THE DARK WORLD OF PLAYBOY

While the star-studded parties and reality TV show The Girls Next Door portrayed buxom blondes fawning over the founder of the Playboy empire, Hugh Hefner, an explosive new docuseries exposes damning allegations of sexual misconduct from several former Bunnies

Since February this year, PJ Masten's Facebook inbox has been filled with death threats. "You're a piece of shit. You're a liar. You're a fuck this and fuck that,” she says, repeating some of the messages she's received.

Masten is no stranger to public attacks. In 2014, she alleged she had once been drugged and raped by Bill Cosby - a claim later echoed by dozens of women. But speaking out against the late nude-magazine founder Hugh Hefner has roused far more vitriol, Masten says. Not only for tarring the reputation of a beloved public figure, but for breaking ranks with a tight-knit community: Playboy itself.

"It's all from Bunnies," says Masten, referring to the waitresses whose uniforms at the once-famous Playboy Clubs paid homage to the company's mascot. “These are 85-year-old women running around with bunny ears on and I'm bursting their bubble. Being a Bunny was the best experience of my life. It was a great sorority of sisters. But the filth and language they're attacking me with? I'm frightened of these vicious women."

Masten, 71, is one of nearly 30 women who appear in Secrets of Playboy, a 10-episode docuseries that takes aim at the legacy of Hefner, who died in 2017. Since premiering in late January, the series has featured Hefner's former lovers, colleagues, and magazine centerfolds making damning allegations about Playboy and its creator. One former Playmate, Susie Krabacher, claims that Hefner raped her. Sondra Theodore, his girlfriend in the late 1970s, says: she witnessed Hefner masturbating his dog. She also claims he turned her into a "drug mule” who was forced to retrieve his cocaine. Numerous women say Hefner filmed all of the sex he had in his bedroom at the Playboy Mansion - often without consent and kept the tapes.