Holly Madison does not deserve our sympathy

August 2024 · 6 minute read

If a dame dresses like a tart, imbibes like a stevedore and engages in consensual sex with a man old enough to be her grandfather in exchange for snazzy clothes, a warm bed in a Los Angeles mansion and unlimited boob jobs, what would you call her?

Some of us might use a term that describes a bleached blonde of easy virtue and killer abs whose services are for hire to the highest bidder. But if the “girl” (she refers to herself and other women as infantilized humans) is Holly Madison — formerly Holly Sue Cullen — of Alaska, and the dirty old man lying atop her pink flannel pajama-clad form is Hugh Hefner, she paints herself as a poor, innocent victim.

I feel ill.

Madison, a college dropout and former Hooters waitress, became the No. 1 girlfriend of Hefner, the Playboy Enterprises founder who started Playboy magazine in 1953. Now 35 and married with a 2-year-old daughter, Rainbow, Madison is seeing her fortunes fade with advancing age and lack of talent. So she’s desperately trying to stretch her 15 minutes of fame into a half-hour, writing a tell-all book, “Down the Rabbit Hole: Curious Adventures and Cautionary Tales of a Former Playboy Bunny” (Dey Street).

In it, she describes, in cringe-worthy detail, her first sleepover at the Playboy Mansion in 2001, when she was 21 years old. About to be evicted from her apartment for failing to pay rent, she invited herself to tag along to nightclubs with her soon-to-be sugar daddy and some of his girlfriends, turned down Hef’s offer of a Quaalude, but freely drank vodka and champagne.

She viciously emasculates her host (pictured with her in 2007), describing Hef as a sad senior citizen who was hard of hearing, who bopped without rhythm to the high-decibel club music, and who lived in a decaying spread.

That night, she climbed into Hef’s bed, where the “girls” gathered in matching pink flannel PJs, as Hef preferred, as two large TVs blared pornography. She engaged in a quickie with Hef before he moved on to other females. She disclosed that he always finished the sex act solo.

“I remember feeling really s--tty about it the next day,” she said in an interview with The Post’s Maureen Callahan.

A representative for Hefner, now 89, emailed me a statement from the man who enticed generations of kids to peep with flashlights under the covers at magazine pictures of naked women. He took the high road.

“Over the course of my life, I’ve had more than my fair share of romantic relationships with wonderful women,” he said. “Many moved on to live happy, healthy and productive lives and, I’m pleased to say, remain dear friends today.

“Sadly, there are a few who have chosen to rewrite history in an attempt to stay in the spotlight. I guess, as the old saying goes: You can’t win ’em all!”

The twice-divorced Hefner has been married since 2012 to Crystal Harris, 29, who left him at the altar a year earlier, telling Howard Stern in a 2011 radio interview that her now-spouse lasted “two seconds” in the sack and that she was “not turned on” by the octogenarian. (The model later said she regretted saying this and blamed her publicist for letting things “get switched and turned around.”)

Madison moved into the Playboy Mansion and worked her way up to become Hef’s main squeeze. She wrote that she had to obey mansion rules, such as seeing no boyfriends other than Hef. But she enjoyed perks, including free plastic surgery, clothes and the use of a high-end hair salon. She appeared in a reality show on the E! network with Hef and the Playmates, “The Girls Next Door.’’

But Madison grew depressed, she writes. After Hef denied her request to see a psychiatrist, she began seeing one behind his back. She walked away from Hef’s lair in 2009 after she got an offer to compete on ABC’s “Dancing With the Stars.” (She lost.)

There are many women and girls who deserve sympathy — females sold as children into marriages with grown men, those forced into sex slavery. Holly Madison schemed and plotted to become a kept woman.

“The only thing he ever gave me is a little bit of fame,” she said.

“Fame is not always worth it.”

What would I call this kind of woman? Harlot? (Worse?)

But, hey — if the flannel pajamas fit ...

Prez: No justice, no peas

There is one issue of national importance about which there is bipartisan agreement: No peas in guacamole! President Obama, a Democrat, waded into the Great Guac Debate after an article in the Times proposed adding fresh green peas into the avocado-based dip.

“respect the nyt, but not buying peas in guac. onions, garlic, hot peppers. Classic,’’ he tweeted during a question-and-answer session on health care. Republican presidential contender Jeb Bush tweeted, “You don’t put peas in guacamole.’’

If only Democrats and Republicans could agree on ObamaCare (and Middle East relations and taxes and everything else), there might be accord in government.

$65,000 just to ‘Chel’ out

Hillary Rodham Clinton charged $275,000 to give a speech. So the University of Missouri at Kansas City opted instead to engage the Democratic presidential contender’s daughter, Chelsea, to speak at a luncheon earlier this year, paying her $65,000 — for a 10-minute speech, a 20-minute question-and-answer session, and 30 minutes posing for photographs with bigwigs, a university spokesman told The Post’s Page Six. Details of the speech were first reported by The Washington Post.

Chelsea Clinton even scored the use of a special kind of chair for her comfort, the newspaper reported. The loot was given to the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation.

It must be nice to be wanted for an hour.

Hey – it’s a ‘three’ country

Here come the brides. Motivated by the Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage nationwide, a Billings, Mont., refrigeration company owner has applied for a marriage license so that he might legally wed a second woman.

Ex-Mormon Nathan Collier, 46 (he says he was excommunicated by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for bigamy), married Victoria, 40, in 2000, then had a religious wedding ceremony with Christine, 38, in 2007, but did not sign a marriage license to avoid being criminally charged with bigamy. Being married to more than one person at a time is illegal throughout the United States.

The throuple appeared on a reality-TV show about polygamists, “Sister Wives.’’ They live together, and have seven children together and from previous relationships.

Polygamists are jazzed by the words of Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts. He wrote in a dissent to the high court’s same-sex-marriage ruling that the reasoning of the majority of justices “would apply with equal force to the claim of a fundamental right to plural marriage.’’

Denied a marriage license by the county clerk, Collier is having his application reviewed by the Yellowstone County Attorney’s Office before he gets a final answer. He says he’ll sue if he’s turned down. It’s a brave new world.

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