Hugh Hefner’s widow Crystal Harris took to Instagram Thursday to plead with Jessica Biel to reconsider starring in the upcoming Playboy mansion film “Playmates.”
Biel’s casting as a fictionalized wife of Hefner was announced earlier this week. Harris, who has been vocal about her abusive experiences inside of the Playboy Mansion, urged the actress not to romanticize this behavior.
“Please reconsider playing Hugh Hefner’s ‘wife’ if this film intends to romanticize him or the Playboy world,” Harris posted. “I was actually his wife, and I experienced sexual, emotional, financial and physical abuse in that relationship. Many other women have come forward with allegations of rape, coercion, drugging and exploitation as well. There are also deeply troubling concerns involving minors.”
“I hope everyone involved in this film takes the time to listen to the women who have lived it before helping Hollywood turn it back into nostalgia,” she added.
Harris was just 26 years old when she married the Playboy founder, who was 86 at the time. She was with him for five years until his death in 2017. She has since been vocal about her experience, saying she was “absolutely brainwashed.”
“Hef was old enough to be my grandfather,” she said on the “No One Asked Her” podcast last month. “We [had a] 60-years difference. In the interviews I’d say, ‘Oh, you know, he’s like a kid! He likes to have fun’ … Why did I say that?”
She formerly appeared on the the reality show “The Girls Next Door,” which depicted life in the Playboy Mansion. Harris published a memoir in 2024, “Only Say Good Things: Surviving Playboy and Finding Myself,” which detailed her time in there and her difficult relationship with Hefner.
Biel is set to star opposite previously announced cast members Lily-Rose Depp, Bill Pullman, and Indiana Elle in “Playmates.” The film will be written and directed Lorraine Nicholson, who makes her feature debut.
The comedy-drama film is loosely inspired by the first-time director and daughter of Jack Nicholson’s childhood experiences visiting the Playboy Mansion.
The official logline for “Playmates” states, “Elle (Elle), a 13-year-old know-it-all who considers the Playboy Mansion her second home, meets Anna (Depp), one of seven hopefuls vying to be Playmate of the Month. The two form an unlikely friendship and try to help each other get what the other wants most, a magazine cover and a boy.”
“7th Heaven” actress Biel will play the wife of Hefner (Pullman) in the film, who is herself a former Playmate. While Hefner was married three times in real life, the character Biel plays is fictional.
