a case study of regret becoming revenge."
I... [sighs] he was not in bed with us.
He has no idea what he's talking about.
He wasn't there.
What happened to me was not, um, generous, kind.
-No. -It was nothing but evil.
Yeah.
Here's one of my favorites,
and I've seen this a bunch online.
"hef never did anything bad to me."
yeah.
And to me, that is a strange argument.
Just because somebody never did anything bad to you,
doesn't mean he didn't do something bad to her.
-He targeted vulnerable women. -Mm-hmm.
It was almost like he found a niche in your armor somehow
to put upon you. -Yeah, well, yeah,
we were easy to control, easy to manipulate.
There's a document referred to now as "the manifesto"--
the hefner manifesto-- that is referred to
by a lot of side commentators about this show.
"the girl next door should smell like soap and be like a bunny."
"when you feel like caressing it, playing with it,
the girl resembles a bunny."
"the sex that we fight for is innocent sex.
Anybody can join."
"consider the girl we made popular--
the playmate of the month.
She is never sophisticated,
the girl you cannot really have."
"she is a young, healthy, simple girl.
The girl next door."
"we are not interested
in the mysterious, difficult woman."
"the playboy girl has no lace, no underwear.
She's naked, well washed with soap and water...
And she's happy."
and it's why he chose certain girls.
If you're too difficult and too much trouble...
-You're out of there. -...You're out of there.
Why do you think that was, dr. Kate?
Majority of predators, again, are not going to go into their--
their party and start being abusive in front of people,
because they need to maintain this image
of being the trustworthy, safe, smart, kind, empowering host.
The women who have come forward with these stories
were very, very young,
and there's a naivete that comes with that
no matter how old a soul you might be.
Predators--they don't come with a bulletin board that says,
"here's how I'm gonna hurt you." -yeah.
They go out of their way to convince you
that they are safe and that there's a special bond here.
Here's another one.
Why didn't these women report these abuses earlier?
I didn't want people to look at me and think, "you did what?"
[stammers] I didn't want-- I didn't want them to look at me
and think that I was dirty.
They fear they're not going to be believed,
which was the case for many of the women
who have talked about it now,
and they do feel like they were at fault
or somehow brought it upon themselves,
which is absolutely not true,
but that's how many predators make them feel.
One of the interesting things as we've seen the journey
of so many of these women who have come forward,
women have experienced these buried memories.
Mm-hmm.
Repression is our number one defense mechanism,
so when things are scary,
our mind works overtime to keep them out of view,
and as we see different things
that remind us of that experience,
sometime those memories
can come flooding back really intrusively,
um, and they can be overwhelming.
In my case, this bothers me to this day.
Occasionally, I would get a letter from a woman.
I don't know if you ever got the wives writing you letters,
saying things like, "you know, my husband just thinks
you're the most beautiful woman in the world,
and you know, could you give me any kind of tips?
Because, you know, I wanna look like you."
I'm like, "okay, you wanna look like me?
Then hire a lighting specialist, get, um, someone
that can spend three hours on makeup,
spend $10,000 on a photographer. You'll look just like me."
you never saw yourself look of so pretty.Ion.
It wasn't like people snapped six pictures,
and those six pictures ended up in the magazines.
-[laughs] no. -No.
I remember adding up the rolls of film,
and I came up with 3,000 pictures
for my centerfold.
Of all of those images that you shot,
where did the rest of those images go
that didn't go in "playboy"?
-Who knows? I-- -I know.
Do you?
-You don't know? -No.
They're on dirty porn sites.
♪♪♪
after significant financial losses,
in 2011, playboy enterprises sold playboy assets
to a company called mindgeek,
and since then, a lot of former playmates
have seen their explicit images on porn sites--
places that they never believed their images would end up.
What you're telling me is that you're not in control
of those images. -Oh, no, not at all,
and--and no woman deserves to be on a porn site
unless she wants to be.
I can see you're so upset, susie.
Well, this is very new information.
-I'm sorry. I thought you knew. -I didn't.
-This is news to me. -Our images are used.
We are used as carnival barkers to lure people in.
There are images, and our names are on these sites,
and it looks like we're endorsing this.
What?
They've not only sold our beautiful images.
They sold our outtakes.
What?!
Why are the outtakes so different
than what ends up in the magazine?
Why would you be okay with being nude in the magazine
but not okay with these outtakes being out there in the internet?
-They're graphic. -They're graphic.
Uh, I was told that my pictures were being revered as art.
Yeah.
This is your private, most intimate part of yourself,
and to have that violated like that,
our images being soiled and our legacies...
Did you have a lawyer with you, susie,
when you signed a contract? -No!
First of all, what 19-year-old can afford a lawyer?
-Yeah. -I was in the makeup chair,
and I was handed something saying, "sign this."
yep. Yep.
I didn't--I didn't even have the--the time to read it.
You had your clothes off. You were about ready to go on.
You're--you're nervous, and they stuff it to you like...
-Yep. -...Like they're handing you
a birthday card that everybody's signing for the boss.
And you signed it, and it was gone,
and you never saw it again.
They may have had the legal right to do this,
but they don't-- morally, it is so wrong.
And hef didn't respect his girlfriends' photos either.
Even hefner's private party photos have somehow leaked.
When you would go out with hef,
he's taking all kinds of naked pictures of these women,
when we're wasted out of our minds,
and he would print out, like, eight copies
for him and all the women.
You would pass them around. It's just gross.
There was just this mountain of revenge porn
just waiting to come out.
After holly's episode, hefner's widow crystal wrote,
"I found thousands of those disposable camera photos
you are talking about, holly.
I immediately ripped them up and destroyed
every single one of them for you
and the countless other women in them.
They're gone."
what do you want women at home right now
that are sharing these experiences to do next?
Well, first of all, I want them to know it's not their fault.
It's not their fault. It's his.
And, uh, I hope that they come forward,
because united, we can make a difference.
-That's right. -We can make a difference.
I mean, there's just a few of us right now...
-Mm-hmm. -...That are talking openly
about really embarrassing stuff. -Yeah.
Audrey said that she didn't want to let hugh hefner
get away with it. -Yeah. Yeah.
-That's why she's here. -Uh-huh.
-Oh, yeah,] -doethat's exactly right.Ou?
He cannot get away with this.
You don't want the next generation
of young women to think that that was okay and he was okay.
Yeah, and so they'll fall for the next guy...
-Mm-hmm. -...Who gives them these lines
and you start saying, "no, this isn't right."
that's watching this and-- and give a final message?
It's time for them to stand up for their daughters
so that it won't happen to them.
They need to, uh, take their power back,
I think in order to become fully who they were supposed to be.
We really need to stop idolizing a man
who I can tell you was a rapist.
I don't need it to sign any legal documents.
That's my testimony.
We're not the bad guys here.
We didn't do these awful things. He did.
We're not rewriting history. We're just writing it.
-Yeah. -And we're never been allowed
to tell our story, and it's our time.
♪♪♪
we are strong.
[laughter]
♪♪♪