Author and former Playboy Playmate Holly Madison is opening up about her relationship with Hugh Hefner.
As the host of The Playboy Murders, Holly has been diving into Playboy history that was previously unknown to her. Holly explained, "I just felt like I could relate to some of these victims because they were coming from the same kind of career or the same kind of places that I did."
Holly continued, "I hadn't heard about so many of these stories and I thought I knew everything about Playboy history and about what happened to all the Playmates and everything. So I really wanted to dive deeper into it."
The first episode of the series explores the murder of Jasmine Fiore, who was killed by her abusive husband. Holly admitted that she could relate to what it's like to be in an abusive relationship, as her relationship with Hugh wasn't stable.
Holly shared, "I feel like what I experienced with Hef was definitely emotional and verbal abuse. And I ended up leaving after so many years because the verbal abuse was just getting so bad I couldn't stand it anymore."
She continued, "When I tell my story, there's so many people who wanna say, 'Well, why didn't you leave? Why did you stay for so long?' And I love talking about that kind of a thing because I just think there's such a misunderstanding about it and I can relate."
She added, "When I was young I would hear stories of celebrities in abusive relationships and kind of the public's reaction was like, 'Well, if you didn't leave after the first thing that went wrong, you know, it's your fault for staying.' That was kind of the attitude. And I remember thinking that too before I really had that experience myself."
Holly then described what it was like to begin her relationship with Hugh at age 21. She said, "In the beginning everything seems so wonderful and you're being love bombed and you think this person's an amazing person. So when something does go off the rails a little bit, you make excuses for it and you think it's the exception. You're wondering what's wrong with you and you're struggling to kind of fix it."
She concluded, "So, I do love speaking on behalf of the victims and trying to explain to other people that abusive relationships aren't that simple and they're not that easy to get out of. And it's not that person's fault if they didn't see the first sign and run because nobody really operates like that. Human beings are complex. You see one bad thing about somebody [and] you aren't psychic. You don't know that they're going to continue to be like that forever."
