Holly Madison, 41, is opening up how Hugh Hefner was not happy about her decision to cut her hair after she moved into the Playboy mansion, where she lived from 2001 until 2008, in the upcoming A&E documentary series Secrets of Playboy, which looks into the “hidden realities” of the magazine’s empire. The former Girls Next Door star said the late founder of Playboy magazine “flipped out” when she went from having long tresses to chin-length ones and even said it made her look “cheap,” in a clip that was posted from the series, which can be seen above.
“I got to a point, not too far into my time there — I think it was, like, six months in — where I kind of broke under that pressure being made to feel I had to look like everyone else,” Holly said in the sneap peek of the special. “My hair was really long naturally, and I was just like, ‘I’m gonna go chop my hair off so I can, at least, look a little different.’”
“I came back with short hair, and he flipped out on me,” Madison, who was one of Hugh’s several girlfriends he had throughout his life, continued. “He was screaming at me and said it made me look old, hard and cheap.”
Bridget Marquardt, who also dated Hugh, was another person to speak in the documentary and she touched upon her own view of the way she felt Hugh would treat Holly.
“Hef would be pretty abrasive in the way he said things to Holly,” Bridget said in the clip. “She came down with red lipstick one night and he flipped out and said he hated red lipstick on girls, [and told her], ‘You need to take it off right way,’ even though other people could wear red lipstick and it didn’t seem to bother him. It was very frustrating to live with every day — all of the drama that was going on and the tensions. I could definitely see that she was getting depressed and sad, and her demeanor was starting to change.”
Holly, who previously talked about her struggles with Hugh and living in the Playboy mansion, also explained how she felt she couldn’t get out, in the documentary. “I remember there were times, probably in the first couple years I lived there, I felt like I was just in this circle of gross things, and I didn’t know what to do,” she said.
Secrets of Playboy premieres on A&E on Monday, Jan. 24, 2022 at 9 p.m. ET.