All language subtitles for S01E08 SECRETS OF PLAYBOY

My name is melanie myers,
and the early '70s,

I lived in a duplex
in west hollywood,

and paige young was the girl

that lived behind me
in the carriage house.

She was literally
the girl next door.

Paige was an artist and a--
and a pretty good one.

She had her own artistic vision.

She was also
a "playboy" centerfold.

And I remember the day
she said to me

that she was thinking
about leaving,

and I thought she meant
she was leaving los angeles.

But she was actually
saying to me

that she was going
to kill herself.

I found her lying
on the american flag.

I found her...Dead.

She shot herself in the head.

And there was a-a large wall.

And on this wall

were all these different
pictures and clippings

out of newspapers,

and at the top
of this mural of hers

was "hugh hefner is the devil."

в™Єв™Єв™Є

so I walked back to my house,

and I-I remember
sitting on the bed,

and I called the police.

In two days, everything
was cleaned out and gone.

It was like it never happened.

How does a "playboy" centerfold
kill herself

with a message
"hugh hefner is the devil,"

and it doesn't hit
any of the media outlets?

This whole thing had to do
with killing herself

to leave a message behind
for other women like her,

and the message was
to be careful

and that these men
were damaging,

that they were predatory.

[motor revving]

my name is hugh hefner.

I'm editor-publisher
of "playboy" magazine.

When hugh hefner was just 27,
he fashioned himself

and "playboy" as
the face of sexual liberation.

Playboy is one of the most
famous brand names in the world.

I would like to be remembered
as somebody who played some

positive part in changing the
social-sexual values of my time.

I believe that hef pulled
one over on the whole world.

The fantasy of playboy
that he created

did not allow
for the consent of the women.

When it came
to hefner's buddies,

you had to keep
those secrets quiet.

-What have you got for free?
-[laughs]

when you get someone
that powerful,

anything could happen. Anything.

The people
who were really there--

they're the ones who know
the real truth.

I want to be a voice

for the women who had suffered
the most at his hands.

в™Єв™Єв™Є

в™Єв™Єв™Є

I worked for hugh hefner in
the--the holmby hills mansion.

I was one of his, uh,
personal valets.

Throughout history, butlers
have always been invisible.

We got to witness it.

We butlers and valets--
we couldn't participate.

в™Єв™Єв™Є

thank you, darling.

I was a hostess
at the major parties

at the playboy mansion west.

Part of the job was to meet
people at the door

and guide them
through the party.

The sense I got was

the young girls
didn't have a clue.

At that age,
they don't know better.

I think for girls
from small towns,

it was like, "oh, my god,
I'm gonna be a star."

I don't think
they thought much about

what would happen
when they got there.

Mr. Hefner always wanted
to be a famous film producer.

That's why he came to hollywood.

I think that movies had
a tremendous impact

on my dreams, fantasies
when I was a kid.

[yells]

the one time hef tried to be
a producer on a film,

it was
roman polanski's "macbeth,"

and he got his shirt handed
to him.

Lost a lot of money and--
and did very poorly.

It's a terrible film.

[laughing] it's a bad adaptation
of "macbeth."

but clearly, hef didn't
make another movie, you know,

or playboy didn't attempt
to make another movie.

Hef has accomplished so much
in his lifetime,

I don't think the average person
could understand

how obsessed with fame
he still was,

like, how important it was to
have celebrities at his parties

and how important it was
to him to stay relevant.

They always thought he was just
a cheap imitation, a wannabe.

-Like the oscars.
-[laughter]

they thought
that he'd tried too hard

to be accepted in hollywood,
that he didn't have any talents.

It was known into hollywood
that if you knew hef,

you could come up there
to the mansion,

and you could have sex.
You could trade the girls,

trade sex,
because hefner wanted

that contact with hollywood.

He wanted to use it
to his advantage.

Hefner expanded
the casting bedroom

to the casting mansion.

Reporter: Half of hollywood
seems to come to hefner's place

at one time or another.

A lot of people would come here
like warren beatty

and jack nicholson
and bill cosby.

