HOLLY, BRIDGET & CRYSTAL - Greed, Jealousy and Manipulation: INSIDE THE PLAYBOY FEUD

Crystal Hefner exclusively weighs in on shocking accusations leveled at her on Holly Madison and Bridget Marquardt's podcast as insiders reveal new details of their long-standing bad blood

- JAIME HARKIN

In her January memoir, Only Say Good Things: Surviving Playboy and Finding Myself, Hugh Hefner's widow, Crystal, paints a grim picture of life at the Playboy Mansion, where she spent close to a decade during her nearly five-year marriage to the famed magazine publisher, who died at the age of 91 in 2017.

"Sometimes I imagined myself as Rapunzel, locked in her tower, waiting for someone to rescue her. But no one ever did," Hefner writes, describing a fiercely competitive and toxic environment in which she was pitted against other Playmates by a controlling man who dictated her every move, down to what nail polish color she could wear.

"I didn't always know I needed to be rescued," she continued, "but I knew I was trapped." Crystal's not the first person to liken the famed Playboy Mansion - the 22,000-square-foot L.A. spread known for its opulence and debauchery-filled A-list parties - to a prison.

But during the May 13 episode of Girls Next Level, the podcast hosted by The Girl Next Door stars Bridget Marquardt and Holly Madison, the women along with their guest, Hugh's 34-year-old son, Marston - took aim at Crystal, 38, and her claims. Marston went so far as to call her a "master manipulator" and gold digger who had Hugh change his will as his mental state declined toward the end of his life.

The accusations were harsh and  have brought new fuel to the long-standing feud between Crystal and Holly, 44, and Bridget, 50, which began in 2009 after Holly and Hugh split and Crystal took over as Hugh's main girlfriend.