It has been properly over a decade since Holly Madison left Hugh Hefner’s Playboy Mansion.
Madison rose to fame on the E! actuality TV collection The Women Subsequent Door, which chronicled her and Hefner’s different live-in girlfriends’ lives on the Playboy Mansion. In 2008, Madison left the home and Hefner, who died in September 2017 at 91 years previous. Throughout a November 2023 interview with PEOPLE, she defined that she “did not have any emotional attachment to him” on the time of his loss of life.
“When he handed away, all people anticipated me to have some large response or publish about it on social media, and it simply felt bizarre,” she mentioned. “I might already come out speaking about what a poisonous relationship this was for me. Why am I purported to publish a memorial on my Instagram?”
The previous Playboy mannequin additionally instructed PEOPLE that she had been in “survival” mode when she left the mansion, explaining that she was “traumatized” by her experiences.
“I used to be simply on this combat or flight state for about 4 months, simply making an attempt to get my ft off the bottom as a result of I knew I needed to. It was like, construct a profession for your self proper now earlier than folks neglect you have been on a present,” she mentioned. “So I did that, after which I used to be simply working my a– off for 3 years straight.”
So the place is Holly Madison now? This is every little thing to learn about her life after leaving Hugh Hefner’s Playboy Mansion.
Why did Holly Madison go away the Playboy Mansion?
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In 2008, Madison, who was 29 years previous on the time, left the Playboy Mansion after dwelling in the home for seven years.
Throughout a September 2015 look on Oprah: Where Are They Now?, Madison shared a glimpse into her resolution, explaining that she and Hefner “began hitting a rocky patch” when it grew to become clear that her housemates, Bridget Marquardt and Kendra Wilkinson, have been “shifting onto new issues.”
“I simply had sufficient, and simply had realized all of the delusions I’d been beneath and that this was now not the life for me,” Madison mentioned.
She added that “the entire thing got here to a weird peak” when she was packing her belongings and found a folder Hefner had disregarded, which confirmed he had left her $3 million in his will.
“It was very clear to me that he left that out for me to see as a result of he hoped I might change my thoughts and get me to remain, however it simply form of disgusted me greater than something as a result of all he can do was say, ‘Oh, right here, I’m going to throw you some cash to get you to remain,’ ” Madison mentioned. “It simply grossed me out.”
Throughout a March 2024 dialog with PEOPLE, Madison opened up additional about her resolution to depart, saying, “I did it partially as a result of my psychological well being simply could not take it anymore.”
“I knew if I wished to have a household of my very own, I used to be working out of time,” she mentioned. “I went from considering I used to be going to remain there eternally and not likely being too ready to maneuver out to the subsequent day realizing I wanted to.”
What did Holly Madison accuse Hugh Hefner of?
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In June 2015, Madison launched a tell-all memoir titled Down the Rabbit Gap: Curious Adventures and Cautionary Tales of a Former Playboy Bunny. Within the e book, Madison detailed her expertise dwelling within the Playboy Mansion, together with the “distress” that grew to become so all-encompassing that she thought of suicide.
Following the discharge of her first memoir, Hefner denounced Madison’s claims that he had manipulated her, telling PEOPLE that some ladies had “chosen to rewrite historical past in an try to remain within the highlight.”
Madison responded by telling PEOPLE that “every little thing within the e book is one hundred pc true,” it simply was “not the model of the story he want to inform.”
A number of years later, A&E launched a docuseries titled Secrets and techniques of a Playboy, by which Madison opened up additional in regards to the “cult-like” atmosphere Hefner had created within the mansion.
“He comes throughout as caring and beneficiant, particularly while you see him in that ambiance as a result of he is offering this good time for all his pals and you already know, there is a glow about him,” she mentioned. “And also you simply begin to construct this image in your head of someone who can actually do no flawed. And now, wanting again on my time at Playboy, it jogs my memory of a cult.”
She added that it was “simple to get remoted from the surface world there,” explaining that there was a set curfew and guidelines on each visitation and leaving.
Madison additionally detailed being “afraid to depart” as a result of she feared a “mountain of revenge porn simply ready to come back out” if she did.
“Once you would exit with Hef, he is taking all types of bare photos of those ladies once we’re wasted out of our minds,” she mentioned. “And he would print out like eight copies for him and all the ladies, you go them round. It was simply gross.”
Madison detailed a number of different realities about dwelling within the mansion, together with “compulsive” cosmetic surgery amongst the ladies.
How did dwelling within the Playboy Mansion impression Holly Madison?
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Although Madison left the home in 2008, her time within the mansion had lasting results on her psychological well being.
“I’ve had several types of remedy and stuff since I left,” she mentioned within the A&E docuseries. “Apart from a number of the animals within the zoo, I am unable to actually consider something I miss.”
Throughout a November 2023 interview with PEOPLE, Madison shared that dwelling within the mansion led her to develop physique dysmorphia as a result of she was all the time “questioning what’s flawed” together with her.
“[Hugh] had a approach of constructing me really feel like I wasn’t fairly sufficient, and I might go searching to all people else and continuously be questioning, what’s so totally different about them and why are they so significantly better?” she recalled.
Who did Holly Madison date after Hugh Hefner?
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After splitting from Hefner, Madison started relationship Electrical Daisy Carnival founder Pasquale Rotella in 2011. They tied the knot in Disneyland on Sept. 10, 2013, however acquired divorced in February 2019.
Madison and Rotella share two youngsters collectively: daughter Rainbow, born in March 2013, and son Forest, born in August 2016.
Following her break up from Rotella, Madison was then in an on-again-off-again relationship with Ghost Adventures host Zak Bagans for years. Nonetheless, she introduced in March 2025 that they’d formally gone their separate methods.
The place is Holly Madison now?
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Although the start of her profession was marked by her time within the Playboy Mansion, Madison has pursued a number of different endeavors within the years since.
After splitting from Hefner and leaving the mansion, Madison starred in her personal present on E!, known as Holly’s World. The collection, which adopted her life and new profession as a burlesque dancer in Las Vegas, ran for 2 seasons from 2010 to 2011.
One yr after releasing her 2015 e book, Madison printed her second memoir, The Vegas Diaries: Romance, Rolling the Cube and the Street to Reinvention.
She then went on to develop into an government producer of ID’s The Playboy Murders, which is presently airing its third season. Madison additionally debuted one other ID present in March 2024, titled Lethally Blonde, a true-crime collection centered on sharing the tales of those that have been sexually exploited.
She and Marquardt additionally co-host a podcast known as Women Subsequent Stage, by which the previous Playboy Bunnies have usually mirrored on their time within the bed room with Hefner.
As for a way she is grappling with the emotional impacts of her years within the mansion, Madison instructed PEOPLE in 2023, “I really feel like I am on the opposite facet of it.”
“It undoubtedly took me a pair years to form of get deprogrammed and get out of the Playboy fog and understand what that relationship was actually all about and stop making an attempt to glorify it or justify it to different folks,” she mentioned.
Madison has additionally been open about her autism prognosis, revealing in a December 2023 episode of the Speaking to Dying podcast that she was “not on the identical social wavelength as different folks.”
Should you or somebody you already know is contemplating suicide, please contact the Nationwide Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255), textual content “STRENGTH” to the Disaster Textual content Line at 741-741 or go to suicidepreventionlifeline.org.