Holly Madison has thrown her support behind the controversial Playmates movie.
Holly Madison supports Playmates
The 46-year-old beauty – who was the late Hugh Hefner’s ‘number one girlfriend’ when they were together for seven years in the early 2000s – has shared her support for the film and its writer, Lorraine Nicholson, after the Playboy founder’s third wife, Crystal Harris, recently called on Jessica Biel to pull out of the project.
Holly told TMZ she thinks Lorraine, who is an acquaintance of hers, is a “wonderful writer” and she believes in keeping an open mind when it comes to other people sharing their experiences, as so many others have done for her when sharing her own stories about life in the Playboy Mansion.
She added: “I love Lily-Rose Depp, too. I can’t wait to see it.”
Her comments came days after Crystal urged Jessica to “please reconsider” after she signed up to play a fictional wife of Hefner in the movie, citing her own experiences of abuse in her marriage as a reason to pull out of the film.
Crystal – who was married to Hefner from 2012 until his death in 2017 – shared a screenshot of a direct message she had sent to Jessica about the project.
It read: “Please reconsider playing Hugh Hefner’s ‘wife’ if this film intends to romanticize him or the Playboy world.
“I was actually his wife, and I experienced sexual, emotional, financial and physical abuse in this relationship.
“Many other women have come forward with allegations of rape, coercion, drugging and exploitation as well. There are also deeply troubling concerns involving minors.
“I hope everyone involved in this film takes the time to listen to the women who lived it before helping Hollywood turn it back into nostalgia.”
Although Hefner – who died in 2017 at the age of 91 – was married to Mildred Williams and Kimberley Conrad, as well as Crystal, in his lifetime, the character Jessica will play is entirely fictional, Variety reports.
Playmates tells the story of a 13-year-old girl called Elle – who will be portrayed by The Housemaid actress Indiana Elle – who considers the Playboy Mansion to be her second home.
As she’s at the Mansion, she meets a wannabe Playmate Anna, played by Lily-Rose Depp, who is vying to be Playmate of the Month.
The pair form an unlikely friendship as Elle tries to help Anna land her goal, whilst Anna attempts to get Elle her dream – a boyfriend.
Lorraine, the daughter of legendary actor Jack Nicholson and his ex Rebecca Broussard, has loosely based the story on her own experiences at the Playboy Mansion while growing up in the public eye.
While Lorraine’s short film Life Boat, which she wrote and directed, premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival, Playmates will mark her feature directorial debut.
She previously hit headlines with an essay she penned for Vanity Fair about growing up in Hollywood, in which she called Los Angeles the “status-anxiety capital of the world”.
In the essay, Lorraine also recalled some of her experiences at the Playboy Mansion – and her friendship with Hugh’s children Marston and Cooper.
She called the mansion “such a place of innocence, paradoxically”, adding: “I was regularly swimming in the grotto. I didn’t know that the place had this other side by night.”
Lorraine had her first movie experience when she was cast as an extra in Jack’s movie Something’s Gotta Give when she was just 13.
She recalled: “Nancy Meyers let me be an extra in Something’s Gotta Give because I wanted to be an actor.
“But my parents wouldn’t let me pursue acting until I went to college, which was smart, because I then realised I didn’t actually want that.”