Get all your news in one place.
100’s of premium titles.
One app.
Start reading
Tribune News Service
Tribune News Service
Entertainment
Kate Feldman

‘Secrets of Playboy’ docuseries picks up two more episodes to continue investigation into Hugh Hefner

A&E is staying at the Playboy Mansion for a couple of more weeks.

The network’s “Secrets of Playboy” docuseries has added two more episodes to its 10-episode run, A&E announced Monday.

The new episodes will “bring together insiders, some of whom have not come forward until now, for intimate discussions exploring additional facets of Hefner’s Playboy world including the dark world lurking behind the fantasy of the early 2000s television series ‘The Girls Next Door,’ additional conversation around the stories of abuse and manipulation explored in the previous ten episodes of the series and the public reaction to the series and the allegations it explores,” according to A&E.

The first of the new episodes, airing March 28, will feature Hefner’s ex-girlfriends Karissa and Kristina Shannon to discuss their time on “The Girls Next Door” and the “darker world led by Hefner with increasingly stricter rules designed to control the women in order to maintain the Playboy image.”

“The Girls Next Door” premiered in August 2005 and ran for six seasons, following Hefner’s then-girlfriends Holly Madison, Bridget Marquardt and Kendra Wilkinson. The 19-year-old Shannon twins and Crystal Harris, who went on to marry Hefner, were introduced in the sixth season.

The second new episode, airing April 4, welcomes sex and trauma therapist Dr. Kate Balestrieri to talk with former Playmates, girlfriends, and employees including Sondra Theodore, Susie Krabacher, Lisa Loving Barrett and Audrey Ann Huskey about “the decades of fear and abuse they experienced and how the Playboy legacy has changed as a result of their decisions to come forward.”

Since its premiere, “Secrets of Playboy” has been A&E’s top series launch in more than five years, according to the network.

———

Sign up to read this article
Read news from 100’s of titles, curated specifically for you.
Already a member? Sign in here
Related Stories
Top stories on inkl right now
One subscription that gives you access to news from hundreds of sites
Already a member? Sign in here
Our Picks
Fourteen days free
Download the app
One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.