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Hugh Hefner’s ex wife reveals the most disgusting thing about the Playboy Mansion and it’s not what you might think
Home>Celebrity
Updated 15:39 22 Nov 2025 GMTPublished 15:35 22 Nov 2025 GMT

Hugh Hefner’s ex wife reveals the most disgusting thing about the Playboy Mansion and it’s not what you might think

Crystal Hefner spoke about what the mansion was really like

Lucy Devine

Lucy Devine

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Featured Image Credit: Charley Gallay/Getty Images for Playboy

Topics: Celebrity, US News, Hugh Hefner, Sex and Relationships

Lucy Devine
Lucy Devine

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Hugh Hefner's ex-wife has revealed the most disgusting part about the Playboy Mansion, and it might actually surprise you.

Crystal Hefner, who was married to Hefner between 2012 and 2017, moved into the pad back in 2009 when she started dating the founder of Playboy magazine.

However, she has since described the house as mouldy, dusty and having made her sick.

The 21,987-square-foot property, which was built all the way back in 1927, was bought by Hefner in 1971 for $1.1million, which now equates to around $7,452,740.

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The property featured a games room, screening room, wine cellar, tennis and basketball courts, a swimming pool, waterfall and the famed grotto - it even had its own three building ‘zoo’ on the grounds.

While it sounds impressive, not everybody has spoken very highly of it.

Crystal was married to Hugh Hefner between 2012 and 2017 (Jerod Harris/Getty Images)
Crystal was married to Hugh Hefner between 2012 and 2017 (Jerod Harris/Getty Images)

Speaking about the Playboy Mansion, as per RadarOnline, Crystal said: "This was a beautiful English Tudor home - and my family is from England - on five acres in the middle of LA.

"But over time, I saw that this place doesn't really get cleaned that well and there's mould. It just felt rundown and gross after a while.

"The whole time the mansion was breaking me down, one way or another. Now it was breaking down my health. The house was literally making me sick.

"Everything was mouldy and dusty and it was just hoarder central in the mansion."

Crystal wasn't the only one to speak poorly of Hefner's residence.

His former partner, Izabella St. James, said the Playboy Mansion was in dire need of an overhaul.

"Everything in the mansion felt old and stale," she wrote in her memoir, Bunny Tales.

“And Archie the house dog would regularly relieve himself on the hallway curtains, adding a powerful whiff of urine to the general scent of decay."

The couple in 2010 (Denise Truscello/WireImage)
The couple in 2010 (Denise Truscello/WireImage)

She went on: "Each bedroom had mismatched, random pieces of furniture. It was as if someone had gone to a charity shop and bought the basics for each room.

"The mattresses on our beds were disgusting - old, worn and stained. The sheets were past their best, too."

Meanwhile, in the docuseries, Secrets of a Playboy, a former valet of the mansion, Stefon Tetelbaum, revealed that she would often have to 'sterilize dildos' from the floor.

“I had to put on rubber gloves and pick up the dildos from the floor and put them in a special bucket," she said.

"The maids would take them downstairs, spray them with a steam cleaner to sterilize them and then put them in plastic bags. I would carry them back upstairs and put them back in the headboard."

People have said the Playboy Mansion was in need of an overhaul (Frazer Harrison/Getty Images)
People have said the Playboy Mansion was in need of an overhaul (Frazer Harrison/Getty Images)

A few years after St. James' memoir was published, more than 100 people who had visited the mansion for an event began to experience respiratory problems.

An investigation from the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health traced the outbreak back to a hot tub, where they found the bacteria that causes Legionnaires' disease.

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