Hugh Hefner’s ex-wife Kimberley Conrad has criticized his widow Crystal for her scathing memoir that claimed the Playboy mogul was emotionally abusive and bad in bed.
Hefner’s third and final wife Crystal – who was married to him from 2012 until his death at age 91 in 2017 – has exposed their ‘toxic’ romance in a new memoir, Only Say Good Things: Surviving Playboy and Finding Myself – but Conrad’s second wife has defended her ex.
Conrad, 61, who was married to Hefner from 1989 to 2010 and has two sons with him, said TMZ‘While a few people express their version of their ideas about events in the hope of a wave of headline relevance and a quick buck, we all have to ask ourselves if we want to live in an environment where people refuse to take responsibility and use words like “force” and “survive” to describe choices they voluntarily made at some point in their own lives.
“We must be wary of those who try to destroy things because they no longer benefit from them.”
Adding that Crystal gained “fame, opportunity and money” by “willingly” choosing to live with and marry Hefner – Conrad said: “If you want to talk about exploitation, this is exactly what these women did to Hef did in his later years and at the end of his life.’
Hugh Hefner’s ex-wife Kimberley Conrad has criticized his widow Crystal for her scathing memoir that claimed the Playboy mogul was emotionally abusive and bad in bed (seen in 1998 with sons Marston and Cooper)
Hefner’s third and final wife Crystal – who was married to him from 2012 until his death at age 91 in 2017 – has exposed their ‘toxic’ romance in a new memoir, Only Say Good Things: Surviving Playboy and Finding Myself (photographed in 2012).
She praised Hefner for being “a pioneer of free thought and expression” and “a leading voice behind some of the most important social and cultural movements of our time, advocating for freedom of speech, integrity, sexual freedoms and civil rights.”
In an exclusive interview with DailyMail.com, Crystal said her husband died ‘just in time’ – adding that the mansion would ‘absolutely not’ have survived the powerful #MeToo movement.
“I’ve been thinking about this because #MeToo happened literally a month after his death. He left Earth just in time
“I feel like the mansion was so unique and couldn’t be replicated. It was a weird social experiment at the time, but I don’t know how he would have held up during the #MeToo,” the former Playboy cover model added.
While Crystal is adamant that the Playboy empire “absolutely would not” have continued after Hef’s death, she did not believe her late husband would have suffered the same fate as Harvey Weinstein, the powerful film producer now serving 23 years in prison for rape and sexual abuse.
The model reveals all in her new memoir, Only Say Good Things
“I never saw (Hef) as a predator. But I do remember when the Cosby stuff came out, like when I was at the mansion, and Hef knew about it,” Crystal said, referring to the 60 women who came forward in 2015 to accuse actor and comedian Bill Cosby of drugging . and rape them.
In her book, Crystal revealed that during their marriage she “sought girls” for sex orgies with herself and the late magazine mogul.
She described how Hugh liked to have “at least five girls” at a time when they would get intimate in the bedroom.
She told DailyMail.com during the sit-down that she never had sex alone with her late husband during their marriage, which lasted from 2012 until his death.
‘I was scared. He was used to some kind of show, some kind of circus up there. So just me? That is not enough. It’s easy to feel like you’re not enough there,” Crystal painfully recalled.
The former Playmate also admitted that it had been a “relief” to recruit other women to have sex with Hef so she didn’t have to have sex with him “all alone” – an admission that has caused some backlash among fans taken care of.
“I feel like people are trying to impose something on me that, you know, doesn’t really apply. It’s not like we really started liking bars or anything like that. So many girls would come to the mansion and so many girls would be like all of Hef and want to go up there,” she said.
‘People just flocked in. So I didn’t really have to do anything. It was endless. It was to the point where I was like, “Oh, my god, okay.” It was difficult.’
The blonde beauty, who told DailyMaill.com that she recently decided to change her last name back from Hefner to her maiden name, Harris, wrote in her book that she was “never in love” with her last husband.
Adding that Crystal gained “fame, opportunity and money” by “willingly” choosing to live with and marry Hefner – Conrad said: “If you want to talk about exploitation, this is exactly what these women did to Hef have done in his later years and at the end of his life’ – seen 1997
In an exclusive interview with DailyMail.com, Crystal said her husband died ‘just in time’ – adding that the mansion ‘absolutely would not’ have survived the powerful #MeToo movement – seen in 2013
She told DailyMail.com that she also didn’t believe he was in love with her.
“I think he loved me as much as he could. I think he loved sex, and himself most of all,” Crystal said, laughing.
After years of therapy, which Crystal said was necessary to heal after leaving her ten-year stay at the mansion, she was still able to laugh at some of the madness that took place there.
Hugh died on September 27, 2017 at the age of 91 due to heart failure and blood poisoning after contracting a fatal form of e-coli, leaving behind a fortune reported to be $43 million.