A former Playboy Mansion party attendee has shared her experiences of going to the infamous event and how she found it as a swimwear model.
It seems like we always hear about the popularity surrounding Hugh Hefner’s legendary run as the owner and founder of Playboy, with the success of the lifestyle and entertainment magazine funding several blow outs hosted at his iconic Los Angeles mansion.
Playboy Bunnies have since come out and revealed that there were a number of strict rules to follow while living in the home, which even applied to Hefner’s many girlfriends.
But when you sit and think about the Playboy Mansion, you’re probably thinking of the money, the glamorous lifestyle, and of course, sex.
Hugh Hefner was known for throwing crazy parties at his mansion. (Paul Harris/Getty Images)
However, one former party attendee has weighed in on the common public beliefs of the parties that took place there, taking to Reddit to share her experience in the ’90s and early ’00s.
She wrote: “During the ’90s, at the age of 21 I moved from Iowa to LA and worked as a model for a swimwear brand.
Through my job, I ended up being invited to the Playboy Mansion to attend a party, and from there I attended a few more until moving in 2002.”
Calling the parties ‘impressive’, she then opened up for a Q&A on the social media site, as she was ‘happy’ to share any of her experiences.
Were the parties as wild as they looked?
One user asked about what happens at these parties, and how much we hear is actually accurate, to which she responded: “The assumption is that it’s a drug-fuelled orgy, and while I certainly saw sex and drugs sometimes, it was mostly just a regular party atmosphere,
“The scale of the parties meant people with those intentions had a lot of places to do it without a big audience.”
The 21,987-square-foot (2,042.7 square metres) mansion was host to several lavish parties back in the day. (James Aylott/Getty Images)
What was Hugh Hefner really like?
Another asked about what Hugh Hefner – who would have been in his late 60s to early 70s at the time – was really like in person.
The former party attendee answered: “I never saw him in ‘private’ just because the parties were so huge and he had eyes on him/a crowd surrounding him the entire time.
“He’d also go up to bed earlier than everyone else, so he wasn’t always around. I only spoke to him a couple of times, and it was just a brief hello and a few kind words, then he’d move on.”
So a pretty normal guy then, who was probably over the partying when he began to reach the big 70.
Was there as much sex as people assume?
But with so many people and a range of personalities at the party, you’d also expect some of those to be on the prowl, trying to get lucky at a Playboy Mansion party.
So a third user asked: “Were you frequently hit on? Was there some expectation of sexual congress baked in?”
“I got hit on fairly often if I was in a group of women or alone,” she unsurprisingly replied.
Hefner kept the parties going until his death in 2017. (Steve Granitz/WireImage)
Continuing, the former model added: “If I was talking to a guy, other guys wouldn’t approach me really. I never had sex at the mansion, but some guys who spoke to me certainly tried to segway the discussion into ‘so are we going to have sex or..?'”
She also answered a couple of other questions and revealed that she wasn’t there for the sex or drugs, saying she mainly went for friends and because ‘the food/cocktails were to die for’.
Adding that she never got in bed with a celeb, a different user then asked what her craziest memory was from the parties was, and it’s something that caught her off guard.
The party attendee answered: “Seeing two guys who had been acting really macho and douchey towards the girls all night having sex with each other in a bathroom,
“I was prepared for some crazy things but that one always jumps out!”
