Hugh Hefner’s ex says they used drugs to have sex at the Playboy mansion

Models Holly Madison, 41, and Sondra Theodore, 64, former girlfriends of entrepreneur Hugh Hefner (1926–2017), founder of Playboy, commented on the period of the controversial Playboy Mansion, built in 1927, home of the brand’s founder.

“I felt like I was in the nasty cycle and I didn’t know what to do,” Madison said in a video from The New York Post’s A&E documentary series “Playboy Secrets.” The documentary is due to premiere on January 24th of next year.

In the preview, the “ex-playmate” reveals the mental and emotional anguish she suffered from 2001 to 2008 at the hands of Hefner, who died of sepsis in 2017, aged 91. “I got to the point where I kind of gave in to that pressure and felt I needed to be exactly like everyone else,” he adds.

At the time, she was 21 and the manager 75, and she soon became one of his three girlfriends. In 2002, Hefner ended his other two relationships and Madison became the “official girlfriend” of the mogul.

About the traumatic events, Madison recalls once she decided to cut her hair to gain self-confidence and differentiate herself from the other women in the mansion, but had to deal with the manager’s fury. “I came back with my hair short and he freaked out at me,” he says. “He was yelling at me and said he made me look old and tough and cheap.”

In addition, Theodore, who was a rabbit between 1976 and 1981, claims that there was drug use during sex. “Hef pretended he wasn’t involved in the use of hard drugs at the mansion, but that was a lie. Quaaludes were used for sex,” he reveals.

“Usually you only took half [de comprimido], but if I took two, I would pass out. There was great seduction, and men knew they could make girls do pretty much anything they wanted if they were given a Quaalude,” she adds.

Quaalude was one of the brands of metaqualone pills, which were prescribed in the 1960s for patients who had trouble sleeping. However, some people have noticed that using it in larger amounts has hallucinogenic effects.

Also in the documentary, Lisa Barret, former secretary and executive assistant to Hefner, confirms the drug use allegations. “Qualudes were what we called leg openers. That was their main point. They were a necessary evil, if you wanted, for the party,” he added.