Hey, it's Sauce on the Side. I think this is like maybe episode nine or something. We're getting so high up there.
We just need to stop.
Calvin, I love it.
According to Andrew, by the way, the voice you hear is Diamond at this moment.
Hi, Hi Diamond, my producer, I love you. According to Andrew, it's going really well. He said, our numbers are killing it.
But he also could be lying. So do you want to trust him? Yeah, we're gonna trust him today.
Yeah, no, you know what, You're right.
Andrew is a liar and a cheat and a menace to society. Andrew, Andrew's sketchy, So this podcast could.
Be completely tanking. I'm glad you put that in my head. Thank you.
Well, maybe he should be burned today.
Oh we should burn Andrew burn books.
I'm super excited. I think you're a little excited too, very excited. So, as we talk about all the time, Sauce on the Side is a side of me at Baby Hot Sauce, we get to talk about and talk to people about things that we don't talk about on the Big Show.
We had an archaeologist last week. It was great.
We've had OnlyFans, content creators we are going to have scientists, so we're going to have doctors, and today we're going to have Holly Madison. Yes, formerly of The Girls next Door. And I say formerly because she has come a long way since that time and she's I believe, a completely different person than what people probably saw on that show. I did not watch the show, did you?
I watched the show. I probably shouldn't have been watching the show. How old you're like? Four? H probably like nine? Okay, And I'm very excited to see what she's like.
Did you see her in the green room?
Oh?
Yeah, she looks great.
She looks amazing, incredible. There's just so much going on with her, Like, I know, she's got a podcast, she's got a true crime series on the way, she wrote books, she's recently been diagnosed with a form of autism. There's just a lot to talk to Holly about. And then of course, you know all this elicious stuff. I wonder if she's going to get into it, and I kind of hope she does.
I can't wait.
Yeah, do you have questions for her?
I don't know. I think I'm sick of asking questions.
Why.
I just want to listen for a second.
You know.
I think it's important to highlight, which I believe we did in the episode where we got to know you, that you working in radio have zero desire to.
Be on the radio.
Yeah, just like do you.
I watch well, I love it and I hate it. I love it because I know that you're here to work. You want to work, and you want to get to know like behind the scenes stuff. You want to be a decision maker and an influencer, not online, an actual, real life influencer over the music people are listening to. But you have no desire to ever get the spotlight.
Why.
It's very weird the spotlight.
Yeah.
And I just think that you can't want to be in the spotlight and then ask for privacy. And I like to keep my life very private.
We're very private.
So it's like I can't if I want to be out there, then I can't complain about people being in my business.
You can. I do it all the time talking.
About in my business, you know. So it's like I'll stay back here.
Somebody left one comment like, oh, I'm so sorry you and Brandon broke up. One No, we didn't.
Two. I was like, shut the fuck up.
Why would you even comment something like that on this picture, Like why did I get so mad? I don't want I just I don't even know where that came from. But I was incensed for no reason.
But I'm the person who like pays attention to things like that, Like I'm very into making sure the couples are still together. I would never comment, you know, yeah, it just takes it to another level, like you're a little too invested, right, meanwhill But.
If we're actually friends, like you would ask.
Me, hey, is there something wrong with you and Brandon? But when it's just like a random hey what happened? Or Hey, I'm so sorry, and we make a lot of assumptions, I'm like, oh my god.
But since your life is out there to a certain extent, that just leaves room for people to make the assumptions. You know, oh, you haven't posted him in a while, you should know that you need to post him or we're gonna think that you guys broke up. So it's very like you know you're right.
But also, I'm not a reality star. I'm not saying like, hey, follow my life. We're radio people. We have a morning show where we play around and then a podcast where we interview other people. So I want to like shine that light on other people and be the person that gets to.
Shine the light on other people. I think that's really fun. And then because of that in my head, I don't know anybody anything. You do, Diamond, go to hell?
Make your page private?
You know I can't.
I tried, you did, Yeah, I can't do it because I guess however, I signed up for Instagram or wherever I am now that got that. I have that blue check which I got in like twenty seventeen. Did you know you can check when people got the check?
No, but I want to check.
I'll show you how.
Somebody give me a check.
Apparently I'm a public figure, and if you're a public figure, you're not allowed to go private.
Oh okay, no, then I don't want it.
Then you don't have to be a public figure. With the new blue check mark, you could just buy it. You can just buy it and be you know, anybody anywhere doing anything.
I know, to which I say, take that check mark, then take care of let me go private.
Anybody could be you know whatever.
I think we've talked longer at this moment than we have ever talked. In the intro of a podcast. You're getting comfortable diamonds.
Oh no, You're gonna love this.
I can't wait. Just come on, bring Holly in.
Yeah, let's bring good.
Holly Madison is here, and thank you so much for joining me.
Thanks for having me.
I stayed up all night reading everything about you. I have my basic knowledge, but now I feel like I know you so much better and I'm fascinated by all of the things that you've been doing.
Well.
Okay, so you know Holly Madison from the Girls next Door. Now you're about to have a true crime series, Yes, the Blonde.
Yeah, it's my second true crime series. It's called Lethally Blonde. It's on ID. My first one was called The Playboy Murders and it was about murders. We did two seasons of it. It was about murders involving people in the playboy world, and this show Lethally Blonde is kind of similar, but it's not Playboy specific. Every case, whether it's the victim or the perpetrator, involves somebody who's on the fringes
of the adult entertainment industry. It's just as good as as The Playboy Murders in my opinion, but it's something like edgier and more current, I think, so I'm really excited about it.
What made you get into true crime?
Well, I've always loved the true crime genre since I was a kid. Like I used to love staying up late when I could to watch unsolved mysteries, and I've always been fascinated by it. But I was approached by the producers about the Playboy Murders, and at first I didn't want to do it. My agent told me about it, and I'm like, I've done way too many Playboy things. I'm up to my ears. I don't want to do it, and he's like, well, just look at the deck. I'm gonna send it over to you and let me know
what you think. So I looked at the deck and they had outlined all the cases they wanted to cover, and I was just fascinated because so many of the cases I'd never heard of, and some of them were unsolved. I thought they were really important to tell. But most of all, I thought, this is a show I would actually watch even if I wasn't involved. So that made me really excited to be a part of it.
