Crystal Hefner Reveals She Was 'Never' in Love With Late Husband Hugh Hefner: "I Was Constantly Crying"

Crystal Harris Hefner, the widow of Playboy founder Hugh Hefner recently confessed their relationship came with "a price". The 37-year-old third wife of Playboy publisher admitted that she was 'never in love' with her late husband. “I realized I was dealing with a really big power imbalance,” Harris exclusively told People on Thursday ahead of her much-anticipated memoir, titled Only Say Good Things: Surviving Playboy and Finding Myself. “It seemed like a world of success and fantasy, but everyone’s having to sleep with an 80-year-old. There’s a price,” she went on. “Everything has a price.”

“I want you to continue my legacy going forward…and I want to remind you to only say good things about me," the model recalled he once told her. The former Playboy Playmate recalled her days in the infamous mansion, “At the time I thought I was on top," she said while describing the time after she accepted Hef's invitation in October 2008. "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." She revealed the strict rules followed by the girls in the mansion, “Our nail polish couldn’t be anything but some neutral color, no French manicure,” Harris shared.

She further stated that his grooming lessons are still stuck in her head, “Don’t have a belly button ring because that’s trashy." "He would tell me ‘Wear the flag,'" she added. "That’s the Playboy logo and those shirts were uncomfortable and cheap.” The model continued to share the late publisher's fetish for perfect beauty, “So I’d have to go bleach it and it would burn my scalp and I’d have blisters,” she said. “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." 

Revealing the dismal state of affairs inside the mansion, the Only Fans model said, “This place doesn't 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.” She describes how the birds in the home were going to die from thirst in the memoir, and it seemed like a fitting metaphor for the women who lived there as well. 

"I feel like I was constantly crying for everything and everybody there," she shared. "All those animals were so depressed and sad-looking. It was all an illusion. I don't even know if I was happy, to be honest." Harris recalled accepting Hefner's first marriage proposal and initially ghosting him. However, she eventually went back to marry the famed publisher following what she calls a toxic connection with Jordan, Dr. Phil's son.