Hugh Hefner's widow Crystal Harris has filed a legal complaint to track down the whereabouts of her late husband's scrapbooks, which she believes may contain images of underage girls.
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In a bombshell press conference on Tuesday, Harris and her attorney Gloria Allred said that there were approximately 3,000 scrapbooks belonging to the Playboy founder that contain 'naked and sexually explicit images' of women.
Harris also fears that some of the women in the images may have been intoxicated at the time and therefore could not properly consent to having their photo taken, and that some females may have been underage.
'It is critical for the public to understand that I am not referring to images that appeared in magazines. My focus is on how Hugh Hefner’s personal scrapbooks chronicle private moments that took place behind closed doors,' Harris said in a statement.
'There are serious and unresolved concerns about the scope of what these books contain. The materials span decades, beginning in the 1960s, and may include images of girls who were underage at the time and could not consent to how their images would be retained or controlled,' she continued.
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'They may also contain images of women who did not consent to their images being taken in the first place. The scrapbooks include nude images, images taken before and after sexual activity, and other deeply intimate moments.'
There are fears that late Playboy founder Hugh Hefner's scrapbooks containing images of naked women could be leaked online
The scrapbooks reportedly contain thousands of images of naked women and may even feature photos of 'underage girls'
She added, 'This is not historical documentation. This is the cataloging and objectification of women’s most private details.'
The scrapbooks are said to be held in a storage facility in California, but Harris claims that she was told that some of the scrapbooks 'could be inside a private residence to be scanned and digitized'.
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'I am deeply worried about these images getting out. Artificial intelligence, deepfakes, digital scanning, online marketplaces, and data breaches mean that once images leave secure custody, the harm is irreversible. A single security failure could devastate thousands of lives,' she said.
Harris also claims that she was 'asked to resign' from the board of the Hugh M. Hefner Foundation after she raised concerns about the images.
'Though I declined to resign my position, yesterday, in direct response to my escalating concerns regarding the handling of private photos contained in the scrapbooks, I was unilaterally removed from my position as the Chief Executive Officer/President of the Foundation,' she said.
Harris has now filed complaints with the Attorney Generals of California and Illinois, requesting that they initiate an investigation into how the images are being handled and stored.
Harris added, 'This is not about money. I am seeking dignity, safety, and the destruction of non-consensual intimate materials so that exploitation does not continue under the banner of philanthropy. Thousands of women may be affected.'
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In addition to the thousands of scrapbooks, the foundation is also in possession of Hefner's personal diary, which Allred claims contains, 'highly personal information regarding his sexual exploits, including names of women he slept with, notes describing the sex acts they performed, and in some instances, even information tracking women’s menstrual cycles.'
Hefner's widow Crystal Harris has filed two legal complaints to track down the whereabouts of the scrapbooks
Harris announced the legal move in a press conference with her attorney Gloria Allred on Tuesday
Daily Mail has contacted the Hugh Hefner Foundation for comment.
Harris famously wed the Playboy founder in 2012 when she was 26 and he was 86.
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They were married until his death at age 91 in 2017, which was the result of heart failure and septicemia after contracting a deadly strain of e-coli. He left a reported $43million fortune behind.
In 2024, Harris published her explosive memoir, Only Say Good Things: Surviving Playboy And Finding Myself, in which she made a number of bombshell claims, including that she never loved the late magazine kingpin and she felt imprisoned in their four-year marriage.
She has since had a public falling out with his sons Cooper and Marston Hefner, with Marston even calling Harris 'controlling' and a 'master manipulator'.
Suggesting that she buys Instagram followers, Marston said, 'If you're not interested in fame, why are you buying Instagram followers?
'If you're not after money, then why was she hustling as Crystal DJ Hefner?'
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Harris famously wed the Playboy founder in 2012 when she was 26 and he was 86. (Pictured 2015)
Harris later fired back at Marston's claims in a statement to Us Weekly.
'I feel that obviously he has a lot of pain and hurt still from the relationship or lack thereof with his father.'
She added, 'And there are some things I think he’s trying to heal or get answers to that he’s realizing may never be answered. So maybe he’s filling in the blanks.'
Harris has also publicly clashed with Hefner's ex-fiancee, Holly Madison.
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The former model now works as a real estate agent and is engaged to entrepreneur James Ward.