For years, Playboy founder Hugh Hefner lived the life of luxury as a millionaire in a lavish mansion, surrounded by beautiful women who were at his beck and call and throwing decadent parties.
But it was a very different story when it came to the 'bunnies' who lived by his side.
Their lives were blighted by intense pressure to look perfect, humiliating sexual experiences and an inability to live independently or leave, they have claimed.
As well as Hefner's 'girlfriends', which included Kendra Wilkinson, Holly Madison and Bridget Marquardt, several other women known as 'Playmates' or 'bunnies' lived in the sprawling LA property.
Some have spoken and claim they were expected to have sex with much-older Hefner, who died aged 91 in 2017.
On Monday 31 January, an explosive new documentary Secrets of Playboy is set to air, pulling back the curtain on the grimy "cult-like" world.
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In it, Holly expands on the "miserable" horrors she allegedly faced.
"The reason I think the mansion was very cult-like, looking back on it, is because we were all kind of gaslit and expected to think of Hef as, like, this really good guy," she said in a preview clip.
"You started to feel like, 'Oh, he’s not what they say in the media — he’s just a nice man.'"
Miki Garcia, former director of Playmate promotions added: "The women had been groomed and led to believe they were part of this family. He (Hefner) really did believe he owned these women.
"We had Playmates that overdosed, that committed suicide."
Behind their beaming photo-ready smiles, what harrowing abuse were the women at Hef's side really facing?
Sex rituals
All of the women living at the Playboy Mansion were expected to have sex with Hefner, it's reported, with ex-girlfriend Sandra Theodore claiming he demanded group sex five nights a week.
She also stated Hef would also host weekly 'pig nights', where he would bring in a dozen 'ugly' sex workers to have sex with his friends.
In her book Down the Rabbit Hole: Curious Adventures and Cautionary Tales of a Former Playboy Bunny, Holly claims girlfriends would change into identical flannel pyjamas beforehand.
Hef would watch porn, smoke weed, and masturbate while the girlfriends would kiss each other around him, she alleged.
Holly claimed they would take turns pleasuring him, but he always finished by himself.
"There was zero intimacy involved. No kissing, nothing," she said.
"It was so brief that I can't even recall what it felt like beyond having a heavy body on top of mine."
There was no protection used, and no testing, said Carla Howe, while Kendra said she found the sex so unbearable that she couldn't stay sober for it.
Writing in her book Being Kendra: Cribs, Cocktails, and Getting My Sexy Back, she said: "I had to be very drunk or smoke lots of weed to survive those nights – there was no way around it."
In another book, Sliding Into Home, she added: "At about the minute mark, I pulled away and it was done. It was like a job. Clock in, clock out. It's not like I enjoyed having sex with him."
Carla also told The Mirror: "It's like being with a grandad. Not long ago they called in the nurse because he'd had a fall in the grotto."
In the headboard behind his bed, Hef kept his 'sexual apparatus' such as dildos, nipple clips, whips and straps, and it was the job of the unlucky valet Stefan Tetenbaum to pick them all up and give them to the maids to clean after an orgy, he said.
Trapped and isolated
While the Playboy Bunnies could enjoy nights on the town at Hefner's expense, the live-in girlfriends didn't have much freedom, Kendra claimed.
She said she had to be at home every night by 9pm, which made her feel trapped, and absolutely no other men were permitted to enter the mansion.
"Nights were hard because while my Playmate friends got to go out and party, I would have to be home by 9 p.m," She said.
"I'd get a text message from a girl that read, 'Having so much fun in Vegas. Wish you were here! Partying with all these football players'’ and that was devastating.
"I felt so trapped and angry when I was missing out on something good."
Holly agreed, saying: "Everyone thinks that the infamous metal gate was meant to keep people out. But I grew to feel it was meant to lock me in."
She added: "You were encouraged to not have friends over. You weren’t really allowed to leave unless it was like a family holiday."
As well as the curfew and allowance, the live-in girlfriends had to follow a strict set of rules if they wanted to stay in the mansion.
