Finding Peace

Since losing her famous husband, Crystal Hefner has been on a journey of self-discovery. Here, she tells Us just how far she's come

- JAIME HARKIN

Crystal Hefner was still mourning the death of her late husband, Playboy founder Hugh Hefner, when she traveled to Hawaii’s Big Island to visit a friend in 2018. “I fell in love with it,” she says of the idyllic destination. “The waterfalls, the scenery, everything.” She soon began house-hunting, and in 2021, she found an abandoned 6.5-acre lychee orchard and spent the last few years restoring the lush cliffside property and building her dream home on it.

It was a big undertaking, but Hefner was ready for a fresh start. “I needed a change,” she says. As the former model continued to grieve the loss of Hugh (they wed in 2012; he died in 2017 of natural causes at age 91), she also faced some of the trauma she experienced during her 10 years living in the infamous Playboy mansion. “I was in that bubble for a decade,” notes the 37-year-old, who will share her story in her upcoming memoir,