If they go out with the p--
with the public,

it's hard for them to relax
and--and just enjoy themselves,

uh, because the, uh, people are
very excited about seeing them,

whereas when they come up here,
and nobody bothers them.

They can do whatever they want.

Movie night,
he had every celebrity

from robin williams
to chevy chase.

Hef did things that would
elevate him in hollywood.

All these, uh,
celebrities would come,

and here's arnold
before he was arnold.

There's wilt, and there's
jimmy caan and cosby.

They were like in a candy store
up there--these men.

Mary o'connor was
a pimp in charge.

She would call up my office
and say, "we're having a party.

Send the bunnies up."

mary o'connor would call,
I think,

every girl in the mansion
and say,

"you're expected to be
at the movies tonight."

you must be there to be seen.

в™Єв™Єв™Є

when you become a playmate,

you go to the mansion
and you politic

to be playmate of the year.

I mean, literally, that's how--

what I was told
by marilyn grabowski,

the editor of "playboy"
at the time.

It's Sunday night.
Let's do movie night.

That's how it was laid out.

We would turn
the living room into a theater.

So, we had one couch
in the front,

another couch
behind the front couch,

and then
the rest would be seats.

Girls were
very, very, very insecure

because there was
a hierarchy there.

It was like a pyramid,

mostly based on how
beautiful you were.

At movie night, I got to sit
in the last row in the back.

[laughs]

hefner would sit on the couch
in the center right up in front.

His girlfriends are
on either side

or a couple on either side,

and then the director friends,
the celebrity friends.

So vips were up in front.

Girls were encouraged
to talk and engage with vips.

That was the whole point
of being up there.

Hef admired celebrities so much.

He was--he was enamored by them,

and to have them in his life
and then him being the--

in the long run, the controller,
he got off on that.

He--that made him feel like
mr. Big.

You could see by the place
the butler would lead you to--

to be seated that there was,
you know, there was a structure.

It was like, um, you're assigned
a seat at a wedding.

It's all arranged
by the secretaries.

They would
organize the seating.

I was put with tony curtis
a lot,

and he really had
a drinking problem,

and it was very public.

So I dreaded, you know,
when he started drinking

because I didn't know what--
what he might expect.

I unfortunately sat
next to bill cosby.

I didn't know who bill cosby was

until he put his hand down
my knickers.

I was kind of surprised.

It's not the sort of thing
you would do in England.

There's the grotto.

For the specials, they made--
they heightened the--

the decadence.
There was a lot of decadence.

в™Єв™Єв™Є

they were a constant flow
of pretty faces

that circulated throughout
the mansion for movie night,

because they were
just being used.

They liquored 'em up,
gave 'em drugs,

and they ended up
in the jacuzzi,

and it was a free-for-all.

Maybe they knew what
they were getting into,

but they didn't know what they
were really getting into.

I worked at a men's
clothing store in beverly hills,

and somebody came by
and asked me if I wanted to go

to the playboy mansion,
and I gave them my number,

and that night, paige was
ready to go, and I wasn't.

So she went ahead of me,

and when I showed up
at the playboy mansion,

hefner was
at the end of the table,

and paige was
on one side of him.

в™Єв™Єв™Є

paige was very invested in
the whole playboy lifestyle.

What they were preaching
was the girl next door,

but free sex,
and paige was their poster girl.

She was not only beautiful,

but she seemed
very wild and free.

The time I went up there,
paige ended up in the grotto.

And I do think that's where her
thinking started to go wrong.

She really didn't get the whole
hollywood thing at all.

You have to be careful who
you're sleeping with.

What I think happened to her
is somebody broke her.

Somebody did something to her
that she found unacceptable,

and she didn't know how
to go on from there.

в™Єв™Єв™Є

when I was a teenager
in the '70s,

the female standards of beauty
were the playboy playmates.

They were thought of as perfect.

-[camera shutter clicks]
-nice.

They were a 10.

The hair and the makeup
is beautiful today.

