Not everyone disliked each other. Emma and I liked each other instantly, along with Lea. We were a trio. Hef called us the Andrews sisters. When Lea left, another Canadian, Susan, took her place. The three of us bonded and this time Hef called us the Three Muses. We were really like the Three Musketeers, only more like combat veterans, or trauma survivors. At the other end of the group, Bridget became what I thought of as Holly’s illspirited sidekick. Only when she gained more security in the group did we begin to see a different side of her. She allied herself with Holly because none of us was really interested, and Holly did not have any close friends in the group either. But it became more than that. Being close to Hef’s main girl provided her safety; she had a patron. I think she may have won Holly over by feeding into her insecurities, probably by saying bad things about the rest of us. As time passed and the relationship developed, we heard about their elaborate plans on how to get rid of the rest of us so that there would only be the two of them left. But I am sure Bridget knows that in Holly’s master plan, even she would eventually have to go, until only Holly was left. Holly has admitted this much on national television. When Bridget first started stirring the pot, people seemed to notice. Even Mary, Hef’s assistant, told me a couple of times that she was not fond of her. But eventually Bridget started to play cards with Mary and her friends at her house, and she won her over. Mary noticed that “Bridgy” was watching all of the movies with Hef and sleeping with him so she was a good girl, unlike the rest of us. And that was it. The group was divided. There was Holly and Bridget, and then there was Emma, Susan, and me. The other interchanging girls were neutral. Candy seemed to play both sides, but we never trusted her, and Roxy had her own things going on.
When I say we didn’t get along, I don’t mean that everyone, all the time, did not get along. Yes, we all had little squabbles with each other over small things. I even got into a fight twice; both times it was with Roxy. I think she is a nice person and I had many good times with her, but she used to irritate me. I had no patience for her. One incident was the spa receipts fiasco, and the second time it was about a phone call Holly received. Holly said she received a phone call from a friend of hers who was on the way to a party at the Mansion, and told her that there was a guy on the shuttle who said he was coming to see his girlfriend Roxy. His name was JT. Holly told all of us, and we thought it was interesting. We asked Roxy about it and she denied it. We were at our usual Friday-night hangout, Barfly, and I remember telling her that I didn’t care if she had a boyfriend, I wasn’t going to tell Hef. She got defensive, and started saying I had a boyfriend with whom I worked at Playboy and we were seen having coffee together. Oh no, not the Henry rumor again! I got upset and told her to shut up. She had gotten on my last nerve and I wanted to kick her ass. I don’t know what would have happened if Hef had not intervened. The funny thing is I met JT after I left the Mansion.
As a young girl in Krakow
With my dad at a seaside resort
Today (photo by James Creighton)
My high school graduation (2nd from left)
With my mom at my law school graduation
My first “Fun in the Sun” Sunday (2nd from left)
The Mansion pool
Chillin’ on Hef’s bed with some Girlfriends, dogs, and Pinky, the little monkey
In front of the Mansion
My mom in the Grotto
At Carmen Electra and Dave Navarro’s Engagement Party
Hef and I
Bogart and Balbina on my bed in the Mansion
Early in our relationship
We always arrive in style!
My birthday
Pimp Daddy Hef
The gang gets wild at a club
Holly, Hef and I at one of Hef’s many birthday parties
Dancing with my boyfriend
DJ HMH
Colin Farrell at the Mansion
Hanging with Snoop Dogg at the Mansion
With Mark McGrath of Sugar Ray
With rocker, Kid Rock, and fellow Canadian Pamela Anderson
The dashing Hef
Halloween (3rd from right)
Justin and I at a friend’s wedding
The night of the final fallout (4th from right)
Me and my ex
I actually think he is a nice guy and we are friends. I asked him about Roxy. He told me he really was her boyfriend. He told me he dated her for a year and a half, and that she almost got caught because of me. He told me she felt I made her life miserable. I never meant to make anyone’s life miserable, I was just defending myself. He said she was the kind of girl who knew what she was doing and had managed to get what she wanted out of him. He confirmed many of my personal impressions, and I felt vindicated. Besides those two instances with Roxy, I never had any problems with anyone. The third fight I was ever in came at the very end of my stay at the Mansion.
Somewhere along the way the line had been drawn and the group was divided into two camps. Holly was the mark. It seemed to me she was always the start of any conflict because there was always someone on her hit list. She wanted everyone gone, but she always focused on one girl at a time. For example, first it was Tammy and then it was Emma. I don’t think it was a coincidence that it was whichever girl had moved into bedroom two. It was Tammy’s role to recruit new girls, an unspoken agreement she had with Hef. But new girls were the last thing Holly wanted in the group. Whenever a new girl came around, Holly would list all of the things that were wrong with her—her favorite was that she was a “drug addict.” She would give girls dirty looks, and she and Bridget had a system at the clubs that when one left for the bathroom, the other had to guard Hef and make sure no new girls got close to him. They even asked me, to my sheer amusement, to “watch him” a couple of times.