I'm also obsessed with true crime, probably to the point where I fall asleep watching it, and I heard it makes you a psychopath in some capacity, like you fall asleep watching murder. That's not healthy, and honestly it's not. There have been times I wake up screaming. But I think this stuff is fascinating. And you having worked mostly with this atmosphere, this environment, does this do any of these shock you? Or are you kind of like, yeah, that was the vibe that was going on.
No, they're definitely shocking because a lot of them, even the Playboy ones, they would happen in people's lives like after you know, they left Playboy, and you know, their lives take different twists and turns and things like that. So there was a lot to learn, a lot of shocking stuff, a lot of stuff I could relate to you as well. So yeah, there's I mean, it goes all over the place. So definitely.
Do you think there's any reason or any common thread with why this happens so much in this particular industry?
You know, I think industries like Playboy or the adult entertainment industry, they're kind of high pressure in the way that there's a lot you can that can be gained potentially, so it can get pretty competitive. And like jealousies can be stoked. Not for everyone, of course, but that can happen. So I think sometimes when you're in these high stakes environment it can contribute a little bit.
So now with Lethally Blonde, we're going down a somewhat different alley, but still all of it's adult entertainment adjacent. Have you guys doing some of these because you said some are unsolved?
Ye?
Have there been any of these episodes that aired and then people reached out to you with any information?
Not yet.
I think it's every true crime producer's dreamed. Yeah, their work maybe help make a difference in some way, whether it inspires somebody with any kind of information to come forward. I did get a lot of people reaching out and telling me about cases I didn't know about that we could possibly cover and playboy murders, so that that's helpful.
Are you guys going to go down that path exploring?
I think so?
Yeah?
Tell any crowdsourcing.
Social media is a gift and a curse in so many ways because everybody has an opinion and everyone can contribute.
But then everyone has opinion and everyone can contribute, so what do you do with that?
But it's great in these scenarios that you can kind of explore some more stuff, but you're doing so much more than that. You also have a podcast now with Bridget correct and it is called Girls Next Level.
You want to talk about it. It seems like it's doing really well. Thank you.
Yeah, it totally is. We have an amazing following. The love our listeners so much. We started doing it because I was doing YouTube reacts to old episodes of Girls next Door, and I kept texting Bridget because I'd watched these back. I hadn't watched them since they first aired like fifteen years ago, and I was like, oh my god, you remember this or I forgot about that, or do you remember this one time? And I was sending her so many voice notes. She was probably so annoyed with me,
but we were having these long convos. I'm like, this should just be a podcast. This would be really fun. So we started doing it and it took off. I think it really resonates with people, whether or not they've seen the show, just because when I go back and watch these episodes, like every episode makes me think of like a different topic that is still relevant today, or people can find relatable, whether it's like diet culture or
body dysmorphia or relationship dynamics. It like sparks all kinds of conversations.
And it's great that you guys get to have this voice now and go back and say, hey, this is actually what things were kind of like really behind the scenes versus what you all were able to see when you watch back and you obviously had these reactions to it, How do you feel about why watching you fifteen years ago.
A lot of cringe moments. I think anyone would say that about watching video con cells from fifteen years ago. Though sometimes we get triggered by certain little things that we're not expecting, but most of the time we have a sense of humor about it. So we're covering a lot of good times too, laughing about a lot of things. We have guests on the show, people who were on the show with us and friends from those days, and it's been a good excuse to connect with people that
we haven't seen in person for a long time. So it's a really fun process.
When you say that things are triggering when you watch it back and you realize, hey, you know what that's kind of triggering?
Is it in any way eye opening? And like Hey, I need.
To talk to somebody about this or in itself without talking to someone, just like a therapy session for you.
One hundred percent. It's a therapy session in front of so many people. So thank you listeners for being my therapist.
Oh wow, So they talk you through it?
They do. People leave a lot of amazing feedback, like on our Patreon or on our Instagram page, and they're so nice about it, and I love it.
Do you find so many more people relating to you than you ever thought, because that has to feel, at some point a bit isolating to have been part of this thing that no one else was part of.
Absolutely. I think in the beginning, you know, I was on a reality show where only certain parts of my personality were shown and a narrative was created, and I was kind of turned into kind of a cartoon character. And when that was all anybody saw, it felt really stifling. But as I've been able to be honest, whether it's through my book or through other interviews, I feel like people understand me more and more. So it's just like the more authentic you can be out there, you know, it helps.
I'm sure when you talk about things like body dysmorphia or if you ever touch on eating disorders, because and arguably, somebody would look at you and say, she's beautiful, she's perfect, she has everything going for her, and you would look in.
The mirror and not think that same thing.
Yeah, it was a hard place for me to feel beautiful. I felt like that relationship was toxic in many ways. But one of the ways was I was always made to feel like I wasn't beautiful enough, which doesn't really make sense because you look at his situation where girlfriends all kind of have to meet a certain standard to be there in the first place. But I still felt like, Oh, I'm not pretty enough to be in the magazine. Even after I was in the magazine, you know, things like that.
So I was always comparing myself and was never good enough. I didn't start to feel okay about the way I looked until I started working at the Playboy Studio. I
took over as the director of the Playmate shoots. Oh wow, And it was interesting because one might think that might be kind of like a hard place to be, like seeing all these beautiful women come in, But I felt like being in the magazine was something I'd wanted to do for so long, so helping other people with it and trying to make their workdays fun and you know, helping them with their dreams and just like getting behind other women and supporting other women and you know, helping
them look their best and feel their best. It really kind of turned that around for me, Like I still have some weird like dysmorphia and things left over from those years, because how could I not. But I feel like working with the other women really helped.
