Playboy twins who claim they were abused by Hugh Hefner today reveal they intend to sue the brand – as they lift the lid on his sex “cult”.
Karissa and Kristina Shannon allege they were first lured to sleep with Hefner on their 19th birthday, then pushed into unprotected group sex and plied with alcohol and drugs.
They say the magazine and TV tycoon “had a black soul” and the experience left them suffering from PTSD, depression and needing counselling.
When Hefner died in 2017, at 91, the twins were glad – so no other girls could suffer.
Karissa says she fell pregnant at 19 to Hefner when he was 83 – and “if felt like carrying the devil’s child”. She had an abortion without the tycoon ever knowing.
Kristina tells the Sunday Mirror: “Hef acted like he owned you. If we broke his rules, six guards would drag us to our room and not let us leave. Hef called it ‘HMF arrest’, after his initials. He preyed on vulnerable young girls like us. He would offer you the world, then keep you trapped in his house, which was like a golden prison.
“When Hef died, part of us did feel sad, but another part was like, ‘OK good, no more girls are going to be groomed and ruined like we were’. I thought Playboy was one big family – now I can see it was a cult.”
The twins, now 32, plan to sue Playboy for emotional distress and trauma.
Kristina adds: “We were Playmates, employed, and everything happened at the mansion, so we want to go after them. We are speaking out because we want people to know who he truly was and what was going on behind closed doors.”
Karissa says that when first lured to Hefner’s bedroom, he gave them drugs which left them “fuzzy and loose”. She adds: “It was creepy and gross. We felt filthy, disgusted, like our bodies weren’t ours.”
The sisters claim Hefner acted like a king, told them to call him Papa – and that he groomed them, drawing parallels with other powerful tycoons like Harvey Weinstein and Jeffrey Epstein.
Karissa and Kristina spent two years at the Playboy mansion, which they believed in starry-eyed innocence was home to a world of glamour, celebrity and fun.
But the reality, they say, was group sex, drugs and strict controls – a world away from what they had naively imagined.
The girls were invited there after Hefner’s team saw pictures of a glamour photo shoot they did while making ends meet between waitressing jobs.
The sisters were flown from Florida – where they lived in a trailer park and were raised by their penniless gran – to Los Angeles, picked up in a limo, licence plate HEF 1, and taken to meet Hefner.
Karissa says: “We had just turned 18 and were so naive. I remember Hef being very charming and nice. He was wearing silk pyjamas and slippers he always wears with his red robe.
“He was like a king in a castle – so powerful. He said, ‘Hey, will you come sit next to me?’ We could see other Playmates getting jealous.”
The twins moved in and were given $1,000 a week each to appear in Girls Next Door, a reality show about Hefner and his girlfriends, who included Kendra Wilkinson.
But it was a year later that they slept with him – after, they say, he gave them quaalude, a sedative known for its hypnotic qualities. It had the crude nickname “leg spreaders” because users were powerless to resist.
Kristina claims: “On our 19th birthday he took us to a club. He bought us alcohol even though the US age limit is 21. When we got back, Kendra was like, ‘Do you girls want to smoke some weed in Hef’s room’? But when we got into his room, Kendra left. We got really nervous.
“Hef noticed and said, ‘Why don’t you slip into something more comfortable?’ He pulled out silk pyjamas from Italy and we put them on. He pulled out this big pill like the type a horse would take. It was quaalude, which we found out he used all the time.”
Karissa claims Hefner touched them as the drug took effect. She says: “He told us the drugs would help with our anxiety. We smoked some pot. We felt frozen at first but after a while the pill made us loose and fuzzy.
“He kept saying, ‘My babies, my babies,’ and cradling us as we lay either side of him. He told us to call him ‘Papa’. It was almost 5am when we got back to our room that first night and we agreed, ‘He is the devil. He has a black soul. He is going to hell’.”
The girls say they felt too ashamed to tell anyone what happened. In the months that followed they say they were regularly forced into booze and viagra-fuelled group sex with Hefner and other women.
Karissa says: “Hef would take six or seven girls to his room around midnight.
“Hef would be at the centre of the bed on his back. He had this big mirror on the ceiling. Afterwards we were disgusted and would scrub our bodies using hot, hot water and soap until we were red.”
Karissa says she found out she was pregnant by chance when she had a blood test before a planned breast enlargement, paid for by Hefner, in 2009.
She says: “I wasn’t having sex with anyone else so it only could have been his baby. I just wanted to get rid of it as soon as possible. I didn’t want Hef to find out and he never did. I was disgusted with my body and felt like there was an alien inside my stomach. It was like the devil was inside of me. I didn’t want anyone to know I was carrying an 83-year-old man’s child.”
Kristina adds: “I found a clinic in LA. I got Hef’s security to drop us at the mall, pretending we were going shopping, then called my friend to pick us up. We were able to keep it secret.”
The accusations follow new series Secrets of Playboy, which alleges the magazine mogul was a serial predator who even threw weekly “pig nights” at which “ugly” prostitutes plied their trade. It will raise more questions about how rich, powerful men could get away with abusing women in full sight.
Financier Epstein, who died in jail while facing sex trafficking charges, was able to abuse young women despite previously being convicted.
Movie mogul Weinstein was jailed for 23 years in 2020 for rape and sex attacks.
The twins claim Hefner – who counted pop weirdo Michael Jackson among his friends – was obsessed with serial killer Charles Manson and seemed inspired by his talent for grooming young girls.
Kristina says: “The place was bugged, there were cameras and listening devices everywhere. Security, ex-FBI and military, monitored everything you did. We had a 9pm curfew and his butlers were told to write down what we ate every day.”
In 2010 – by which time Hefner was seeing his future wife Crystal Harris – the twins left the mansion. They went on to appear in Celebrity Big Brother in 2012 and now split their time between homes in Michigan and Florida.
- Secrets of Playboy is available to stream on C+I PLAY and on Crime + Investigation next month.
