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Salon
Salon
Lifestyle
Joy Saha

Widow says Hugh Hefner was bad at sex

Crystal Hefner is baring it all in her memoir “Only Say Good Things: Surviving Playboy and Finding Myself,” which delves into her life inside the Playboy mansion. In it, Crystal alleges that her late husband, Playboy mogul Hugh Hefner, was pretty bad at sex, despite being an advocate for America’s sexual revolution. 

Crystal, who is now 37, began dating Hefner in January 2009 when the former was 21 and the latter was 60 years her senior. The couple officially tied the knot on December 31, 2012, following a tumultuous engagement. Crystal lived in the Playboy Mansion until her husband died in 2017 at age 91.

In her memoir, Crystal recounts the first time she met Hefner at a Halloween party at the Los Angeles mansion, where she was asked to take part in a group sex session with Hefner. The sex, Crystal says, was devoid of any kissing, romance or intimacy.

“This was a well-oiled and well-practiced sequence of events. One that went the same exact way every time,” she writes. “Picking some girls from the party and bringing them up. Changing into the uniform for the job: silk pajamas. The dimming of the lights. The music. The porn. Passing the pot. And then the sex.”

Amid her marriage to Hefner, Crystal says the sex never improved and remained “odd and robotic.” She adds that no one dared to critique Hefner on anything, particularly sex. “I think when you have so much money and power and so many 'yes people' around you, you just stick with your own narrative in your mind,” she says. “And then everyone else just goes along with it.”

Crystal says she was “relieved” once the sex stopped in 2014. “There was no more bringing girls home, no more performances,” she writes. “For years, I had been keeping up the Playboy charade for Hef, for the public.”

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