I make this joke all the time, but it's really not a joke. I think I have body dysmorphia in the opposite direction where I'll leave the house and I'm like, oh, you look good, and then I see pictures and video and I'm like, who the hell that looks terrible?
This is awful. So I see myself from the other way.
No, I do that too. There's well, there's something about a mirror. You're looking at yourself, you're seeing you know, you you and movement and everything, and then I see a picture and everything's frozen. And there's something about the way our eyes focus on that you find all the.
Flaws, every single one of them. And at least for me, if I don't find them someone else will truly point them out.
Thank you for that.
You know, people are lined up and I hate it.
I hate it.
But when you said you took over as the director for some of these Playboy shoots, how did you do things differently than the people before you?
I didn't do a lot differently. I worked there for two years, so part of it was me just learning everything, learning how they already did things. And I was a big fan of the pictorials in the first place, so I didn't want to change too much. But we did make a lot of changes. One of the photographers, one of the staff photographers in particular, had a lot of
changes he really wanted to make. He wanted to switch from film to digital because in two thousand and seven, when I first started working there, they were still shooting everything on film. I believe they were keeping a whole film development company in business just pay and it was so expensive. So we switched to digital. We cut a ton of costs and didn't lose inequality in my opinion,
and things like that. So there were a lot of changes, but it was also it was kind of fifty to fifty me learning what they were already doing and getting that down and trying to make it a smooth or easier process. We definitely cut the shoot days down it used to be because of the technology to shoot a centerfold, a playmate would be standing in the same pose for like two weeks sometimes two week Yeah, of the same shoot.
We're trying to get everything perfect. But we got it to where we would shoot a centerfold in the morning, we'd print it out big, drive it over back to the mansion for him to see, and then he'd call me on lunch and say if it's approved or not, and if he didn't like it, we could make whatever change he wanted by the end of the day and get it by the end of the day. Like, I don't think we ever had a centerfold shoot that took longer than a day, So that felt good.
What do you think is the hardest part about those shoots, having shot them and having been in them.
Gosh, I don't know. I think just trying to make sure you get enough content because they wanted so much content for online and you know, for special editions of Playboy and the pictorial, so you wanted to get somebody looking their absolute best in so many pictures, Like back in the sixties, when they would shoot a centerfold, it would be one photo for the centerfold and then there'd be like a handful for the rest of the magazine, So you'd have to get like six good pictures kind of.
But when I was working there, it's like you had to get just a stock pile. So it's a challenge to get it all in that short amount of time.
And I just feel like it would be very cold, and I'd want to eat, and these are all things that are not going to work out very well for the shoot. In general, you were talking about during some of the time in the mansion, or just in general with all the crime that you're now investigating in a sort of highlighting.
Jealousy was a huge issue.
Was that the case inside the like how many women lived in the mansion at one time?
Well, when I first moved in, he had seven girlfriends, so there would be seven girlfriends, plus there was a guest house on the property, so there were constantly women who were testing for playmate and women who are shooting their pictorials in the guest house at any certain times. So they would always be up for the buffets and movies and coming out with us to clubs and stuff. So there was a lot of women, and I really
experienced both sides of the same coin. When I first moved in, for like the first three or four years, things were so incredibly toxic and cutthroat and competitive and just girls backstabbing each other. Like I felt like I was going to get kicked out at any time, and you know, it was so stressful. But we really turned things around. You know, a lot of the girlfriends were asked to leave and then it was just three people.
It was me and Bridgett and Kendra, and we really went out of our way to like make friends with the new playmates and the people coming to test and like make it a lot more positive. So I've experienced both sides. I've experienced like the lifelong friendship in the sisterhood of it, but I've also experienced like the worst of the worst and the absolutely awful people.
I bet, yeah, have any of those awful people grown up a little bit and circled back to have a conversation with you about how that went?
Maybe say sorry, absolutely not.
None, No, No, they're still talking on TV shows and still talk shit.
Are you kidding?
Not kidding at all?
Wow?
So they did not grow up. They just decided to live right in that space for a long time. And when you talk about backstabbing, what type of stuff is there to backstab one another?
About telling things that to have or like to a secretary that might get you kicked out was a big one. Like they would like do research on girls online and be like, oh, she was in this adult film, got a kick her out now, and that would get you kicked out one hundred percent. Yeah, because he didn't want his girlfriends to like have been strippers or sex workers or in like an adult film or anything. He had to really hang real hang up about it. Okay, Yeah, so.
That stuff would get you kicked out now in retrospect because obviously he had three two seven girlfriends depending on Yeah, did any of the girls have boyfriends?
All of them did except me and Bridget really single one of them, Like I might be forgetting, maybe there was one person who didn't. Like I'm making a broad generalization, but I'm pretty sure if I went through every single person that lived there when I did, Yeah.
And that wouldn't get them kicked out or that was just on the download they.
Just didn't get caught. Yeah, Okay, Well, A lot of them did get kicked out over the years while I was there, because they did get caught. Like a few months after I'd moved in, one girl said she was going home to visit her family for a few days, but he found out she was seeing a guy, so all her stuff got packed in boxes and like sent out the back gate. And I was like, whoa, that was fast.
That in itself is like so dramatic. Yeah, reality too.
Yeah. So if you're living there and you feel like you don't have anywhere to go, that's a little scary. You start to feel like, damn, I better like keep on the straight and narrow because I don't want to be kicked out tomorrow.
No, for sure, that would be very stressful. What made you finally decide I'm out.
I don't want to be here anymore.
It was a lot of things. It was part of it was I wanted to have a family, and I knew that wasn't going to happen there.
I was.
How old was I when I left? Twenty nine? Yeah, So I realized I wanted to have a family, so I wanted to leave. And also dynamics were changing in his and my relationship, you know, I'd gotten to a point where it was really just us, like Bridget and Kender were leaving, and I always, you know, throughout my time there, had kind of blamed all the problems and all the drama on the other girls. But when it was just he and I, he kind of went through
a shift and got really verbally abusive. I still don't know what that was all about, but I just I just couldn't take it. I remember Bridget was like on some islands somewhere shooting a travel show, and I'm texting or like, I've got to get out of here, like I can't take this.