I-I was definitely not a 10,
and I was told that, too, so...

I thought their lives
would be so smooth and easy

compared to mine.

When I found out
that wasn't the case,

I was really shocked,
and it's sort of a fascination

that I've kept over the decades.

I'm always interested in
when things appear one way,

but they're really
very different.

в™Єв™Єв™Є

in December of 2014,

there was an article
in the "daily mail"

about paige young,
a former playboy playmate,

who had killed herself in 1974.

That was common knowledge.

But this article had a lot of
new information about her death.

I was surprised to read
about the scene

where there's a whole mural
of hugh hefner.

I thought it was a big deal,

and it made me wonder,
what did he do?

What happened that caused her
to focus on hugh hefner so much?

In the suicide note, it has
listed men that she felt

she'd been abused by,
including hugh hefner

and the director john huston,
who was a major cultural icon.

In the early '70s, when they
were filming "chinatown,"

the cast and crew would hang out
a lot at the playboy mansion.

So there is a chance huston
spent time at the mansion

during the filming.

Paige told me that member

of his playboy mansion
entourage or whatever it was,

had filmed her having sex.

Paige was so over the top
upset about that tape.

This was the end of the world
for her.

She didn't seem that shy,
you know, about sex,

and it made me wonder,
what was on that tape?

What I actually keep thinking is

there's more on that
than just sex.

Hef--he had tapes on everybody.

The first time I looked up
at the two screens he had

for the tv in the bedroom,

and I realized that was me,
and I'm like,

"whoa, what are you doing?"

and when we started bringing
other people into the bedroom,

some girls had the same reaction
like, "whoa,"

and he would--
he would do the...

"oh, well, I can turn it off.

If it's not okay,
I'll turn it off."

and they go, "oh, no.
Yeah, would you turn it off?"

and he would...

And then he would say,
"now we can just see it.

That's all it--you know,
we're just seeing it.

We're not recording."

and maybe a week later,
a couple days later,

all of a sudden,
there's the tape.

He told you that
you weren't recording this.

He goes, "you think
I really stopped it?"

so he did it anyway,
and he had tapes on everybody.

Hefner taped everything
in his bedroom,

and many men and stars
and athletes

came into the bedroom
and had sex with these girls.

Most of the time,
hefner never participated.

He just watched.

He was a voyeur.

He would stage them.

He thought of himself
as a film director.

He didn't want to be
on the tapes.

He wanted these girls
and the stars.

But many of the girls
were devastated

after what they
were expected to do,

what they were forced to do.

Well, can you imagine
after he had all these tapes

of you having sex
with different girls,

what power you had
over these men?

These are some, uh, notes
I took

around the time I worked
for playboy, and, um,

the first one--

the tony curtis incident

about tapes and lawyers
storming the mansion.

Tony was a regular
at the mansion,

and he went
with several playmates.

Tony was upset
and maybe didn't realize

that hef was filming...
The--the orgy.

So his attorneys--

they were very upset
that tony had been filmed.

They wanted them.

Hefner kept these tapes
in a tape library.

The librarian's office was
down the hall from the bedroom.

That was off-limits to anybody
except hef and mary o'connor.

If you were caught
going near it

or talking to the librarian,
you would be terminated.

People around the world
read "playboy" magazine.

Imagine this was
nirvana for men,

that you could have sex
with all these women,

and you weren't gonna
have to pay for it.

We didn't know
about the emotional expense

that these women would suffer,

and that was a tragedy.

в™Єв™Єв™Є

I have a degree in journalism,
but I used it very little.

But I still have that instinct.

So then December 2014, that
story about paige young came out

in the "daily mail."

they got a tip on--on paige
that she was someone who had

been witnessed as being
involved with bill cosby.

I knew from the article
that a definite connection

wasn't made between
paige's suicide and bill cosby.

в™Єв™Єв™Є

so I was trying to find out
where she met bill cosby,

and I found richard sample,
a fellow artist

who saw her several times
at the playboy club.

He said that paige
had told him that bill cosby

was always trying to
put the make on her

and that she had no interest
in him whatsoever.

