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Hugh Hefner’s ex-wife Kimberly Conrad slammed the Playboy founder’s widow, Crystal Hefner, for exposing disturbing details about their romance and her time at the Playboy mansion.
On Friday, Conrad — who was married to Hugh from 1989 to 2010 — told TMZ that she believes Crystal is only bashing Hugh to get a big payday from her newly released memoir, “Only Say Good Things: Surviving Playboy and Finding Myself.”
“As a few people speak their version of their idea of events in hopes of riding a wave of headline relevance, and making a quick buck, we should all ask ourselves whether we want to live in an environment where people refuse to take accountability and use words loosely like ‘force’ and ‘survive’ to describe choices they made willingly at a certain point in their own lives,” the 61-year-old told the outlet.
Conrad claimed Crystal had every opportunity to leave Hugh and the Playboy mansion behind but she chose to stick around because of the “notoriety, opportunity and money.”
Kimberly Conrad, who was married to Hugh Hefner for over 20 years, is coming to the defense of the late Playboy founder. FilmMagic Conrad took aim at Hefner’s widow, Crystal Hefner, for recently opening up about her “traumatic” and “emotionally abusive” romance with the magazine publisher. FilmMagic“We should be wary of those who try to destroy things because they are no longer benefiting from them,” she added.
Despite Crystal’s recent claims about their “toxic” marriage, Conrad insisted that Hugh was being exploited by the 37-year-old “in his later years and at the end of his life” — not the other way around.
The former Playboy model, who shares two children with the late magazine publisher, decided to speak out because she doesn’t think it’s fair that Hugh is not alive to defend himself.
She also called her ex-husband, who died in September 2017, a “pioneer of free thought and expression” and a “leading voice behind some of the most significant social and cultural movements of our time, advocating for free speech, integrity, sexual freedoms and civil rights.”
Conrad, who has two kids with Hefner, claims Crystal is speaking out to “make a buck.” Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images “We should be wary of those who try to destroy things because they are no longer benefiting from them,” she told TMZ Friday. Ron Galella Collection via Getty ImagesWhile Conrad is still singing Hugh’s praises, Crystal has a much different recollection of her time spent with the Playboy head honcho.
Crystal described her nearly five-year marriage with Hugh as “emotionally abusive” and “traumatic,” telling E! News Thursday that she “never felt like [she] had a way out.”
“I loved Hef, I cared for him,” she told the outlet. “But in some ways that he treated me, I just felt, OK, this guy can’t really be in love with me.”
Crystal has been opening up about her disturbing romance with Hugh ahead of the release of her new memoir. Crystal Hefner/InstagramDuring a separate interview with People, the memoirist noted that she was “dealing with a really big power imbalance” — which made it nearly impossible to tell how she truly felt.
“It seemed like a world of success and fantasy, but everyone’s having to sleep with an 80-year-old. There’s a price,” she explained. “Everything has a price.”
In her memoir, Crystal described sex with Hugh as “odd and robotic,” questioning whether or not he even enjoyed it.
The former Playboy Bunny, who wed Hugh in 2012, felt like she never “had a way out” of her romance with Hugh. Getty Images for Playboy“He seemed less sex-savvy than some of the teenage boys I’d been with years ago,” she wrote. “It was clear to me Hef had never taken a moment in his entire life to figure out how to please someone else.”
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Listen to our weekly “We Hear” podcast Subscribe to our daily newsletter Shop our exclusive merchCrystal also recently reflected on Hugh’s strict rules for her and his other girlfriends while they lived in the “rundown and gross” mansion — such as only wearing “neutral” nail polish, having a strict 6 p.m. curfew and forcing her to dye her hair blond.
“I’d have to go bleach it and it would burn my scalp and I’d have blisters,” she told People. “But for some reason, I thought this was all normal and that’s what it meant to be seen as beautiful in Hef’s eyes.”
She also claimed that she was forced to wear certain nail polish, bleach her hair, be home by 6 p.m. every night and appease Hugh’s sexual demands. MediaPunch/ShutterstockCrystal — who plans to go back to her maiden name, Harris — was just 21 when she met Hugh.
Soon after, Hugh invited her to come live with him and his then-teen girlfriends, Karissa and Kristina Shannon, who have also spoken out about their problematic relationship with the media mogul.
Crystal and Hugh wed in 2012 and remained married until he died at age 91.
Along with Crystal and the Shannon twins, several other former Playboy Bunnies have talked about their traumatic experiences while living in the mansion, most of which were detailed on A&E Network’s “Secrets of Playboy.”