Was that a hard conversation to have when you finally decided.
I'm going to leave one hundred percent? And it was a hard decision to come to too. I felt guilty for leaving. I shouldn't have, but that was just kind of the dynamics of our relationship. I felt guilty for leaving. I felt like I'd invested so much in this relationship. I felt like everybody knew me as this girl who dated Hugh Hefner, and that's always something I'm going to have to like carry with me and like defend or
live up to or whatever. So it was a hard decision, but I came to it pretty suddenly once the straw broke the camel's back.
Do you feel like that is something that's heavy for you to carry around now or have you gotten to.
A place where you're okay with it and.
You say, you know what, that was my life this is my life now and they're completely different.
Yeah, I'm okay with it now. I'm totally open to talking about it, you know, in depth and stuff. But I used to not be. I used to hate it. I used to want to just completely shift away and be like that was a part of my past. It's fine, but I only want to talk about what I'm doing now, and just nobody else would let it go. So I finally just got comfortable with it, and I'm glad I did because it allowed me to go pretty deep with it. And you know, I'm just cool with it now.
And now you have a podcast where you can say whatever the fuck you want, and that has to be great.
Yeah.
I love that.
I love watching people find their voice or get their voice after having been in a completely different area and life sort of like in a box at some point, and it seems like you leaving open the door to you having this wonderful life where you did have a family totally and now you get to enjoy family life and doing whatever you want.
Yeah exactly. I mean it went so well, Like I worked really hard, but I got lucky too and had like an amazing career right after leaving the mansion and everything. But when I made the decision to leave, I wasn't
sure that was going to be the case. Like, obviously I was on a really popular TV show, but I never really felt famous when I was there because I had always been surrounded by like HEF's fame, so it always seemed like, you know, things kind of seemed the same, like I'm just like standing in his shadow.
So I was.
Scared to leave and that I didn't know if anybody would accept me or what would be out there for me. You know, everything had been wrapped up in this relationship every you know, it had been my job at the you know, at the studio and on the show and everything like that. So it was scary. But I got on my feet really quickly, thank God.
So what was what was the path you leave the mansion and then what was your first move to kind of just do things on your own.
I wanted to be in a show in Vegas. I'd started talking to a show called Crazy Horse Paris that used to be at the MGA, and I was supposed to do a guest spot in that, but another show came along that was a bigger, higher paying production, and I did that for four years. And I did my own show called Holly's World, which was a Girl's next Door spin off in Vegas. And then I got married and had kids, and now I'm.
Here, you are raising two kids, and I read one of the things that you said you're never going to do with your children is talk about diet and body issues.
Yeah.
I try really hard to stay away from that. I'm so careful. Even like if they want me to eat macaroni and cheese with them and I'm trying not to, I come up with something like, oh, I'm on a health plan or something like. I try to stay away from the words diet or try to stay away from talking about weight as much as I can.
That's got to be tough, though, it is.
It is. It's like when you're trying to, you know, change your language in some way, and you're always like catching yourself. But I think I've done pretty good so far.
Are you prepared if one of your children wants to get into the same line of business as you used to be in specific like, okay, so if your daughter decides one day she wants to be in the adult entertainment world, not gonna happen.
I mean her dad would her dad would like I don't know what he would do, but just not gonna happen. I mean we try to, you know, since day one, it's always been really important to us to raise her to be passionate about what she likes doing, whether it's horseback riding and surfing, and really focus on that. So I try to stay away from emphasizing anything about looks, anything about trying to make people like you. She's not
at the stage where she's like liking boys yet. I mean, we're really trying to be proactive and just what we emphasize. We'll see how it goes.
But is it weird for them if people recognize you? Do they have any idea that, like, hey, mom's famous.
They see people recognize you. Sometimes they know I have a YouTube channel, they don't know what the videos are. They know I have a podcast, they don't know what it's about I'm just hoping they're not real interested when they find out.
I feel like the saving grace is that kids never think what their parents are doing is cool or anything that they want to investigate exactly.
That's what I am banking on.
Please just think I'm a door. Can you move on with your life?
What are your plans going forward? I mean, obviously you have Lethally Blonde, so that's exciting. We're going to focus on that a lot. You have a podcast. Are there other things on your bucket? Lest you've also written books?
Yeah, I'd love to do more of the same. I love being in the true crime space. I love to do more of that. Short term. I'm excited about taking my kids on a Disney cruise for spring break. Oh yeah, so I'm just like all about more of the same. Like, I'm totally happy right now. Would just love to keep doing more of the same.
Okay, So I want to talk about something that I read. You fairly recently found out that you are on the autism spectrum. What made you even go to get that diagnosis or even get a test?
What made you think something was going on?
Well, my mom brought it up and said that she'd suspected that for a while.
Like your mom brought it up recently within the.
Last five years. Okay, yeah, she was talking to my ex husband about it, and I looked up the symptoms and I thought, wow, this really sounds like me. Like I always knew I was a little bit different, but I always wrote it off to being exc extremely introverted, or maybe it's because I grew up in a really isolated place in Alaska. I don't know. I always made up all these excuses. I knew something was off for sure, but never knew what it was. And it even started
coming up in interviews. If I was doing, like say, an in depth podcast interview, i'd bring it up because I felt like it applied, maybe as a factor in some decisions I made and things like that. And I thought, you know, I can't talk about this publicly unless I get a formal diagnosis. So I did that last summer, and it's been really great just knowing what's going on with me. I feel like I feel like I can handle myself better. I feel like I know why I do what I do, and it's been great.
So coming from a place of complete ignorance with this, what is the testing like for something like that, did you go through.