If they were photographed outside of the mansion they had to look perfect and were scolded if they appeared drunk.
Melissa Howe explained: "If you do something wrong, you'll get an email. There's a strict code of conduct. There are even rules about Instagram and Twitter.
"You've got to show everything in a good light and if you're drunk in a picture you'll be in trouble."
They also had to stay silent whenever Hef was being interviewed.
Hefner only allowed them to have bleached blonde hair but they could have as much cosmetic surgery as they wanted.
They couldn't have their own cars, instead loaning them from Hefner and returning them when they left the mansion.
Emotional abuse
Hefner would often put the girlfriends down about their appearance, making them insecure and fearful about how they looked.
Recalling one incident, Holly wrote: "Don't ever wear red lipstick again,' [Hefner] warned me in a low voice and turned toward the door.
"He paused and turned back around to survey my reaction. Deciding he hadn't done enough damage, he served me one final blow before storming out of the room, 'You look old, hard and cheap.'"
Kendra remembered one evening when he put her down because of her weight, saying: "We were all in the limo on the way to a book signing with Hef when he pulled me aside. 'Is everything okay?' he asked.
"'I feel fat, Hef,' I told him. 'Everyone is so pretty. It's making me really insecure.'
"'Well, you look a little bigger,' he said, honestly. 'Maybe you can go to the gym.'
"When we got home, I went to my room and cried myself to sleep. I was disappointed in myself.
"I had this whole mansion and a great life to enjoy, and all I was doing was lying around and eating. I felt so lazy and miserable. This was supposed to be paradise, but for me, it wasn't."
Holly told People that Hef would use manipulation to ensure all the women felt nervous about keeping their spot in the mansion, turning them against each other.
"There was so much competition among the other women," she said.
"I learned not to confide in certain people. There was a lot of fear."
She also revealed in the documentary that the 'bunnies' feared facing Hef's wrath because he had so many compromising photos he'd taken which he could release to the public.
Crumbling, smelly mansion
With its 22 bedrooms, swimming pools and gates to keep out intruders, the Playboy mansion looked like the height of luxury and celebrity extravagance.
But inside, things were a whole different story.
Former girlfriends have revealed there was dog poo everywhere and porn strewn across every room because the two dogs owned by Holly were never house-trained.
Melissa also described "dirty" carpets in the mansion and the poor state of the girls' rooms in her book.
She said: "Although we all did our best to decorate our rooms and make them homey, the mattresses on our beds were disgusting — old, worn and stained. The sheets were past their best too."
Begging for money
The live-in girlfriends each received $1,000 (£750) pocket money from Hefner himself every Friday, some have claimed.
When they went to get the money he apparently used the opportunity to explain to them everything he thought they had been doing wrong.
In her book Bunny Tales: Behind Closed Doors at the Playboy Mansion, Izabella St. James described the grim routine.
She wrote: "We had to go to Hef's room, wait while he picked up all the dog poo off the carpet — and then ask for our allowance.
"We all hated this process. Hef would always use the occasion to bring up anything he wasn't happy about in the relationship.
"Most of the complaints were about the lack of harmony among the girlfriends — or your lack of sexual participation in the 'parties' he held in his bedroom.
"If we'd been out of town for any reason and missed one of the official 'going out' nights he wouldn't want to give us the allowance. He used it as a weapon."
Holly also said Hef urged her to quit her waitressing job which she was keeping as a backup just in case, because it made him jealous.
Ahead of the documentary's release, the Playboy brand wrote an open letter condemning Hefner's "abhorrent" actions and vowing to make "positive changes".
"First and foremost, we want to say: we trust and validate women and their stories, and we strongly support the individuals who have come forward to share their experiences," they began.
"As a brand with sex-positivity at its core, we believe safety, security and accountability are paramount, and anything less is inexcusable."
They promised to listen to the women's stories about what they had suffered, and to "continue to fight harassment and discrimination".
The brand also insisted "today’s Playboy is not Hugh Hefner’s Playboy".
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