Holly Madison bashes ex Hugh Hefner as a ‘master manipulator': I ‘didn't know him'
Ex marks the spot.
Former Playboy bunny Holly Madison is reflecting on her ex-boyfriend, late mogul Hugh Hefner.
'I just didn't know him well,' Madison exclusively told the Post. 'I had this mindset of being in love, and it was kind of tinged with a little bit of Stockholm syndrome.'
8 Holly Madison talking to the New York Post in April 2025.
8 Holly Madison, Hugh Hefner, Bridget Marquardt, and Kendra Wilkinson in 2005.
©E! Network/Courtesy Everett Collection
8 Kendra Wilkinson, Bridget Marquardt, Hugh Hefner and Holly Madison in 2006.
Shutterstock
Madison, 45, hosts 'The Playboy Murders,' (returning for Season 3 Monday at 9 p.m. on ID and streaming on Max), which looks into various deaths and murders of people associated with the Playboy world.
Playboy founder Hefner, who died in 2017 at age 91, dated Madison from 2001 to 2008, when she was in her 20s, and he was in his 70s.
8 Holly Madison and Hugh Hefner at the wedding of Film director Charlie Matthau, son of Carol and Walter Matthau, and Ashley Lauren Anderson a former principal dancer for the American Ballet Theatre in 2004.
FilmMagic
Madison, who has also written books like 'Down the Rabbit Hole,' lived in the Playboy mansion during her time dating Hefner.
'I thought I was connecting with [Hefner], when really I was just somebody who had trouble connecting with people my whole life,' the former 'The Girls Next Door' star explained. 'And I'd met somebody who was like a master manipulator.'
'So I look back and I just see somebody who was young and impressionable and just kind of in a fog almost.'
8 Holly Madison arrives at One Drop Foundation's 'One Night for One Drop' at Hakkasan Nightclub at MGM Grand Las Vegas on March 22, 2025 in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Getty Images for One Drop
8 Hugh Hefner and girlfriend playboy model Holly Madison in 2002.
Getty Images
In 2023, Madison revealed that she had been diagnosed with high functioning autism.
When asked if the 'fog' she referred to was related to that condition, she said, 'I think the fog was more just having such a warped mindset.'
'Cognitive dissonance,' she clarified. 'Thinking I'm in love with somebody, and realizing I got in way over my head and made a bad decision – but always trying to justify that. Or trying to say, 'okay, well, I'm here [at the Playboy mansion], and it's affected this part of my life. It's affected my reputation. How do I make it okay?''
8 Holly Madison's show on ID 'The Playboy Murders.'
ID
She added that she was 'lucky' to be able to 'turn lemons into lemonade, with things like the reality show, and other side hustles' she was 'trying to get going.'
However, during the eight years when she dated Hefner and lived in the Playboy mansion, 'it was just a very, very confusing time to me.'
Madison compares life in the Playboy mansion to 'being a goldfish in the goldfish bowl.'
8 Holly Madison and Hugh Hefner in 2007.
WireImage
'You know, when you're in the goldfish bowl, everything looks all blurry and distorted,' she told the Post. 'And you don't see things clearly until you're outside of the gold fish bowl.'
The reality star is now a mom of two, welcoming daughter Rainbow and son Forest in March 2013 and August 2016, respectively. She and ex-husband Pasquale Rotella married in October 2013, but finalized their divorce five years later.
Hefner, for his part, was married to his third wife, Crystal Hefner, for nearly five years before his death in 2017. Crystal, 39, would go on to claim their marriage as 'very traumatic' and 'emotionally abusive.'
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