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Crystal Hefner Slams Playboy Mansion as ‘Rundown and Gross’: ‘Hoarder Central’
Crystal Hefner (née Harris) is opening up about the downsides of living in the Playboy mansion. After she admitted that she had a lackluster sex life with her late husband, Hugh Hefner, she is now revealing that the conditions of the Playboy mansion were less than ideal.
The California native, 37, said she was initially impressed with the mansion, though quickly learned that it wasn’t as picturesque as she believed. “This was a beautiful English Tudor home — and my family is from England — on five acres in the middle of LA,” Crystal told People in an interview published on Wednesday, January 24. “But over time, I saw that this place doesn’t really get cleaned that well and there’s mold. It just felt rundown and gross after a while.”
“Everything was moldy and dusty and it was just hoarder central in the mansion,” she continued.
Crystal — who married Hugh in 2012 and remained with him until his death in 2017 at the age of 91 — said that the property’s outdated decor made it feel like a “time capsule from the ’70s.”
She added that the house felt as if Hugh “pushed pause at the height of his heyday and never unfrozen it,” she wrote in her memoir, Only Say Good Things: Surviving Playboy and Finding Myself.
The famous mansion, which was built in 1927, featured sunken living rooms with velvet couches, shag rugs and glass chandeliers, while the home also included several game rooms.
Crystal explained that she went into the game rooms “a lot,” though was “always afraid to touch too many things in there.” She added, “I have no idea what happens in there.”
The property also included a zoo, which housed exotic animals including peacocks and monkeys. “Even with the window shut, I could hear their plaintive voices in my mind. ‘Help, help,’ they cawed and wailed,” Crystal wrote in the book about the sounds that would come from the zoo. “At least that’s what it sounded like to me.”
While Crystal admitted that living in the house took an emotional toll on her, she also added that it contributed to her health problems. “The house was literally making me sick,” she said.
Crystal made the claims about the mansion – which was sold in 2016 for $100 million – after she said that her sex life with Hugh was “odd and robotic.”
“This was a well-oiled and well-practiced sequence of events. One that went the same exact way every time,” she wrote in her book about how Hugh went about being intimate. “Picking some girls from the party and bringing them up. Changing into the uniform for the job: silk pajamas. The dimming of the lights. The music. The porn. Passing the pot. And then the sex.”
She revealed that Hugh wouldn’t look at her during sex, adding that he would instead focus on a mirror that was strategically placed on the ceiling. “There was nothing sexy about it,” Crystal said. “It was about power and control and leverage. It was a performance. I was auditioning for a part.”
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