Kendra Wilkinson is sharing her support for fellow Playmates who’ve spoken out about the late Hugh Hefner.
Wilkinson, 38, said she “respects” her fellow The Girls Next Door alums Holly Madison and Bridget Marquardt in an interview with People published on Wednesday, January 17. “Time is funny because it really does a lot of weird things,” she told the outlet. “I respect what Holly, Bridget [and] Crystal [Hefner] are saying. I respect what they’ve been through — I respect their stories.”
Madison, 44, has been an outspoken critic of Playboy both before and after Hugh’s 2017 death, recounting her experiences in her 2015 memoir, Down the Rabbit Hole, and the A&E docuseries Secrets of Playboy, which debuted in 2022. Wilkinson, meanwhile, had been more reticent to discuss her relationship with the late Playboy founder.
Now, Wilkinson says she’s gone down a “crazy regretful path” while thinking about her time in the Playboy Mansion. “Why did I have sex with an old man at that age?” she asked. “Why did I do that? Why did I go to the mansion in the first place? Why did I get boobs? Why did I bleach blonde my hair? Why did I?”
She went on to say that she “was there for the partying,” adding, “I was not there for Hugh Hefner to be my boyfriend.” For that reason, she explained, she doesn’t
“really see things the same way as the other girls” because Hugh was “never really” her boyfriend.
While Wilkinson said she has “empathy” for Madison and Marquardt’s experiences, she said she won’t be going on their “Girls Next Level” podcast anytime soon. “My time is my time,” she explained. “I am not ready yet. I’m not ready to talk about all that yet.”
Wilkinson moved out of the Playboy Mansion in 2009 after meeting Hank Baskett, whom she married that same year. The former couple, who divorced in 2018, share son Hank Jr., 14, and daughter Alijah, 9.
Since becoming a mom, Wilkinson has tried to keep her time with Hugh firmly in her rearview. She previously admitted that she didn’t love the more intimate duties required of Hugh’s girlfriends. “I had to be very drunk or smoke lots of weed to survive those nights — there was no way around it,” she said during a 2014 appearance on I’m a Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here! “At about the minute mark, I pulled away and it was done. It was like a job. Clock in, clock out. It’s not like I enjoyed having sex with him.”
As Madison continued talking about her time with Playboy, however, Wilkinson said she didn’t think it was necessary to revisit the past. “It doesn’t make sense. None of it makes sense,” she exclusively told Us Weekly in November 2021. “Because I’m living my life, I’ve done my work and [I feel] God blessed, I don’t really know what to say or do.”