Then he said that one time

that he picked her up
from the playboy club,

he saw bill cosby acting angry
towards her,

that she had rebuffed
yet another one of his attempts

to get with her.

Breaking news tonight.
He is known as america's dad,

but comedian bill cosby
now the target

of an lapd police investigation

for sex molestation
of a then-teen girl.

в™Єв™Єв™Є

when the whole cosby story
broke,

I was like, oh, man,
none of that was a surprise.

You know, I was there.
I saw--I know what he did.

Everybody that worked
at the mansion knew

that he was basically...
A predator.

I was a member of hugh hefner's
executive protection team

during 1980 and 1981.

When you're
the primary bodyguard

for somebody like hef,

you're not only expected to
protect them from physical harm,

you're also expected
to protect them from anything

that would tarnish
their reputation.

But at the mansion,
it was the wild west back then.

There was
rampant sexual exploitation.

Bill cosby was up there
three to four times a week.

He wasn't there to eat lunch.

So a number of the allegations
against bill cosby

have involved stories that took
place at the playboy mansion.

He and hugh hefner
were very close friends.

I heard many stories
about bill cosby

from the '60s
all the way up to 2008.

In 1974, bill cosby had
carte blanche to the mansion,

and he drove up there
in a limousine,

and he had this young girl,
15-year-old girl, judith huth.

He brought her up to
the mansion. She had cocktails.

He drugged her.

She was sexually assaulted
at 15 years old.

в™Єв™Єв™Є

[cheers and applause,
playful shouting]

cosby was up there a lot.
He stayed there a lot. Um...

He would come and stay
for a couple days at a time.

It's just down the hall,
room two.

You know, he's funny.
He was a funny man,

but he was an arrogant man.

I didn't know what was going on.
Did hef know?

I think he did.
How could anything be slipped

under anyone's nose
in that house?

Cameras were everywhere.
He had to have known.

в™Єв™Єв™Є

but cosby was his go-to
celebrity at the jazz festival,

at the tennis tournament.

[laughter]

[cheers and applause]

it was cosby, this--
the funny man that--

that they did these things
for hef,

and because of that, he was
allowing the women to be used.

I know that
bill cosby knew better.

I don't believe
bill cosby cared.

I knew him before I did
"playboy."

someone had taken my headshot
and given it to bill cosby,

and I fly off
and I meet him, and I end up

in this underage--what I thought
was a relationship.

And I'm a minor.

So this "relationship" goes on

for maybe a year and a half
or so.

I'm not even 16.

I may have turned 16,
but I don't even drive yet.

I'm a baby.

And I have no one to turn to
over this.

So how this all ends is

I end up in a drug and alcohol
facility in 1982,

and I remember cosby
calling me on the payphone

and him saying to me,

"you know, you're not much fun
when you're not drunk."

treatment saved me.

в™Єв™Єв™Є

in 2008, bill cosby brought
this young woman, chloe goins,

up to the mansion
to go to a party.

She alleges that he gave her
a drink, and she was drugged

and was very, very woozy,
could hardly stand up.

So hefner himself
told everybody,

"put her to bed,"
and the next thing you know,

she was assaulted by bill cosby.

We have a sisterhood
of victims of bill cosby,

and he did some terrible things
to these girls.

I got off easy compared
to some of these girls.

в™Єв™Єв™Є

this is an article
from the "daily mail"

about my friend paige young

and her relationship
with, uh, bill cosby.

Let me read you just
a little bit

about what they wrote
about paige.

"paige was into her drugs,
and bill wanted to get her some.

She was along on the trip
like his pet dog.

She was a very subdued person."

well, when I knew her,
paige was into clean living.

I think more likely
is that bill drugged her.

A direct connection
has not been made

between bill cosby
and paige young's suicide.

I did find a man
who was friends with paige

during that same time,

and one of the times
they spent together,

paige said,
"bill cosby raped me."

and I asked, "did she say that
he had drugged her as well?"

and she implied it by saying,

"well, I came to
and realized I had been raped."

we still don't know why
paige killed herself.

