Hugh Hefner Widow Crystal Hefner Recalls ‘Power Imbalance’ at Playboy Mansion: ‘Everyone’s Having to Sleep With an 80-Year-Old’

Crystal Hefner says her marriage to controversial Playboy mogul Hugh Hefner came with the “price” of enduring a huge “power imbalance."

The former Playmate, 37, was 21 when she was invited to stay at the Playboy Mansion in October 2008, and a few months later she and Hugh entered a relationship, before Crystal became the pornographer’s third wife when they tied the knot in 2012.

They stayed married until Hugh’s death at the age of 91 in 2017 from sepsis, and she has now opened up about the problems in their relationship ahead of the release of her memoir Only Say Good Things: Surviving Playboy and Finding Myself.

She told People about how their marriage came with a “price”: “I realized I was dealing with a really big power imbalance.

“It seemed like a world of success and fantasy, but everyone’s having to sleep with an 80-year-old. There’s a price. Everything has a price.”

She added about struggling to become Hugh’s “favorite” woman in the early days of their relationship: “At the time I thought I was on top. I thought, ‘Wow, if I just like everything that he likes and do all the things that he wants me to do, then I’m the favorite.’

“And I was, but I just lost myself in the process.”

Crystal also opened up about the filthy conditions within Hugh’s famed Playboy Mansion in the Holmby Hills area of Los Angeles.

She said: “This place doesn’t really get cleaned that well and there’s mold, and it just felt just kind of run down and gross after a while. Too, too many parties. It was worn out.

“I feel like I was constantly crying for everything and everybody there… it was all an illusion. I don’t even know if I was happy, to be honest.”

Crystal, born Crystal Harris, also revealed in 2023 Hugh taking so much Viagra to maintain his erection in the years before his death he went deaf in one ear.

She told the Daily Mail: “Hef always said he’d rather be deaf and still able to have sex. Weird.”