Oh yeah, I found a great doctor and we did it over zoom. It was over seven points. I don't even remember how many appointments it was. I vlogged everything, like, not the actual appointment, but I would do like a confessional like before and after each appointment, kind of say what was going on. Never edited it, never put it up someday, Well I would check in and I'd be like, Okay, this is I think my seventh appointment. Like I would lose track. But they do all kinds of quizzes, ask
you all kinds of questions. They show you pictures of like people's eyes and ask you what expressions are they making? Things like that. They also would take appointments with like my mom and my ex husband because they want to talk to other people who've interacted with you, Oh wow, in depth and see what's going on.
So now that you know that this is what you're dealing with, are there.
Ways that they've given you to I don't even want to say cope, because I don't think that it's a horrible thing.
Yeah me, Like they call it a spectrum for the reason. For a reason, because people, you know, have it to varying degrees, and I have pretty good, you know, executive functioning. I come off, you know, I can operate quote unquote normally, and a lot of people out there have a lot more challenges. But I think I'm good. Like I love that I found I love the fact that I found somebody that I know I can make another appointment with and talk to you if I feel like there's something
I want to work on. My main concern was I just want to make sure I'm interacting with my kids in a way where they feel loved, because sometimes being on the spectrum, you can come off really really distant, Like I have what they call flat effect, which means my voice is really monotone, and like my expressions aren't as lively, like I have resting pitch face all the time. So that was more of my concern more than anything, like I'm I was forty five when I found this out,
so as forty four. I found it out last summer, and you know, I've gone through life this far, so I'm kind of fine with it. I'm kind of over you know, what everybody else might think of me, But I just want to make sure that as a parent, I was expressing myself the best way possible.
I will say, I've been reading a lot, and you know, March is Women's History Month, and one of the things we talk about all the time is the disparity in medical care and that women often do not get diagnosed at all with any type of autism spectrum disorder, or they get diagnosed far later in life when they're the ones that have realized, hey, you know what, there's something a little bit strange.
Going on with me, and I want to go get it looked at.
Whereas boys get these knows he's very young and they're able to deal with, cope with whatever, have these these mechanisms to go forward in life. How what are signs or symptoms to you that you would say, hey, you know what, ladies, girls, if this is how you're feeling, go get yourself checked out.
Oh my gosh, there's so many. I mean, for me, the first thing that tipped my mom off is when I was a toddler, I would just zone out, like my eyes would lock into the sky and I would just look like I was disappearing. So that was one. I think A big one for me too, is not recognizing social cues, not picking up on social cues. For the longest time, I never made eye contact until recently.
I just always felt like I had such a hard time connecting with other people and I wasn't coming across normal and I didn't really know why.
How has that affected your personal life?
I mean, it's not really a lot of changes, because the guy I was dating for the last five years, he really the great thing about him is he really understood me, and he's an introvert as well, so he was never judge about how introverted I was or things that. Like, I've been in relationships before where people didn't understand why I was so introverted or why I didn't connect with people or get on with people as well, and I felt really judged for it, you know, like they felt
like I was a bad person. Well.
I think one of the things that's really hard for the public to understand about people who are in the spotlight is that you can be in the spotlight and still be very introverted and still be very shy, And I think that's tough for people to sort of wrap their minds around.
Absolutely. I think for me, when I was younger, I wanted to be famous in some way. I don't know how, and I didn't know why back then, except it just kind of looks fun. And I think every kid goes through a phase where they want to be famous. But looking back, I feel like subconsciously I felt like it would be a shortcut to connecting with people because they
did have such a hard time connecting with people. I thought, well, if I'm known and people know me from this, you have that connection already, which spoiler alert, being famous does not help you connect with people.
It might be more isolating sometimes.
Yeah, I think so too, But I think that wasn't what I was thinking in the back of my mind when I was younger. I think that's why I was attracted to that for sure.
Has your time in the spotlight and dealing with so many celebrities who have come through the Playboy Mansion or just into your life in one way or another, has it sort of ruined that illusion of celebrity being cool or is it still cool to you?
Well, it got ruined pretty early. Like I was when I first came to the Playboy Mansion, I was the most starstruck person in the world. It was one of the reasons I was so taken with hef But then after I moved in and saw all the underbelly of like how people behaved inside the house, and how all his other girlfriends would just or not all of them maybe, but most of them would like run to jump on any celebrity that would give them the time of day.
I just kind of got a little jaded and grossed out by the whole thing.
Now we're starting to hear all these ridiculous stories. Yeah, whether it's at the Playboy Mansion or Diddy whomever, people had to have seen these things going on before. Now, were there ever things and I'm not going to ask you for specifics or names, but were there ever things that you saw happening at the Playboy Mansion that you were like, that is not right. That's going to come out at some point.
Other than stuff that happened with me personally, I would say not necessarily at the mansion, because when I was like at the parties, for example, I would always be sitting next to Half And you wouldn't think so because people think of Helf as this wild person, But when people were a guest in his home, they always behaved themselves when they were like around his table, like anything crazy I heard was happening elsewhere which I wouldn't see,
but I heard about, you know, some prominent people in Hollywood who'd been brought down recently. I remember, you know, knowing people who are victims of those people and having heard those stories like over fifteen years ago. So a lot of the stuff that came out wasn't surprising. But you know, people are always like, oh, these people knew, these people knew, but it's not your story to come forward with, you know, And.
It almost does someone of disservice if you put their information out there and they're not ready to handle it.
Yeah, you can't do it. And if you're not the one with the proof, you could get in trouble. And it's just yeah, So it's a tricky situation.
And I bet a lot of very powerful people come through. And even if you did have the proof and you did want to talk about it.
That's a scary place to be.
Yeah, for sure.
I meant, Yeah, are you guys getting any pushback or flack about your podcast?
Now?
By the way, Girls Next Level?
Thanks?
Oh kay, one hundred percent. There's always haters, especially when we talk about anything Playboy related, because there's the whole contingent of people that you know are just so loyal to, like Playboy in half that you can't even say he wore a hat the wrong way or you know, you're ostracized.
Really.
Yeah, So so my situation's pretty extreme.
It seems like Playboy is kind of taking a turn though, right. They kind of went away for a minute, Yeah, vanished completely, and then came back and said we're going to do this differently.
