Sex workers expose ugly truth of living at notorious Moonlite Bunny Ranch
Two decades after the headline-hitting HBO docuseries brought prostitution into America's living rooms, sex workers who appeared on the show are accusing its producers of exploitation and misrepresentation.
Cathouse, which began airing in June 2005, took a lighthearted look at the lives of employees at the Moonlite Bunny Ranch, a legal brothel in Mound House, Nevada. An instant ratings smash, it ran for two seasons and spawned 10 specials.
The prurient program portrayed the world's oldest profession as empowering and depicted the brothel as a makeshift sorority house where glamorous gal pals bonded by profiting off of horny, harmless, men.
But the reality, exposed in the six-part special Secrets of the Bunny Ranch, premiering June 12 on A&E, was far more sinister.
The documentary paints a picture of desperate women humiliated, intimidated and manipulated by the brothel's notorious owner, Dennis Hof, who was later accused of rape by a former employee.
Several women who worked at the Moonlite Bunny Ranch claim Cathouse tacitly encouraged young female viewers to pursue a career in prostitution, buoyed by the show's fun and fizzy tone.
'It enticed these young girls and we did get a lot of them,' Cathouse star Shelly Dushell told The Post.
'As soon as they turned 18, [they] were trying to work there… I mean, the show really was good for recruiting.'
'I would say to HBO and Cathouse [producers] shame on you,' former Bunny Ranch employee Bekah Charleston declared in an interview with The Post.
'Shame on you for making something look glamorous and fun when that's not the reality. It wasn't glamorous and fun. It is disgusting and horrific work in the middle of nowhere.'
HBO did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
A powerful pimp
Hof had a starring role on Cathouse. In the mid-2000s, at the time of the show's airing, he was portrayed in mainstream media as a pioneering entrepreneur getting rich in light of legalised prostitution.
But far from being a benevolent boss, the Bunny Ranch was more like Hof's house of horrors, with employees saying they lived in fear of him.
Dushell told The Post that Hof, who owned six other legal brothels, regularly pressured her into sex.
'Dennis wanted to sleep with me the first night that I got there,' she claimed.
'I didn't say no to him, so I wasn't raped, but I was put in a position where I felt like I could not say no to him…. So I just went along with it and I thought, 'OK, well, maybe he makes all the girls do this,' and I was right.'
'For the most part, he tried out most of the girls that would let him,' she added.
'And then he apparently he did it even when girls didn't want him to.'
Per The Las Vegas Review Journal, Hof was accused of raping a prostitute at one of his brothels in 2005. He was also accused of sexually assaulting women in 2009 and 2011.
Hof ran as a Republican candidate for the Nevada Assembly in 2018. He died of a heart attack in October of that year, but his name was left on the ballot at elections the following month. He was posthumously elected to the seat.
'If Dennis had lived, he probably would have ended up in prison because of all the accusations he had against him,' Dushell said of the pimp-turned-politician.
Meanwhile, on Secrets of the Bunny Ranch, several employees claim that Hof financially exploited them.
He allegedly underpaid numerous workers, stripping them of their agency and effectively keeping them confined to the remote brothel.
Charleston, who worked briefly at the Bunny Ranch in the early 2000s, told The Post that some of the employees were trapped there 'for years at a time without leaving.'
'I was the only person at that time that I remember who actually had my own vehicle there,' she shockingly stated.
As for Hof: 'He was just was a disgusting, vile human being that just profited off of other people's backs and bragged about it.'
Moonlite Bunny Ranch has released a statement regarding the new A&E special, stating: 'As the documentary series Secrets of the Bunny Ranch has not yet aired, and we have not been provided with an advance copy, it would be premature for us to address any specific allegations without first reviewing the actual content and claims being made. That said, we note that allegations against Mr. Hof are not new.'
'During his lifetime, Mr. Hof publicly addressed and denied similar accusations through official statements and media responses, including detailed rebuttals available on his website,' the statement continued.
'We find it particularly concerning that these matters are being revisited now, when Mr. Hof is no longer alive to personally respond to or defend himself against any claims. The timing raises serious questions about fairness, as the accused party cannot provide their perspective or defence.'
Empowerment or exploitation?
Hof wasn't the only one making a pretty penny from the Moonlite Bunny Ranch. Cathouse quickly became a ratings smash for HBO, garnering millions of curious viewers.
Dushell became one of the show's stars and was immediately recognized in public, but fame didn't come with a fortune.
'HBO wasn't much better than a pimp, because I was barely paid anything,' she claims in the Secrets of the Bunny Ranch documentary.
'I made between $300 and $350 per sex scene,' Dushell further explained to The Post. 'And that was all they paid me for.'
'I got actual pay stubs from HBO and W-2s mailed to me, and it was exciting to get an envelope that said 'HBO' on it with a paycheck, but the paycheck was just a few hundred dollars, so it was pretty embarrassing to be honest with you,' she said.
'They didn't pay me for just normal scenes, and it was just a ridiculously low amount of money. People seeing me on TV thought that I had gotten rich,' Dushell added.
A different time
Cathouse premiered a year after HBO aired the finale of Sex and the City — another envelope-pushing series in which women unabashedly discussed their sexual proclivities and activities.
In the mid-2000s, pop culture seemingly promoted sex positivity at every turn, making it seem that women were profiting from their provocative pursuits, from Britney Spears in her raunchy video clips to Paris Hilton in her infamous sex tape.
But in the wake of the #MeToo movement, many women are reassessing how much agency that era actually brought about.
For posterity, the New York Post's 2002 review of the original Cathouse, which is referenced in Secrets of the Bunny Ranch, has aged far better.
'There hasn't been a portrayal of hookers this one-dimensional and phony since Pretty Woman,' our acid-tongued TV critic Linda Stasi savagely wrote.
Cathouse is no longer available on HBO platforms.
'Even when we were filming it, I knew it wasn't a true representation,' Dushell admitted to The Post, saying the HBO show omitted the gritty reality of life at the brothel.
'They wanted to sell the show, they wanted to make money off the show, and they wanted to make money off the girls having a great time. They just didn't want to show the ugly side of it,' she further says in Secrets of the Bunny Ranch.
Despite the veneer of glamour and empowerment that Cathouse presented, many of the employees were desperate women who had fallen on hard times.
In the Secrets of the Bunny Ranch special, Dushell reveals that she was sexually abused as a child, saying: 'I probably would never have thought about working at the Bunny Ranch if I hadn't had an old man touching me when I was a little, bitty kid.'
Charleston, meanwhile, told The Post that she was a teenage runaway when she got into prostitution.
'The vast majority of people that find themselves in prostitution are disenfranchised people that come from impoverished backgrounds, homelessness, the foster care system,' she said. 'I mean, I was a runaway kid living on the streets, vulnerable and hungry and so I think it's really important to keep that in mind.'
Several years after leaving the Moonlite Bunny Ranch, Charleston was arrested for tax evasion and served 13 months in federal prison. It was later determined she had been a victim of sex trafficking and was granted a full pardon by President Trump in 2020.
She has obtained both a bachelor's degree and a master's degree and is now a public speaker raising awareness about human trafficking.
Both she and Dushell also want to raise awareness about not believing everything you see on TV.
' Cathouse did exploit the girls,' Dushell said. 'I really expected more from HBO. They came across with a great show, though. I mean, people loved it. It just wasn't real.'
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