But it seems like this is
one piece of the puzzle.

I knew bill in '72 when
I worked as a bunny.

It wasn't until
the situation in '79 in chicago

that he drugged and raped me.

[sighs]

voilГ ! Here we are. Wow.

This is a picture of bill cosby

the day before he drugged
and raped me,

and this is the original card
that he sent me

the following day
after he raped me

when he sent me a 4-foot
ficus tree, and it says,

"stay healthy mentally.
Stay in charge of yourself.

Bill cosby."

how crazy was that?

It--it's a reminder.

It's a reminder of how far
I've come from that.

So I keep it.

I knew bill cosby for six years.

He was a friend.
Nothing more but a friend

that I would see
on the playboy circuit.

Nine months or so after
I had gotten to chicago

as the bunny mother,

uh, bill cosby was doing
an interview

in the playmate lunchroom.

Later that day,
he called me, and he said,

"listen, you want to go out
to dinner tomorrow night?"

I said, "sure."

he says, "well, meet me
at the whitehall hotel,

and we'll go out to dinner."
I said, "sure."

I didn't think anything of it
'cause I knew this person.

So the next night,
I met him at 7:00,

and he was in the penthouse.

So he said to me,
"well, come on up,

and we'll have a drink
before we go to dinner."

I went upstairs, and he says,
"what would you like to drink?"

so I said,
"I'll take a grand marnier."

and he gave me the glass.
I took two sips,

and that's the last thing
I remember

until 4:00 the next morning.

And I woke up in bed naked,

and I looked to my left,
and there he was naked,

sleeping next to me,
and I was in a panic.

And I slivered out of the bed

to try to collect my clothes
that were all over the floor,

and I had blood coming down
my leg 'cause he sodomized me.

And blood was
dripping on the floor.

And, um... [voice breaking]
I put my clothes on,

but there was a lot of blood.

в™Єв™Єв™Є

it was a lot of blood.

I dripped it all the way
out in the lobby in the hotel.

[sobbing]

[sniffles]

and I went home in the shower,
and I just screamed.

I was in the shower
for a good hour.

в™Єв™Єв™Є

and I knew I had to go to work

because I had nobody to
cover me, and I went to work.

And about 11:00 in the morning,
he calls my office.

How he got that private line,
I don't know.

It was a private line.
[sniffles]

and he says,
"why did you leave?"

and I was like,
"are you kidding me?"

"why did you leave?"

and I said, "listen,
I can't talk to you now.

I'm getting the girls on
the floor. I'm doing my work."

I hung up the phone, and I was
in complete, total shock.

That next day I called my boss,
and I told her that he raped me

and he drugged me,
and her reply was,

"that's hefner's best friend.

I suggest you shut your mouth
if you want to keep your job."

and for days on end,

cosby continued to call
and ask me out,

and I refused
to go out with him.

I couldn't go to hefner
because there were a lot

of very strange things
happening up at the mansion.

How am I gonna go to him?

Who's gonna listen to me?

I knew nothing
would have changed.

I knew he wouldn't
have been held accountable.

It was bill cosby.

He was gonna buy nbc studios.

Who's gonna listen to me?
How do I prove it?

I had no avenue to go down.

There were other celebrities
and vips

that were at the, uh,
l.A. Mansion

that would definitely drug

and sexually assault
young women.

Roman polanski, of course,
who we know

to be someone
who fled the country

after raping a very young girl,
allegedly, right,

is somebody who's a fixture

at the playboy mansion
at one point.

So what kind of people we choose
to surround ourselves with

says something about who we are.

My name's charlotte lewis,

and I did the cover
of "playboy" in 1994, June.

I suddenly found out how close

roman polanski and hugh hefner
really were,

and I did find that
a bit disturbing.

In 1977, polanski was
convicted of rape of a minor,

and the minor was 13 years old.

The girl was two weeks short
of 14.

But if you have seen her, uh,
sitting here next to me,

you wouldn't be
particularly shocked by it.