Yeah, the company itself is totally different. I think it operates more like OnlyFans now. Oh yeah, he sold the company do like a private equity firm, I think before he passed.
And I guess you wouldn't be able to speak for all of them, but people who sort of like came up the hard way versus now there's OnlyFans. How is how is only fans looked at by people who are in the entertainment industry when it was much tougher.
I think there's always a snobbery in the entertainment industry every time because each generation things get kind of easier. Like back when I was coming up on reality TV, like traditional celebrities like hate the reality TV people. Yeah, and now traditional celebrities and reality TV people are like, oh, the TikTokers. You know, it's just it's always it's the.
Same radio or podcast.
Yeah, totally, it's funny.
I think it's I mean, as far as podcasting and radio goes, I love that everybody can have a podcast because I think that that just makes it more competitive and still the cream of the crop will rise to the top at some point, and I like it. I think there should always be healthy competition and keep people on their toes because you know how it goes when people just have that heritage and they run with it, and then they become complacent and we're looking around thinking, this is it.
This is the entertainment industry. It can be better than this.
It gets rid of a lot of the gatekeepers too. You know, a lot of toxicity can come with gatekeeping. So it's good.
What are some of the highlights of the podcast, Things that you guys have gotten into you because you have guests on as well, right.
We do.
We talk to a lot of playmates and other girls who were there at the time. We talked to one of half Suns, which was a really interesting interview. And every week it's something different.
It's so and it's you guys are consistent weekly every Monday.
Yeah, fifty two episodes in the.
Year forty eight. We take a couple of weeks off, like the slow weeks, like the Memorial.
Day, as you should.
Yeah, people need vacation and break times. So coming up on the podcast. Anything you would like to promote on this podcast, Let's plug it.
Oh my gosh, I'm so I do all the editing and everything too, so I'm like, what did I even just upload? We are going over episodes right now. We just finished an episode where it was a baby shower episode and we were talking about that, and then we're doing like a twenty first birthday episode, and then we have a playmate coming on right after that who has a lot of really funny, interesting stories that I never heard. So I'm excited about all the stuff coming up.
So I watched Curby Your Enthusiasm and I just started it over again and I saw you guys in one of the earlier episodes, and I was like, oh, Holly, how is it splintering off into these other things all from this one venture that you were doing. You know, like when they come to you and say, hey, do you guys want to be on Curb your enthusiasm.
How does that work?
It was really cool because Heff would be asked to do cameo and certain things, and oftentimes he would want like some playmates or his girlfriends around him. So sometimes we'd be lucky enough to be written into that, like we did Entourage back then too, or doing a Carl's Junior commercial with Half stuff like that. So that was fun, and it was always a very quick process. It wasn't like you get there at five am to do hair
and makeup and you're there all day. It was like Hef only wanted to work for like ten minutes, so everything was set up and we would show up downstairs in like a half hour total to shoot the whole thing. And I remember in between takes, I was trying to talk to Larry David and I was so confused because I didn't he stayed in character the whole time.
Really, I was trying to talk to.
Him like he was him, and he was staying a character, and I forget what he said, but like something wasn't computing. I was like, well, it was some like kind of practical question like oh, where do you go for lunch? Or so I don't remember what it was at all, but it was something that his answer didn't make sense to me. And I think it's because he was his character though, like he wasn't like the real the real him.
That's very awkward.
I know. I'm kind of always awkward though, So it wasn't It wasn't.
Too far, I will tell you so, based on all the stuff that I was reading about you and the research that I was trying to do, I thought, Okay, she might be kind of.
Shy, a little quiet, maybe a little awkward. And I don't feel like you've been that at all. I think it's been wonderful.
Yeah, that makes me feel good. Thank you.
Yeah, you have nothing to be nervous about or shy about that. But this has been great And I think it's very eye opening seeing the darker side of or at least hearing some of the darker side of things that used to look so glittery and amazing. And I also read, and I think this is important. You wouldn't change anything. You just wouldn't do it again.
Yeah, that's the perfect way to put it. People always ask like, would you do it again? And I don't really know what they mean by that, Like do they mean would I change it in hindsight, or do I have to go do it. If I had to go do it, I wouldn't do it just because like the first three or four years there before we had the TV show were so bad, like I can't I wouldn't last there now because I would actually speak up for
myself and get kicked out. Probably what was so bad about it, it was the dynamic between the other women. It was feeling kind of trapped and I had nowhere to go and being really scared of being thrown out all the time. I didn't like the bedroom part of it. I didn't like going out. I was always every time we went out, I got super super drunk just to cope with it. And there wasn't like when I thought I moved in, I had a vision of what it would be like and it turned out not to be
that way. And when the show came along and when the cast of girls changed, it got a lot more positive. That's those first three or four years were a nightmare, just a lot of shame and embarrassment. And how like other people would react to me when they knew where I lived, I just I would just would just was like way too young and not developed enough to deal with that kind of pressure.
What are the requirement What were the requirements I guess to even live in the house, Like what differentiated somebody from just being a playmate to being a resident?
If you well, playmates could stay at the house sometimes too, if for whatever reason, if they were a guest, or if they needed somewhere to stay and they were friends with us or something. But to live there full time, it meant you were one of his girlfriends and you had to completely kind of be there for his schedule, whether it was you know, the dinners and movie at night, or going out a couple times a week and you know the bedroom thing, and you had a nine o'clock curfew.
You weren't allowed to work. Every once in a while, he'd let some girl have a job if he thought it wasn't threatening, Like if she was a receptionist at a plastic surgeon's office and getting free plastic surgery. He thought that was okay. But like, I couldn't be a waitress. I couldn't keep my waitressing jobs. That made him jealous. It was so weird. It was yeah, it was strange. It was hard to kind of like once I got there,
and realized I didn't like it. It was hard for me to kind of get back on my feet and put a plan together for myself because I wasn't allowed to work and my schedule was so filled up with just the basic requirements of what it was like to be there.
