Only Say Good Things: Surviving Playboy and Finding Myself

by Crystal Hefner

In college I’d learned about the “sunk cost fallacy,” which is when someone is so heavily invested in something, they don’t walk away, even if it would be better for them if they did.

Sometimes sex is just sex; fun, easy, no big deal. But when sex gets combined with power and control, when you can’t say no to it easily or without repercussions to your sense of security, it takes on a different tenor.

one day if I was ever in a real relationship, where sex was about pleasure and intimacy and actual lovemaking, I would regret these nights in the bedroom. I would regret the ways I compromised and betrayed myself.

I learned that I didn’t need to fill awkward gaps in the conversation—that was on the interviewer. It sounded simple, but it was revolutionary. The idea that it wasn’t up to me to make sure the interviews went well blew my mind.

after my time in the mansion I was so automatically compliant and timid, the ability to say the word “no” shook me.

There are so many ways to dehumanize a person. Dismiss them. Laugh at their expense. Take advantage of them.

external armor was no match for the people in the media who only saw it as a reason to attack who I was on the inside.

It never occurred to him to be curious about other people, unless it was for the show or in a media interview. He barely even seemed interested in his own children. I didn’t think he knew how to love.

Power is insidious when it masks itself as generosity. And generosity is insidious when it’s a camouflage for control. And both power and generosity are confusing when they gaslight you into believing they could be love.

He was so desperate for love and adoration, but he had no clue how to give it to anyone else. All he knew how to do was manipulate and leverage his power. I felt like a pawn.

I felt like an object in this house, a thing, like a carved statue or a painting hanging on the wall. Something to be used, looked at, en...

We weren’t women, just interchangeable body parts manipulated to fulfill the fantasies of a man’s twisted mind. Built to feed one man’s hubris. And then sell that man’s fantasies to the entire world.

he never asked me if I wanted to marry him, and I never answered, because it wasn’t a question. It wasn’t a choice. Like all things with Hef, it was a transaction—cover of Playboy equaled marriage and marriage equaled the cover of Playboy.

I have no talent. I’m just standing here. There had to be something more than this.

I desperately wanted to do something real, to make something of my own.

Going along because there’s no choice and saying “yes” are two very different things.

Like so many girls raised in this culture, I was still looking for someone to save me, to make me feel valuable and worthy.

I felt a cold wave of recognition: another performer. Another fake relationship. I had no idea, really, who this person actually was. Once again I was living with a man I barely knew.

Disney movies and Casablanca nights had programmed me into believing that there was always a happily-ever-after involving a man.

When someone wanted me, I suddenly felt valuable. It was an incredible feeling, like the rush of a drug—but it could drain away just as fast. It wasn’t healthy. But I was hungry for it.

what he missed about me was not me, but the idea of me, of having me around.

I knew that when you have money, you have power. You have people’s attention. So when you come from nothing and you get access to money, you go from feeling like a speck of nothing to feeling very valuable.

everyone participated in this as though it were entirely normal. As though there were nothing abhorrent about the commerce of women, about choosing them like appetizers off a menu.

Nobody, ever, wanted to talk to me just to talk to me. I was nothing to them but a doorway to Hef.

Be the sparkly blonde who was always right there at his elbow, a beautiful, silent accessory.

I cried for the small man under the big myth, who needed so desperately to be propped up by everyone around him.

I’d been glossing over a lot. It was all gloss.

I felt this heavy responsibility to all of them, to keep being that person: loyal, supportive, unflagging.

He created this world that brought to life his wildest dreams, but it was empty. He never felt fulfilled. It was never enough.

I was still performing. It was exhausting, and it wasn’t true. I didn’t want to participate anymore in this image machine.

The mansion itself hadn’t been the prison, even though I’d thought it was. The prison was everywhere.

I felt like I could not escape the relentless message that you are what you look like.

while I knew now what I wanted—to live a life where my value was not entirely based on my appearance—I didn’t know how to do that.

I am still struggling with the powerful instinct to “be what they want.” It is so ingrained in me.

The legacy is crumbling. We’ve all seen what the Playboy Mansion is really, and what it always was: a fading relic falling into disrepair, a promise of sexual liberation that was always a lie, a glamorous mirage that turned out to be a trap.

But I am who I am because of my experiences—good and bad.

I don’t have to have it all figured out, and sometimes you only know who you are by what you are not any longer.

The man thought to be the greatest lover in the world never knew how to love at all.

You have to lose yourself, Mackenzie, you have to give up everything about you that makes you unique and special. You have to give up your mind and your opinions and any belief in choosing your own future. But mostly you have to get really, really small. So small you don’t leave a trace. So small you don’t cast a shadow. So small and so quiet that even if you are screaming you can’t hear it.

“Life is too short to be living somebody else’s dream.” I’d heard him say that before, but never to any women.

yes, I used to only say good things, but now, I say whatever I want.