As a matter of fact, you would
find it completely normal.

But I'd be particularly
concerned to find out

how old she was,
and you actually did know.

-You actually did know.
-Yeah, I knew. I knew.

I knew she was 14
because she was talking

about her birthday before that.

Then I met him five,
five and a half years later,

six years later.

I was, uh, raped by
roman polanski when I was 16.

It took a long time for me
to realize

that what had happened to me
wasn't my fault,

because I always thought
it was my fault.

You don't realize at the time
when something's--

when you're very young,

that what's happened is--
is illegal or--or wrong.

You know it's wrong
'cause it doesn't feel right.

There are some men that
obviously, of a generation,

yes, feel that there is
some...Entitlement

and that women are just the sex,
you know, objects.

It's about the control,
really, isn't it?

It's amazing there is
still some kind of protection

for these--these boys,
these men,

these--these debauched
human beings, you know?

I would be up at the game house
with hef a lot,

and the conversations
could get very heavy,

and--and roman polanski
was one of the stories,

and I would listen to them talk.

It was, "gah, he got caught!"

you know, or "the schmo--
he got caught,"

like it was okay to be
with a young girl.

Just don't get caught.

They were just relieved
that they hadn't gotten caught,

but I don't believe
it stopped with that.

в™Єв™Єв™Є

the idea of underage sex

was not really taken
very, very seriously.

And indeed,
hefner's interest in young girls

had been evident
throughout his adult life,

epitomized by the fact that, um,
he seduced one of the girls

that had been at his daughter's
16th birthday party.

10 of her school friends
were invited,

and a few days after that,

one of the girls
who'd been at the party

called hefner and said
she would like to meet him.

She did come and see him,
and the inevitable happened.

в™Єв™Єв™Є

why has it taken till today
for it to be believed

that oh, my god, you know,
these things do happen to girls?

Yeah,
50-year-old men do rape girls.

What we're dealing with is
a very powerful team

of close friends
who stick together,

men defending their guy.

Hold each individual man
responsible,

because what predator
is not going to go

to the playboy mansion?

It's locked. It's secure.

All the cookies are in the jar,

and it's okay. No one judges.

Jim brown, the football player,

is a known fixture
at the playboy mansion,

and there have been
a number of stories, um,

corroborated by women

who claimed that they were
sexually assaulted

by jim brown
at the playboy mansion.

I was at the mansion
all the time.

[chuckles] it was a ball.

There were new girls coming in
from all over the country,

and, uh, anything was okay
between consenting partners.

[chuckles]

jim brown did come up
and have sex at the mansion,

and he always abused
different playmates.

в™Єв™Єв™Є

I observed it.
Many people witnessed it.

Hef did tell me that jim brown
brutalized women, yeah.

But why would he keep
letting him come up?

You know, what's with that?
Because he was a celebrity?

The first time I saw the abuse
with jim brown

was in the grand hall,
they called it.

There--there was
a very big party.

I think it was
the new year's party.

All: 3...2...!

There was one girl.
I don't remember her name,

but she was the black girl

that I remember
being at the mansion,

and jim brown turned her upside
down and held her by her heels--

this was right in front of me--
and shook her violently--

violently until
her bosom fell out of her bra,

and then flipped her back up,
and she's hanging out.

I could see it on her face,
and I thought, oh, my god.

And then there was the time
when he was in the grotto.

In the shower room,
there was an apparatus

that all the men
would go in and use.

Hefner had this chair
in the back house that

was very odd-shaped,

and looking at it, thinking,
what is this?

And he says,
"well, that's the sex chair."

it was this chair
with a dildo attached to it.

That night, I was in the garden,
and I heard the screaming,

and stefan was there, too.

We peeked in there, and we saw
jim just going bananas,

bananas, violently on this girl.

She was one
of the african american women

who came up to the mansion,
and he put her on the sex chair.

I could see him assaulting
this woman and beating her.

She was screaming in pain,
begging him to stop.

I just--I was shocked.

