A NEW series alleges that Hugh Hefner secretly taped women during sex at the Playboy mansion and was into bestiality and “snuff” films.
The new 10-part docu-series, The Secrets of Playboy, premieres tonight on A&E and features interviews with former Playmates, girlfriends, and mansion employees.
Early clips from the show seem to indicate a far darker side to the late silk robe wearing, pipe-smoking Playboy entrepreneur.
In the series, his former girlfriend Sondra Theodore claims that Hefner would tape women all the time, oftentimes without their permission.
She said she was shocked the first time she saw a tape of herself, because she was unaware that she was being filmed.
She also alleged that when they had other women in the bedroom, Hefner would sometimes tell them he was turning off the camera – if it made them uncomfortable – but would secretly continue to film anyway.
Hefner’s former butler alleged that it wasn’t just his own sexual exploits that the Playboy founder was filming, and that he’d also tape celebrities and athletes having sex with women at the mansion.
Theodore, who dated Hefner from 1976 to 1981, alleged that his sexual desires grew more extreme as time went on.
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Eventually he admitted to an interest in snuff films and even bestiality, she said. He allegedly once made porn star Linda Lovelace perform oral sex on a German Shepherd while he and others watched.
Theodore claims that Hefner was drunk on power, and enjoyed exerting that power over Playmates.
The mansion was ‘cult-like’
In one clip from the show, former Playmate and The Girls Next Door star Holly Madison describes the living situation at the mansion as “cult-like.”
“We were all kind of gaslit and expected to think of Hef as this really good guy,” she said.
“And you started to feel like, oh, he’s not what they say in the media. He’s just a nice man.
“Another thing that reminded me of a cult is how it was so easy to get isolated from the outside world there.
“You had a 9 o’clock curfew, you were encouraged to not have friends over, you weren’t really allowed to leave unless it was a family holiday.”
Madison said that she initially had a waitress job when she first moved to the house, but Hefner made her quit because he was “jealous.”
The Playmates were given a weekly allowance so they would not have to leave the mansion, she said.
The two-hour premiere of the show is tonight at 9pm.
