What to Know
Nearly 10 years after Playboy founder Hugh Hefner died at the age of 91, his widow, Crystal Hefner, is speaking out. According to The Independent, Crystal made a bombshell claim about her former husband during a press conference held at attorney Gloria Allred’s office earlier this week, and if what she’s saying is true, it could end up being a shocking moment for his legacy.
Crystal said that when she first voiced her concerns, she was removed from her position at Hugh’s foundation.
Though Crystal was once the president of Hugh M. Hefner Foundation, she said that she was removed from the position when she brought up her concerns about the documents, which could include photos that are sexual in nature of underage girls, along with girls and women who may not even know that these types of records exist.
“These materials span decades, beginning in the 1960s, and may include images of girls who were underage at the time and could not consent to how their images would be retained or controlled,” she said.
The girls and women pictured may not have consented to being photographed.
Crystal went on to explain that there’s no way to know if the women consented to the photos — and that some of them may not even know that the photos were taken to begin with.
“The scrapbooks include nude images, images taken before and after sexual activity, and other deeply intimate moments,” she said. “They contain intimate material involving women who are now mothers, grandmothers, professionals, and private citizens who have spent decades building their lives with no idea these images were still being hoarded.”
If the documents and photos were leaked, Crystal said the consequences could be “devastating.”
Along with the photos is a list of everyone who Hugh has had sexual relationships with in the past, along with specific activities that they’ve taken part in with him. Crystal isn’t sure how secure all of these documents are, and it sounds like she’s pretty worried about the potential that they could leak — and that if they did, they would “devastate thousands of lives.”
Crystal shared another statement on the situation on her Instagram, writing that she has seen “many naked and sexually explicit images of very young-appearing girls” in Hugh’s scrapbooks, and that his sons, Cooper and Marston, should not continue to pursue their plan of making the scrapbooks publicly available.
“They can put their own naked bodies in a museum, not ours,” Crystal concluded.
