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| Holly Madison |
Full Title: Down The Rabbit Hole: Curious Adventures and Cautionary Tales of a Former Playboy Bunny by Holly Madison
After reading Holly Madison’s account of her years as a resident of the famed Playboy Mansion, many would-be models might reconsider. In fact, according to Ms. Madison, the founder of Playboy, Hugh Hefner, rents the mansion, and each individual room, from a separate corporation.
In much the same way, he rented each girl. Those he deemed vital, both to the magazine and his own libido, were allowed to live there, with free room and board. Still, though most of these girls and young women ranged from their late teens to their mid to late twenties, their cossetted life depended upon conformity with such rules as an absolute 9 pm curfew.
While Hefner strove to preserve the myth that those girls in his mansion were sisterly, and his relationship to each of them one of paternal concern, according to Holly Madison, this was far from reality. As to sisterhood, aside from the occasional genuine bond, rivalries and its consequent attempts to undercut one another were rampant.
Also, Hefner fostered conflict among the “playmates”, as it heightened his control over each one of them. Expulsion from the mansion would result if one girl could be shown to be antagonistic towards others on a continuous basis. He also seemed to savor the hope that the basis of this competitiveness was due to a yearning for his attention.
Regarding his platonic concern, every girl living at his home was expected to perform those services demanded of a wife or concubine in an Asian or Middle-eastern harem. None of them were permitted to leave, even to attend the wedding of a close relative or long-term friend, without first groveling for Hefner’s permission.
A further threat lay in the fear of losing ones position by exceeding whatever age was deemed unacceptable. Hefner exploited this vulnerability by belittling the oldest girl in his circle. One such internal report, mentioned a young woman’s age being twenty-eight, as if this meant she was heading towards the edge of mortality.
Still, as Holly Madison was an adult with a strong education, the natural question is why she continued to stay for several years in a state of near subjugation. Cynically viewed, the 24-hour kitchen service, providing whatever food and/or beverage was requested at any time, with gratuities to household staff prohibited, combined with a topnotch gym, and every beautifying treatment, lessened the appeal of a regular job.
Still, Ms. Madison states, she became enmeshed in the Hefner hierarchy. Though married to his second wife, living next-door, he always had an official girlfriend. As Holly had always been treated as one of the less sought-after bunnies, she recounts her surprise at having been chosen. She attributes this choice, in part, to her pleasure in watching old movies with him, rather than craving the night life sought by her competitors. Also, she did genuinely like him.
Asked during an interview what her ideal life would be in five years, she stated she hoped she and Hefner could live alone in his mansion. How much of this response stemmed from hype may never be known, even by Holly Madison. Still, although he was in his seventies, she asked him to be clinically tested in order to ascertain whether he could still father children. As she admits, this test was pointless in that, even if they two conceived a child, his fatherhood was bound to be so brief as to prove almost non-existent.
Eventually, finding her life suffocating, and yearning to find a man her own age, she told Hefner she would be leaving. By then, her growing withdrawal had induced him to fill her place in his life with an eager replacement.
In conclusion, while this book review touches upon major issues, it is only an overview of the intriguing detail contained in this memoir.
Holly Madison’s book ends with her sense that, though wretched at times, she feels she learned an enormous amount via her Playboy experience.
