AHEAD OF TELLING HER STORY OF LIFE IN THE PLAYBOY MANSION CRYSTAL HEFNER ON FINDING HAPPINESS IN HAWAII, TRAVELLING THE WORLD AND LEARNING TO DATE AGAIN

Nestled amid waterfalls in Hawaii, a tiny house has become the happiest place in the world for Crystal Hefner - and a far cry from the extravagance of her years as the wife of the Playboy magazine mogul Hugh.

-  LILY WADDELL

"It's a little sanctuary, my slice of paradise," the 37-year-old model tells HELLO!. "Seeing the views, looking out to the ocean and the cliffs, it's very resetting. Those years feel like a lifetime ago now."

Crystal bought the six-and-a-halfacre estate in 2021, but deliberately built a small property.

"I didn't want a big house because I didn't want to disrupt the land," she says. "I looked into different options, found a tiny house company and started designing a tiny house - it's 290sq ft, but is set in acres."

Although her home is on Hawaii island, the largest in the archipelago, Crystal's thoughts are on the wildfires that raged on neighbouring Maui. She says: "Hawaii really needs help right now. Please donate to Maui organisations and the people affected. If you've ever vacationed and experienced the beauty here, please give back and help."

Her life now could not be more different from those years as a Playboy cover model and the third wife of the tycoon, whom she married in 2012, almost five years before his death from heart failure and sepsis at the age of 91.

Of the years of parties at the "mysterious and alluring" Playboy Mansion, where she lived with Hugh - "Hef", as she and his friends called him and around 70 members of staff, she says: "It's taken me until now to process what happened. Hef was a very charming and powerful man. He came across as very gentle and kind when I first met him."

Despite the charm, she admits she had concerns about the 60-year age gap, saying: "We'd do interviews and I'd say: 'Oh, the age gap doesn't matter,' and of course it matters.

Who am I fooling? People say: 'What about kids?' I'm like: 'It's not gonna work - this child will be a certain age with no father.' But all of those real thoughts, you push them down.