Which probably begs the question - why was I drawn to reading Only Say Good Things: Surviving Playboy and Finding Myself by Crystal Hefner? She joined the series towards the end of it's run and was married to Hefner the last five years of his life. I'm never entirely sure what draws me to some celebrity biographies over others, but in this case I think I was hoping for some honesty - and boy howdy, that's what I got.
Crystal Harris was a lost 21-year-old woman when, on the urging of a friend, she submitted a photo to Playboy. This photo scored her an invite to the annual Halloween party at the Playboy mansion. It was at that party that Hugh Hefner spotted her in the crowd of beautiful young women and beckoned her to join him behind the velvet rope with him and his harem of girlfriends. She spent the weekend at the mansion and a couple weeks later when Hefner called - she moved in permanently.
If you want to be flippant about it, this is a book about a young woman, adrift, who thinks she's found her Golden Ticket, only to get more and more lost once she's inside the mansion. And what's inside that mansion wasn't shocking to me, Harris simply confirms it. Hefner is a narcissistic misogynist trying to keep up the appearance that he's "The Man." He's a lonely, sad man obsessed with his legacy with no idea what love really is, although Harris suspects he secretly wants it. The mansion itself is frozen in time, largely unchanged from the 1970s, almost like Hefner is trying to stop time from moving forward. And in what is surely the world's most perfect metaphor? It's discovered after Harris falls desperately ill that the mansion is riddled with black mold.
If 2023 was the year of Britney Spears' memoir, 2024 should be the year of Crystal Hefner's. In one important way these two women are very much alike - they're people pleasers. Even as Crystal was feeling trapped, the idea that she should could open her mouth, say no, pack up and leave - these thoughts didn't occur to her. She eventually does leave, becoming Hefner's highly publicized "runaway bride" - only to gaslight herself into going back and eventually marrying him. And this is where the book gets interesting because Harris, bless her heart, cares for Hefner in a way that a young person would care for an aging relative. She becomes protective of him and his legacy. She's outraged to realize that instead of storing various gifts and memorabilia per Hefner's instructions - the storage units were empty. Trusted employees had been ripping him off. This man was not good for Crystal, honestly I can't imagine he was good to any woman ever, but towards the end she was loyal, she took care of him, and upon his death she kept the party line to "only say good things." She fell into protecting and preserving his legacy. She was lost when she met him and she was just as lost (if not more so) after he died. Hence this book appearing seven years after his death. Honestly I think it took her that long to even start unpacking all her baggage and the impression I get after finishing this book? She's still unpacking.
Crystal Hefner has lived a life that will mean she has her fair share of detractors. Those who can't believe she allowed herself to traipse into the situations that she did. Those who think she's a gold-digger. And certainly those who think she's on a money grab now, seven years after his death, overturning the various ugly rocks littering the garden that is Hugh Hefner's legacy. I don't see any of that. I finished this book believing that Crystal wrote it because she needed to. Not only for herself, but for all the young women out there just as lost as she was. That finally, with some time and perspective, she was ready to fling the doors off the literal hinges. That this was her story, her legacy, and she was going to scatter it out into the open to let the winds carry it away. I think Crystal Hefner is on her way to finding out who Crystal Harris truly is, and I wish her nothing but the best.
Final Grade = A
4 comments:
In a world where women's youth and beauty are often their most praised 'qualities', and Cinderella one of the most enduring myths, I believe that most so-called gold-diggers are indeed just lost women who don't know what other choices there may be for them in life.
"Agency" is likely just a word, if they're even aware of it.
Harris writes with the self-awareness that sometimes only hindsight can bring. Hugh Hefner's love of old movies that reinforce gender roles and stereotypes. Her love of all things Disney (she's a big Little Mermaid fan - which hello...). She's a woman who admits that she was looking for the fairy tale happy ending in all the wrong places. Reading this book I feel like she's coming to terms of how important her own agency is and that finding the happy ending is finding it within yourself first.
azteclady, that's so wise.
I do confess I occasionally watched Girls Next Door when it was on (it was my Sunday afternoon gym treadmill watching) but eventually it got too depressing.
Even if you see it from a pragmatic viewpoint of "these are adults that have both agreed to a transactional relationship" there's no denying that it's not a fair trade. The women are bargaining with youth and a beauty, which can only depreciated in society, and he was bargaining with money and fame which can both accrue with time.. And yes, they can gain some money and fame out of it, but not that of an old man who literally has a decades head start and a media empire under his control.
Jill: The women are bargaining with youth and a beauty, which can only depreciated in society, and he was bargaining with money and fame which can both accrue with time..
Amen to that.
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