Izabella St James has written a book, Bunny Tales, about her time as one of Hugh Hefner’s girlfriends:
Being a Hefner Girlfriend was a specialised job, not to be confused with being a Playboy Playmate. In fact, Girlfriends were not allowed to become Playmates because Hef had found that they tended to flee the Mansion as soon as they collected their $25,000 Playmate cheque. Girlfriends were given their own bedroom, an allowance of $1,000 a week in cash, a new car, free dental and medical treatment, almost limitless clothes, hairdos, make-up and facials and all the cosmetic surgery they could wish for — Izabella reckons Hef shelled out $70,000 a year on breast implants.It was a very generous deal in many ways, but it did have its drawbacks. First, there was a strict curfew, so unless you were out with Hef, you had to be back in the hutch by 9pm. Second, while you could order any food or drink you wanted, at any time, from one of the many Mansion “butlers”, you were not allowed into the kitchen, even for a glass of water. And third, of course, you had to live in the extraordinarily dingy Playboy mansion, where all the furniture was falling apart, the mattresses were stained and the carpets were covered in dog poo. I remember visiting it in the early Nineties and being struck by its shabbiness then, and evidently it was the same or worse when Izabella moved in. Part of the trouble might be that Hef does not actually own the mansion; he has to rent it, room by room, from Playboy Enterprises and, according to Izabella, pays $25,000 a month for his own bedroom.
But the real drawback was Hef. Stuck in his perpetual Groundhog Day, padding around in his pyjamas, eating all his meals in bed, watching the same classic films with the same old cronies night after night, going to the same bars — Las Palmas on Wednesdays, Barfly on Fridays — the only variation in the routine was restaurant night on Thursdays when the Girlfriends were allowed to choose where they went. But even so, Hef always took his own food, lamb chops. And even when they went out for parties or special occasions such as the Grammys, Hef would only stay long enough to have his photo taken before herding all the Girlfriends back into the car. Surrounded by phalanxes of security men, and roped off in VIP ghettos, they never had the chance to meet anyone.
The girlfriends weren’t all friends, and Izabella got kicked out of the house just before the enemy faction went on to star in The Girls Next Door.