‘The Secrets of Playboy' reveals the dark side of Playboy Mansion. Image Source: News.com 

On Monday’s episode of A&E’s 10-part documentary series, ‘The Secrets of Playboy’, titled, ‘The Big Playboy Lie’, the documentary explored the lives of women who felt ‘sold’ and ‘exploited’ by the Playboy and sometimes by Hugh Hefner as well.

Taking back to the 1980s, a former Playboy employee, Miki Garcia had testified before the government committee in 1985 where she shared her personal experience with the government from her time at the Playboy mansion as 1973’s Playmate and the company’s Head of Playmate Promotions till 1982. She was also known as the Bunny Mother PJ Masten.

In her statement, Miki Garcia described her time at the mansion as a ‘life sentence’. She also described the environment at the mansion as ‘cult-like’ and spoke about the sexual abuse that took place at the mansion in her statement. It has been reported via the documentary and various sources that the women who worked at the mansion felt there was a certain amount of stigma that came along with working at the Playboy and their reputations were definitely at stake and their time at the Playboy will continue to define them for years to come.

Miki Garcia was known as the Bunny Mother PJ Masten. Image Source: A&E

Miki Garcia shared that she was raped twice by a sponsor but didn’t come out with an allegation because she did not want the Playboy to see her as a woman who couldn’t handle the job. She worked hard and made sure that her abuser never worked with the magazine again. Miki Garcia said that she had sworn to work hard and make sure that she gets to a position where no woman is abused by anyone especially men just because she had a rabbit head logo or worked at the Playboy mansion. She also added that when her rapist had called for a Playmate she had asked her secretary to never call back at the mansion ever again. 

It was discovered that Playboy Magazine debuted its full-frontal pictorial in January 1972 and eventually Hugh Hefner wanted to create a brand that was different from the others in the market. The brand’s profitability meant a lot to Hugh Hefner and soon the women on whose images the brand was built were starting to get uncomfortable with the process. In the documentary, it has been shown that a lot of these women who appeared on the cover were not at the legal age to sign a consent form.

Sondra Theodore said, "It's a big deal to take your clothes off for a camera. A man [is] taking the pictures. All of a sudden, one of the makeup girls comes up and hands you [a piece of paper]: 'Can you just sign this for us? Because we're taking your picture, you know, we have to have your permission.' You don't know what you're signing, really. Sometimes they got the girls stoned, partied out, and then they'd hand them the contract. They had their ways. Through this, you signed your life away forever."

Miki Garcia added to the same, "Several Playmates took their photos at 17 years of age with the consent of their parent. They were signing contracts in front of either Hefner or someone of his choosing, and he's holding these photos until they are of age. Hugh Hefner took it for granted that he could control us and that he could get away with it. Over time, I realized that what was supposed to be the launching pad for these young women was really a pit. ...The reality is, once you sign that release, you are no longer in control, and Hefner was the one in control of your image. Hefner sold us. He took our photos and put them on hardcore porn sites."

Dona Speir, Playmate also shared her experience and said that since they worked at the Playboy mansion, the authorities at the mansion or the magazine had an obligation to protect their pictures and videos taken for the branding purposes but they just opened the 'floodgates and let's go'. She added that soon everything became about money. 

In 1980 when Playboy Channel was launched, the game changed for a lot of people and Playmates. Sondra Theodore who had shot a video only after she was given assurance that fully nude footage would never be seen because that would have never met primetime decency standards but then the cable channel was launched which was not bound to any such restriction and the company, and the company sort of edited and pieced her videos together and released it without her consent. The company did not even care to pay her for that move which she described her as 'soft porn'. Sondra added that the company made her a porn star without her will and she was humiliated. 

Playmate Cristy Thom shared that she can find her own Playboy footage on porn sites and said, “the content bordered on kind of porn-ish. And that's why we did Playboy. That's why we didn't do Penthouse, we didn't do Hustler."

The women also shared that their payments were also put on hold because they were told that they have to fulfill their duty first and their waiting game was the trouble, as the women couldn’t do anything without permission.