Holly Madison said “there was a lot of fear” while she lived at the Playboy Mansion.
The former Playboy bunny and girlfriend of Hugh Hefner told People that while she was being encouraged to show that life at the mansion was perfect, inside it was far from it.
“It was a constant struggle,”she said. “I was trying to sell this image of ‘Oh everything is so great here,’ but I was miserable inside.”
Madison said she was miserable because living in the house was about conforming and was competitive.
(Photo: Ethan Miller/Getty Images)
“I didn’t like being a clone,” she said. “That was definitely something that bothered me the whole time. But the Mansion wasn’t a place where confidence was built. It was a place where manipulation was used to keep everyone scrambling to keep her spot in the house.”
She said she was scared to stick up for herself.
“There was so much competition among the other women,” she added. “I learned not to confide in certain people. There was a lot of fear.”
“If I could go back and do things differently, I wouldn’t be scared of people,” she went on. “And I’d push the boundaries a lot more. The number of times I stuck up for myself at the Mansion I could probably count on one hand.”
Madison is now a mother, a wife, and an author of a book titled “Las Vegas Diaries.” The book chronicles her life after leaving the Playboy world.