When Tammy left, her big room became available. I didn’t bother trying to get it because I knew it meant more involvement in the group than I wanted. Emma acted like she didn’t want it either, but then I found out that she had promised Hef that she would do whatever it took to have the room. This was the first time I found out that Emma was not always honest with me, and though it didn’t affect our friendship, I remembered that later and was a little guarded with her. In any case, because of her promises, Emma had to deliver, so she brought in new girls for Hef. Of course Holly noticed and began resenting Emma. But we realized that when Holly was waiting for Tina to leave, she was friendly with Tammy. When Tina left she began her battle with Tammy, and when Tammy left Emma preoccupied her schemes. That room is cursed, I thought. It was a lose-lose situation for Emma; if she brought new girls into the bedroom or into the group, Holly was angry. If she didn’t, Hef was displeased. And so she brought girls in and expressly told us Hef asked her to. Holly then would run to Hef and ask him why he would tell Emma to bring so and so into the bedroom. Hef would deny it and then of course Holly called Emma a liar, and the vicious circle continued round and round.
Holly and I had a civil relationship. She didn’t get in my face and I didn’t get in hers. There were many times when we got along, and even times when I really liked her. I remember when she was organizing Hef’s bedroom and came to my room to give me this Cuban sculpture of a woman because she knew I had a similar one from Cuba (I had visited Cuba a couple of times when I lived in Canada). She also came by to give me a beautiful scroll of a tiger print that Hef had received from a Chinese ambassador because she knew I liked tiger and dragon motifs. I thought that was very sweet of her, and I reciprocated those gestures when I could by giving her a new shirt I thought she would like or giving her treats for her dogs.
I knew she didn’t want any of us there, and she knew I was good friends with the girls she wasn’t fond of, but we were polite to each other and sometimes agreed on certain issues. We had a little unintended ritual: on the weekends when I took my dogs out on the front lawn, she would come down with her dogs and join me. We would have a short but honest conversation about some recent drama, and then move on to our
opposing sides of the group—returning to status quo. Emma’s room looked out directly onto the lawn, and she always got mad that I spoke with Holly. As soon as I got back to my room, the phone would ring.
“What did you and your new best friend talk about?”
I just laughed. “Now don’t be jealous, Emma!”
But I didn’t hate Holly like Emma did. I just didn’t have anything in common with her. I really wished things had been different. I have seriously thought about why I wasn’t better friends with the girl, but I realize it was impossible because we had such different goals and perspectives. The main reason the group was divided into two was because our tastes, interests, and personalities were so different. We could not be friends; we could be friendly, but not real friends. Holly and Bridget wanted to go see Finding Nemo when the rest of us wanted to see 8 Mile. We wanted to stay out late at clubs; they wanted to come home early. We wanted to go out to cool Hollywood events; they wanted to go to Disneyland. On our Christmas wish list were designer purses and Jimmy Choo boots, and on theirs collectible Barbies and Department 56 items. It was impossible.
We were young women who wanted to go out, meet boys, and have a good time. In my eyes, the other two were like children. We couldn’t understand it. Holly had an obsession with Disneyland. She and Ashley, her other friend besides Bridget, had annual passes and went all the time. Every year for her birthday, that is where she wanted to go. I could never figure out why Hef agreed to go so many times; at seventy-eight, it was a lot of walking around for him, and if he was going to make the effort shouldn’t it be for his children, not his twenty-five- to thirty-year-old Girlfriends? I love Disneyland, and I enjoyed the times we went because we got special tours, but at twenty-eight, I didn’t feel the need to be there every month. It was fantastic not to have to wait in line, and at the end of our trip, Hef would let us go to the stores and shop; I always picked out a bunch of stuff I would later give away to family and kids I knew, while Holly and Bridget decorated their rooms. I actually ended up spending one of my birthdays there because I happen to share it with Bridget. I could not for the life of me understand how Bridget, my least favorite person in the group, and I shared the same birthday. We were nothing alike. Nothing. Luckily, the one birthday we spent together was planned by me—although we did go to Disneyland right before it as a special treat. The next year I was out of town, and she celebrated it at Shakey’s pizza parlor, while my idea of a birthday celebration was dinner at Asia de Cuba at the Mondrian hotel and then drinking and dancing.
Another thing about Holly and Bridget was that they collected Barbies, which I can understand as a lifelong hobby, but it wasn’t like that with them. She and Bridget seemed to have a strange interest in toys and childish things. We always speculated that it was related to a deprived childhood; maybe they weren’t able to have those things as children and so it brought them joy, even in their twenties—or thirties for Bridget—to finally have those toys. We heard that Holly came from a small town in Oregon, and she always spoke in unflattering terms about her family. Bridget apparently came from a town called Lodi in Northern California and grew up in a trailer. I never asked them about it; I figured it was a sensitive subject. But we thought that explained their fascination with toys and costumes. On a positive note, Bridget had a talent at decorating her room for the holidays—she was very good with themes. Also, she is the most creative present wrapper I have seen to date; every present from her came wrapped in a whimsical and original manner.
