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Holly Madison On Life In Playboy Mansion: ‘Drowning Myself Seemed Like Logical Way To Escape My Ridiculous Life’

By Pam Wright
Published on: 20:35 PST, Jun 10, 2015

In a new memoir, Playboy Bunny Holly Madison reveals that she found her life so ridiculous in the Playboy Mansion that she contemplated drowning herself in the bath as a means of escape from her despair.

In her new book, Down the Rabbit Hole: Curious Adventures and Cautionary Tales of a Former Playboy Bunny, Holly Madison, 35, chronicles her life from an Oregon girl who dreamed of becoming a model to the No. 1 playmate of “a man who was old enough to be my grandfather,” Hugh Hefner.

According to People magazine, Holly Madison became so despondent over her life that she found herself lying in a bath in 2002 thinking about ending it all.

“If I just put my head under water and take a deep breath in, it would all be over.”

To some, Holly Madison’s life in the Playboy Mansion may have seemed glamorous and exciting, but the former playmate says her days were “vacant.” Life was nothing like she expected and she says it was as if she was sleepwalking through her days.

In fact, Holly Madison said she came to view her life as a prisoner to her circumstances.

“Everyone thinks that the infamous metal gate was meant to keep people out. But I grew to feel it was meant to lock me in.”

According to Us Weekly, Holly Madison recalls her first encounter with Hugh Hefner, who offered her drugs.

“‘Would you like a Quaalude?’ Hef asked, leaning toward me with a bunch of large horse pills in his hands, held together by a crumpled tissue.”

Holly Madison says Hugh’s true motives came out after she declined the drugs.

“Hef did not miss a beat: ‘Okay, that’s good,’ he said, nonchalantly. ‘Usually, I don’t approve of drugs, but you know, in the ’70s they used to call these pills thigh openers.”

In hindsight, Holly Madison says she would give just about anything to rewind her life to that moment and make very different decisions for her life.

“I want to scream ‘PAUSE!’ and freeze-frame that moment of my life. I want to grab that young girl, shake her back into reality and scream, ‘What the hell are you thinking?'”

Holly Madison described her life with the other playmates as a world of backstabbing, with Hugh Hefner, 89, pitting his girlfriends against each other for the “drama.”

In an effort to please “Hef,” Holly Madison says in a total loss of self-confidence, she underwent a nose job and wallowed in self-pity.

Finally having had enough of Hefner’s “twisted world,” Holly Madison says she found herself in the bath with one thought.

“Would anyone even miss me? Maybe it was the pot and the alcohol, but drowning myself seemed like the logical way to escape the ridiculous life I was leading.”

Holly Madison’s book will be released on June 23.

[Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images]

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