Crystal Hefner Revealed How Hugh Hefner’s Strict Beauty Rules From The Playboy Mansion Still Gives Her PTSD

Crystal Hefner, Hugh Hefner's third wife, is opening up about her experiences behind the Playboy Mansion walls in her new book, Only Say Good Things: Surviving Playboy and Finding Myself.

“I want you to continue my legacy going forward… and I want to remind you to only say good things about me,” her husband allegedly reminded her as she began writing the book, she said in a People interview.

On September 27, 2017, Hugh, 91, got sick at his Playboy Mansion in Los Angeles, which resulted in sepsis and cardiac arrest. Initially, Crystal adhered to her word, but couldn't hide her true feelings anymore. The international sex star and founder of the Playboy company had quite the pull on his girls. "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 opened up.

Crystal said that the unrivaled party boy had rigorous regulations about everything, including requiring his girlfriends to visit him once a week to pick up their "allowance," which he gave to them in the form of crisp bills.

Crystal claims he had ideas about "weird, silly, stupid things" and insisted that the money be used to make them appear more attractive. “Our nail polish couldn’t be anything but some neutral color, no French manicure,” Crystal says.

He continues to influence her grooming decisions to this day. Hef passed away about seven years ago, but Crystal has struggled to let go of his rigid standards since they are still ingrained in her memory. She has had to practically rewire her brain to stop conflating his opinions with hers. She recalls him saying, “Don’t have a belly button ring because that’s trashy. He would tell me ‘Wear the flag,'" she adds. "That’s the Playboy logo and those shirts were uncomfortable and cheap.”

When Crystal's dark, natural brown hair began to grow out, she remembers Hugh pointing to her roots. “So I’d have to go bleach it, and it would burn my scalp, and I’d have blisters,” she says. “But for some reason, I thought this was all normal, and that’s what it meant to be seen as beautiful in Hef’s eyes."

She admits that she loved Hugh, but she was never "in love" with him; rather, she was solely a caregiver in his latter years. She believes that a significant issue of power imbalance existed in their relationship. "I realized I was dealing with a really big power imbalance,” Crystal says. “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."