In general we wanted to stay out all day and hang out with boys, and they wanted to stay in and play Monopoly with Hef. I got talked into playing with them one Tuesday night, and the butlers made fun of me forever. Every Tuesday when I was out and about, the butlers would call me and say, “They are starting Monopoly early tonight. Hef is looking for you—he’s pissed you’re not here.”
I was confused and disturbed. “Are you serious? What the hell . . .” What had I gotten myself into?
“Ha ha ha . . . we got you,” they would say.
“That’s it, I am getting all of your sorry asses fired when I get home,” I would joke back.
Even if I wanted to play Monopoly again, I couldn’t. It wasn’t worth dealing with all of the butlers, not to mention Emma when she found out—she never let me forget that one time I played Monopoly. In the limo while we talked to Hef about a possible trip to Miami or about company news, Bridget and Holly would talk about another trip to Disneyland.
But they were not the only ones who were immature. Because Holly appeared to be preoccupied with her breasts, Emma would always comment on how huge my or other girls’ breasts were to irritate Holly. I was so mad at her. Emma was trying to get to Holly, but at the same time, she was involving me in a conflict I could do without. I did not care who had the biggest or best boobs in the group. We all had different bodies, looked differently, and made decisions that suited us, individually. But Emma could not pass up an opportunity to unnerve Holly, and sometimes even I served as the means to that end.
The division within the group grew stronger with time. And Hef did not help the situation. We heard that they were called the A group and we were the B group. The A group apparently were the nice girls who really loved him, while we in the B group were the rebels who had their own agendas. Holly put this idea in Hef’s head and tried to make it a fact by doing a little article in the Globe. But as much as he liked the good girls, Hef also like the “bad” girls. Men are always drawn to what they can’t have. And even though we lived in his house, he did not “have” us. We were not devoted to him the way Holly and Bridget were. We reminded him of other girls, the ones that had fun and split. He could never make us Playmates, because he knew as soon as he did we would be gone. We were more fun; we had interesting ideas. We were the ones that always got all of the attention from boys and men. And Hef always gave us whatever we asked for.
There was a constant battle between the two sides; in our eyes it was a battle between good and evil. Some would say it was a battle for power, but for me, it wasn’t about power. For me it was about getting what we deserved and staying under Hef’s radar. For the other girls, it was about making us miserable, making sure we didn’t get our way, and ultimately, getting rid of us. It was like Survivor: The Playboy Mansion, with every girl scheming behind the others’ backs, trying to build the strongest alliance to make sure she wouldn’t get voted off. At one of the Mansion parties, I actually saw Jeff Probst, the host of Survivor, standing at the bar, and I decided to speak with him. I introduced myself and told him I wanted to try out for the show. He told me I had no chance of surviving, but I begged to differ. “I have lived here for over a year, Jeff, and have battled many beasts, and that doesn’t even include the animals. I can handle mental torture; I still live here after all. And I am used to the wildlife . . . . We have monkeys, fish, African cranes that like to chase us around.... I can do it.” Entertained but unconvinced, Jeff told me to send a tape in, but I never did. I have become friends with Tommy Lee lookalike Survivor alum Robb Z, and he told me that it was much more difficult than it appears on television. I took his word for it and resigned myself to simply watching the show.
There were the rare times when we all got along, when we actually had fun as a group. Usually it involved doing a project we were all excited about like when we did a photo shoot for Italian Vogue or Paris Match. It was glamorous and exciting, and we all had fun with it. And there were tender moments such as when we all went to see the decorated houses on Candy Cane Lane. It was all of us girls, Hef’s sons Marston and Cooper, and even Roxy’s daughter and Emma’s son came along. We had hot chocolate and cookies and a lot of Christmas spirit. We stuck our heads out of the limo rooftop and cheered for the houses we liked the most. Those times were special and I treasure them, but they were few and far between. By and large, the relationship among the girls was so ridiculous and emotional and crazy that it would have made for the best reality show ever, a real reality show, not someth
ing packaged. It was by far the worst thing about living inside that demented bubble.
I would like nothing more than to believe that Holly’s feelings for Hef are genuine and not motivated by money. However, I have reservations. I know Holly admires and loves everything about Playboy magazine, and she is dedicated to Hef inasmuch as she spends her time with him and does whatever he wants her to. But I specifically remember when I first moved in she talked about not wanting more girls to move into the Mansion, because it affected the amount of things she received from Hef. She said she used to get more when there were fewer girls and wanted to make sure that new girls did not move in so that this would continue. She cited specific possessions that led me to believe that she was very much aware and very focused on the material aspects of the relationship. There was also a rumor that she was going to stop taking the spending allowance, supposedly to prove that she was there for Hef and not the money. In my opinion, the motivation behind that was getting rid of us; if Hef really stopped giving us an allowance he would see who was there for the “right” reasons. She continuously repeated to me and the other girls that she was not going to leave, ever. “What am I going to do, go back to Hooters?” she said. She found her gravy train, and she was not getting off. In the meantime, it looked like she intended to make the ride bumpy for everyone else.
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