PLAYBOY magnate Hugh Hefner went to his grave as a sex liberation legend, who famously bragged he had slept with thousands of women and they “all still like me”.
But his legacy now looks set to be torn to shreds by a new documentary series that delves into the seedy underbelly of the world he created.
The explosive ten-part exposé – which will premiere in the US on January 24 – promises to show how Hefner’s carefully crafted public image as a friend to women was little more than a smokescreen.
Former lovers and employees interviewed for the show claim the Playboy founder demonstrated little care for his Playboy Bunnies and used drugs to control women.
Hefner is accused of acting like an insatiable circus ringmaster encouraging girlfriends, female visitors, Hollywood stars and prostitutes to play out his sexual fantasies.
He is also said to have manipulated girlfriends into showing they loved him by engaging in group sex and invited pals to cavort with hookers for a debauched event called “Pig Night”.
It is even alleged that the multi-millionaire businessman, who passed away aged 91 in September 2017, idolised cult leader Charles Manson and his mind control over women.
In A&E Network’s Secrets Of Playboy documentary, Hefner’s ex-girlfriend Sondra Theodore, 65, says: “He was like a vampire, sucking the life out of you.
“Really he was a monster. The things that he got turned on by, nothing was enough. He pulled one over on the whole world.
“Looking back I do not know how I fell for this. It was baffling.
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“He broke me. He scared me because you could not satisfy him. He wanted more and more.
“He would tell the public that even good girls can enjoy healthy sex, but there was nothing healthy about the sex with Hefner, because he took it too far.
“He was taking the girl next door and he was soiling her.
“He twisted my mind so much… I felt like I had to put a show on every night. The group sex was at least five nights a week.”
Theodore, who was Hefner’s live-in partner for five years, explains that Hef’s twisted fantasies even included talk of snuff movies where “in the end they kill the girl and that is the big orgasm”.
Theodore adds: “Hef’s creation of Playboy was more than just getting girls to take their clothes off and pose nude.
“He wanted to create a lifestyle for himself that was accepted all over the world. He would tell me things like ‘You are making history’.
“He knew what to say, like ‘Our lives are better than most people’s fantasies, everybody loves each other. We should not be suppressed’.
“‘Suppressed’ is a big word with him. It was addicting as you knew you would be special and the lady of the mansion – that was his romantic way.
“But really he wasn’t very romantic at all. He created this illusion with smoke and mirrors.”
‘Worshipped Charles Manson’s brainwashing’
The former model and actress – who was Playboy magazine’s Playmate of the Month in July 1977 – also spills the beans on Hefner’s disturbing admiration for Charlie Manson.
She claims that he told women who shared his bed that they had “become part of the family” – a phrase that Manson had used to describe his female groupies.
He is also said to have regularly watched Manson’s infamous home videos of the girls in his cult using weapons.
Theodore explains: “In the late 1970s he was fascinated and obsessed with Charles Manson, could not talk enough about him.
“‘How does this guy have these women that have been in jail and when they get out they adore him?’. Hef liked that.”
Hefner launched Playboy magazine in 1953 with nude photos of Marilyn Monroe when he was just 27 and the first issue sold 50,000 copies.
It kickstarted a multi-billion dollar industry with Hefner as its most recognisable figurehead.
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In 1963 he was arrested for selling obscene literature after publishing nude shots of actress Jayne Mansfield, but a jury was unable to reach a verdict in the case and his reputation as a free expression advocate was cemented.
Hefner often boasted that his magazines, films and TV projects were “essential for free speech” and “played some positive part on social sexual values of our times.”
Speaking to Newsweek magazine in 1986 he even described himself as a feminist.
Yet according to former live-in model Jennifer Saginor, 51, Hefner and his executives were “just awful” in the way they “viewed women as commodities”.
Saginor added: “Playboy wasn’t about freedom of expression or female empowerment. This was something much more sinister.”
Drugs, blood play & orgies with hookers on ‘Pig Night’
Shocking events at the Playboy mansion included a party on Thursday evenings which Hefner dubbed “Pig Night”, according to former valet Stefan Tetenbaum.
The former Playboy employee explained that it featured prostitutes who were brought to the mansion, inspected by doctors and pimped out to Hefner’s high flying pals.
Hollywood stars who are said to have been regulars at the night included late Blues Brothers actor John Belushi.
Tetenbaum, who worked at the Playboy mansion in LA from 1978 to 1981, said: “Hefner had two pimps that would each would bring up five or six girls in their cars.
“It was called Pig Night, but we as butlers were told ‘Do not call them pigs’.
“They would come up, go into the dining room and Hefner’s friends, comrades, movie stars and television stars would sit around the table.
“Hefner would never eat dinner with them, but smoke a pipe and observe the girls.
“One at a time the girls were escorted into the front bathroom, where the doctor would inspect them for anything that would be detrimental to any of his friends.
“The girls that passed would have sex with the different friends.
“Sometimes on Pig Night he had a special woman, called the Bleeder, and she would use a very large syringe and draw blood from his different friends.”
Drugs are also revealed to have been central to the way Hefner allegedly controlled and manipulated women – despite his claims that illegal substances were banned from his mansions.
Quaaludes, we called them leg spreaders, that is what the whole point of them was
Lisa Loving Barrett, Hefner's former executive assistant
Hefner’s former executive assistant Lisa Loving Barrett, who worked with him from 1977 to 1989, claims that Hefner had a stash of Quaalude sedative drugs in his bedroom to hand out to girls.
Barrett said: “Quaaludes, we called them leg spreaders, that is what the whole point of them was.
“They were a necessary evil to the partying. We would have prescriptions in some of our names.
“We gave them directly to Hef. He had a drawer which we did not have access to.
“There was a Dexedrine which he took, which was a speed and amphetamine. I think it was fuel.
“Cocaine was a big deal. I can remember at a couple of the larger parties, there was a downstairs powder room which underneath the ornate toilet paper holder there was a pile of cocaine under there.”
Hefner passed away the month before the Me Too movement went viral in October 2017 in the wake of sex abuse allegations against disgraced Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein.
And although he never faced the kind of retribution meted out to Weinstein, similar claims were levelled against him in public in 1985.
Giving evidence to the Attorney General’s Commission on Pornography, former Miss January 1973 and Playboy head of promotions Miki Garcia accused Hefner of sexual exploitation, rape and mental and physical abuse.
She told the filmmakers: “I wanted to be able to stop this abuse.
“I am sure he was constipated for 10 years after I testified and I loved every minute of it.
“I said wake up America. Do not be fooled by this man.”