When he was finished,
I had to help her,

and I took her
to the front of the mansion

and had one of hefner's drivers
take her to the hospital.

I never saw her again there.

в™Єв™Єв™Є

after that, hefner allowed jim
back on the property

where he would brutalize
these girls.

He cracked ribs,
he dislocated jaws,

but nobody was gonna
come forward,

because nobody wanted hefner
to come after you, or jim brown.

It bothered me.
What was I gonna do about it?

Get fired?

I had no power.
I was an employee.

I don't know the rules
for movie stars

and hefner at the mansion.

It seemed that this was natural,

that this is what they expected
hefner to allow them to do.

Jim brown, like bill cosby,

is not the only man
with a history of accusations

of predatory behavior that spent
time at the playboy mansion.

Systemic racism
makes matters of rape

infinitely more complicated.

We know that there are
a lot of white men

that were going
to the playboy mansion

that are predators,

but it's easier to hold
black male predators accountable

for a lot of reasons.

It's easier to say "hey, look,
this black guy is a rapist."

we're comfortable with that.

Black men do not typically have

the unspoken racial solidarity
in society

of white men around them

in deference of people
of other races and of women.

[cheers and applause]

but hugh hefner--
what's his role in this?

They were predators.
They were power predators.

But who set this ballroom up?

He had the drugs.
He had the liquor.

He had the women. He had
everything at his disposal.

в™Єв™Єв™Є

out
a little bit more about paige,

it was like solving the mystery
of a person.

In my interview with richard,
paige's boyfriend,

richard said hefner ruined
a lot of good women.

After that,
I've read a few excerpts

from what the scene was like
there during that era,

and it wasn't
a very pretty picture.

A woman they call "bunny b.J."

she was a bunny
at the century city club,

and she hung out on that scene
in, like, '73, '74,

same era as paige,

and she just wrote about
her experience at the mansion.

"I began to realize,
as far as playboy was concerned,

I was completely expendable.

No one cared what kind
of a person I was,

what thoughts I had.

I could have been a doll.

I tried suicide
a couple of times.

To me, there was no purpose to
the kind of life I was leading.

'playboy' magazine should have
a warning on it

like cigarette advertising.

'this philosophy can be
hazardous to your health.'"

в™Єв™Єв™Є

the suicide rate for playmates
is significantly higher

than the rate
for american women.

And so I think it's worth asking
what is it about playboy that

leads so many women that have
graced its pages to tragedy?

в™Єв™Єв™Є

after the drugging and rape
of bill cosby,

I didn't know how to process it.

I was never offered therapy.
So I started cutting myself--

cutting my arms,
cutting my legs.

It's a weird thing that happens
when you cut yourself.

It's kind of like a release,

and it got so bad that I have
several failed suicide attempts.

And the last one,
I ended up in

hackensack university hospital
for 17 days.

They didn't think
I was gonna make it.

I didn't think
I was gonna make it.

в™Єв™Єв™Є

the playboy years
were some pretty tough years.

I didn't feel of value.

So I can see how girls
that have lived that life

have taken their own life.

I so wish that I had been there
to talk to them.

I would have told them, "stay.

Just stay."

в™Єв™Єв™Є

paige wanted to get
her message out

that these men were predatory,

and she thought
the only way that anybody

was going to pay attention to
her was if she killed herself.

The message got squashed.

It was so sad that paige
went to all this trouble

to leave a message,
and no one cared.

This film that you're doing
right now, this is going to be

when paige finally gets
her side of the story,

where she gets to speak
for herself.

There are so many men
in hef's inner circle

who were part
of this underground system,

the shadow mansions.

These men who were
out there recruiting,

they would put ads out--
"want to be a playmate?"

the competition is so stiff
to be a playmate.

So that handful makes it.

The rest slip
through the cracks.

I would see these girls who are
clearly drugged

and not coherent.

They would be, you know,
injecting them with something.

Oh, I think hef knew

definitely what was going on
at the parties.

Many women
came forward finally,

and why these girls were
so scared is really coming out.