So the hypocrisy of him having seven girlfriends and then also being jealous.
I know I can't looking back on it.
That is.
When you say the bedroom stuff, are you talking specifically about the sex life? Okay, yeah, I would imagine that being different cult, But you have a lot of stuff going on and I'm excited to see it. So if people want to find Lethally Blonde, where are they going to find it?
It's on ID premieres on Monday the twenty fifth at ten ninth Central. After that it streams on Max and Hulu and Discovery Plus, and then Girls Next Level drops every Monday as.
Well every Monday, and the Playboy Murders if people want to go back and watch that.
Yeah, Playboy Murders is on Max, Hulu and Discovery Plus.
You kind of haven't stopped, You've just been going and going.
Yeah, it's been fun.
Well, thank you so much for joining. I appreciate it. I think that you're wonderful and I'm very excited to see all of these things.
Thank you. You are too, And I'm obsessed with your nutella bottle.
Oh my gosh.
I kept like looking glancing over it during the interview.
This is like the most okay, So I don't even eat nutella.
Uh huh.
I would like you to know that they sent this massive bottle over and the first time they spelled my name incorrectly, so I just left it. I was like, I don't want to I'm not going that's not for me. That's not spelled right. So then they sent it over with my name spelled correctly. But since I don't need it, it just sits here.
It's so cute.
It has become such a topic of conversation. Yeah, but I I feel like it frames me, Like I just sit here and just shovel Nutell it down my throat.
Oh. I thought you must have been a Nutell Omega fan and talk about it all the time, and so they send it over.
I am not it's just here, but I might have to leave it because it is a topic of conversation.
Well, thank you and thank you for joining me. I appreciate it. Okay, Divend, how did you think that went?
I loved it.
I think I love her.
I didn't think that I was gonna like fall deeper in love Holly. But she's really nice. Number one. She really was like engaging in conversation and I'm into it, and she gave us the tea.
I thought she was wonderful. I thought she was, like you said, engaging, intelligent.
She has a lot to say.
She's probably lived like six lifetimes, very gracious, very beautiful.
Do you think I left anything on the table, any questions you want to answ.
I kind of want to know what's going on with Kendra, but I'll leave that up to Google.
And you know what, I bet at some point on her own podcast and when they are all ready to talk about if something is going on, whatever's going on, you'll probably get it over there.
I'm dead ass serious. Though we talked about this in the interview.
I think it's kind of cool and also horrific that everybody has a podcast. I kind of wish that they would make microphones more expensive so that every asshole.
In their mom's basement couldn't.
Be talking about, well, you know what, women like they love to be treated like dogs. Trust me, bro from a room full of single idiots. Yeah, I don't love that, but I do like the competition.
Ooh not competition.
Yeah wow, I told you about the job here. I said.
I believe every year we should have a little Hunger Games thing going on where if you think, because you know, people love to tell us how to do our job, they love to tell us what we're not doing.
Right.
I want to have people come in and we compete for the job once a year, and if you're better than me, you get the job, and if you're not, you permanently shut the fuck up and let me do what I'm doing.
Wait a second, can we talk about this on another Yeah?
Sure, because you.
Are a lutic.
How's that alyttic?
I mean, I get it, But no Hunger Games things coming out of me. Athletes do it.
Athletes have to keep their job.
You have to prove that you are up to par, that you can still hang in there and do things. And all these little like Monday morning quarterbacks, which I guess you can't even say Monday morning anymore because they.
Still have football on Mondays.
Yeah, but all these quarterbacks and like you know, backseat drivers and whatever it is.
Yeah, it's cool. Come on, and we're not recording. Sure, yeah, hi, wow, we are still recording. That's Andrew.
Everybody, go ahead, pull up to now, pull your ass up to a microphone. Now, come on, turn a micro here, I'll turn the mic on.
You sit down. No, don't, don't, don't give up. Oh you're gonna go over there.
I accidentally shut the recording.
Off of the screen. That's okay. We don't use that anyway.
Oh.
Fun fact. If you are listening, yeah, that's the one. Put it hit the green Yeah, fun fact. Get hold on that microphone. Oh my god, Andrew learned.
Something about radio this guy. And I know everyone's hearing this too.
Yeah, it's also a podcast, not radio. But go off.
Uh huh. We're in a radio studio. Can I help you with something?
Oh?
What were we even talking about?
I don't remember all the holiday things? You would be out?
I said, I believe that everybody should have to fight for their title to remain in whichever position they're in.
Okay, listen, I agree with you entirely. I think people who comment on medical things, especially well, do you think you have this? I think you're actually suffering from this. Actually, what you need to know is this, No, we don't. You don't know what you're talking about. Where'd you get your medical degree from? Chances are you don't have one?
You two university.
I was thinking more web MD.
I just I mean, I'd be down for I think it's important. I was saying athletes have to do it. Yeah, firefighters and cops have to keep up with things. Why is it any different here?
Well, so this is actually an interesting point that you bring up because I was watching CBS Sunday morning, and obviously all as millennials, I feel we all share some thing now where we feel the workforce is not moving on. Jobs are stagnating because people in who are older are not retiring the same, so it's clogging up. Then it's expensive exactly. But they're also saying millennials and gen zers are saying, oh, you know, they should take competency tests whatever.
A lot of professions actually do do that, pilots especially. Yeah, but they actually noticed that a lot of people who are seventy five ish eighty ish, if you're passing these competency tests, which a lot of pilots are, they're mandatory, you cannot fly. But they can because the test says they still should. So I don't know. Just made me think about things where I was kind of like, we got to get all these older people out, but then you find out, no, they don't. They should still have jobs.
Yeah, I think it should be a competency.
Kists are necessary.
Yes, competency tests are important. I think specifically with politicians. I really wish that we were checking out what was going on with them. Why are you making that Faceimon?
That was given very ageus. Okay, renee rap, you gotta slow it down.
Are a super agents. There's a lot of ageism around the building.
Yeah're sure.
