Hugh Hefner's ex-girlfriend Holly Madison opens up about her connection with him in the Playboy mansion

A former Playboy mansion bunny has reflected on her time with Hugh Hefner and revealed the difficulties of living that ‘fast lane’ life.

Holly Madison shot to fame in the 2000s and became known as one of Hugh Hefner’s girlfriends, alongside two other Playboy bunnies.

The former Playboy magazine cover model became a star on the reality TV show The Girls Next Door and has now opened up about what the experience was really like.

She now hosts a podcast alongside another one of Hefner’s ex-girlfriends Bridget Marquardt and the pair remain close to this day despite different experiences in the house.

Holly spoke about the difficulties of living life that life and reflected on the negative impact it had on her.

Holly (right) shot to fame in the 2000s and became recognized as one of Hugh Hefner's girlfriends (M. Tran/FilmMagic)

Speaking to the Mail Online, she said: “When you're involved in a world where you're highly sexualized or sexualizing yourself, and there's a lot of things at stake and things you could possibly gain, like fame, money, opportunities, there's people around you who are jealous of those things. It's truly living life in the fast lane.”

She added that it took her years to truly open up about her experiences in the mansion and noted that she would often try to be positive anytime someone asked her about her time there.

She claimed it was an ‘easy way to dismiss everything, and tie my experiences up in a nice little bow'.

But in all honesty, she knew she wasn’t being entirely truthful about her experiences.

In her 2015 memoir, as well as in her podcast, she claimed that the late Hefner was ‘controlling’ through their relationship and has remarked at how ‘miserable’ she was overall with the experience.

Holly has spoken out about a miserable time in a relationship with Hefner (Michael Bezjian/WireImage)

Over the years, this has resulted in some pushback from some former Playboy bunnies due to it differing from their own experiences with Hefner and the mansion.

However, Holly has explained that she has previously noticed a level of discomfort in some of the other ex-girlfriends of Hefner and concluded they too were trying to make the best of their situation.

Speaking about them she said she could 'tell something was a little wrong, even though they were trying to have a great experience’.

She added: “I could always see that there was a little bit of sadness behind their eyes, or they seemed a little upset, and I never really knew why, but I always kind of had a suspicion that maybe they had a similar experience to me.”