I don't discu but after I saw that, and you really see like, oh this is a problem, it's actually not a problem. And to Gandhi's point, they need to still make a living. So if you're mentally capable and you need the money, then please continue to work. That's why there's such a pilot shortage because we keep retiring them, but there's no younger pilots coming up.
If you can do your job, do your job. If you cannot do your job, stop doing.
I agree, and I don't think it's.
Not rocket science. It's really not that difficult. It's super easy. I always get irritated because a lot of people.
Around here that are like, oh my god, they've been here for so long, they just don't know what they're doing anymore, and blah blah blah.
And I think a lot of the times the people that.
Are saying that also don't know what they're doing. They don't like how the system is, and I get that, but I don't think that they know how to fix it or do it any better. And I think a lot of that. A lot of people around here are ageist. Listen, Andrew's like, oh my god, they're like forty. I'm like, you watch your fucking mouth.
That one. I own up to it. We're all real close to this, okay, including you, buddy.
I own up to it entirely. And I'm also saying that I've learned that that is not necessarily the case. So I am exposing myself and canceling myself, but also putting up my notes ap apology on my Instagram.
Oh one, alrighty, here we go.
Yes, I mean we all see it right.
A lot of especially you know, like the people who are rolling in in maybe like early twenties, they think everything is broken and everything is wrong, when the reality is a lot of what they're doing is broken and wrong and we've already tried it, but you don't know that because you haven't been here to realize that it's
been tried and tested and it failed already. So it's like, I think everyone just needs to work together and have conversations and idea sharing and not be so close minded and think, Okay, there's a chits, I'm doing it wrong. Maybe I could hear what you're saying and go in that direction. Anyway, we're way down the path here. I'm gonna have to edit the shit out of this, so.
We do a burn book.
I'm ready, Diamond, you had a burn book about someone's bathroom habits.
Oh my god. There is a woman that we all know in some of us love that some of us don't exactly, that blows the bathroom up every single day, almost within the same time period every day.
Well, at least she's consistentular I guess no.
It surprised me. Okay, she's becoming a little bit too consistent.
There's surprising stuff that happens in there. You know what happened to me when I walked in that bathroom today.
Sickening, disgusting. It literally smells like she's rotting from the inside. I can't take it anymore, Andrew, That's how I feel every time I walk in and she's blown it up. And she's the type of person that clearly doesn't smell what comes out of her own body. She's immune to it, so she like wants to have conversations in the bathroom with people like miss I can barely breathe and you're trying to kill me. I can't breathe, and.
It's you are positive it's the same person every.
Time, every single fucking time. And you say it's loud, and the noises that come out of that woman, Oh, she like forces it out. Yes, yes, yeah, ah, consider yourself lucky if you've never been in there while it's happening.
So I am very sensitive to terrible smells, specifically anything that has to do with poop and farts. Diamond was walking out of the stall as I walked into the bathroom today and she saw it happen.
I was like, I had to turn around.
I walked out of the bathroom and I stood outside just collecting myself, took a deep breath, ran inside, holding my breath, peede, wash my hands, run out.
It's horrifying.
Was it her?
Absolutely? I know those shoes anywhere.
Oh for a second, say she doesn't wear shoes.
No, I know those shoes.
There is the men's room.
I don't know.
I feel like it's just a known thing that men's rooms always smell bad. We have a couple of them. But to your extent, No, from what I've heard, it sounds like the women's room is bad like hell on Earth.
But it's the same person over and over. That's the thing.
Yeah, remember the old place where the person used to just like diarrhea all over. I don't know what his asshole was doing when it would sit on the toilet seat, The seas would part Moses Sis and be like who yeah, And then you'd walk in and be like, what happened to you?
How?
I almost threw up this morning? It was terrible.
I turned around and walked out, and our poor, our lovely cleaning woman, she's new. I've hit her at the door four days in a row, four days in a row. I don't know how I time it out perfectly that she is right there by the door when I walk into the bathroom hit her in the ass four times, and I'm like, you know what, I can't say sorry to you any more times. I'm so sorry I hit you again, and she's kind of like, great, I need buy her lunch or something. Yeah, some have a backpack
to put on to take the impact of it. But anyway, woman in the bathroom, Diamond burns.
You done because you've burned all of us disgusting.
That's our sound effect. All right? Should we do ask me anything?
Sure? Read e h A Carson's eighty one says, oh.
I, oh, that's a statement.
Hey, gandhi. This person asks what comes after?
Oh? I oh? Yeah.
Do you guys have any idea what that is?
I just know Ohio Ohio State.
Yeah, the Ohio State University.
That.
Yeah, when you see somebody with the shirt that is from Ohio State, you give them an oh. They will reply with an io if they're worth anything, and if they're not, they look at you like boo.
What about if you're walking in the street and you hear.
Go blue, I push them into the sewer. That happened with that old man down the hallway today. I know Diamond saw it. He was over here harassing me. About some stupid Michigan shit, and I was like, enough, Ean, I don't want to talk about this anymore.
Someone actually looked at me as you were walking wing goes you just saved her because you were starting the interview, and I walked over and I was like, your interview is starting now?
Oh yeah he was. He was like scrolling through pictures from nineteen sixty two.
And then I apologized because you didn't even want to go over there. I asked you to go with me.
So yeah, I got trapped.
I got trapped in well h Carson eighty one IO. You do know that?
So yeah, all right, Well, I guess we will be back next week, probably with the guys from the Stuff They Don't Want You to Know podcast, and those guys are pretty interesting, so I.
Think we'll have a good time. How do they find you online?
Guys at Diamond? Since here on everything but.
X, Andrew, you're calling it X.
You stop calling you Twitter?
Whatever?
All right, I'm Andrew Pugg just on Instagram.
At Baby Hot Sauce.
If you can find me on Instagram, I am on X, but I don't think I've tweeted since it became X.
How do you even say that I xed X. Can you tweet on x.
X post I posted on X. I don't like that it's too generic. Anyway, do better, Elon Musk.
We'll be back. Say bye everybody.
Bye.