Hugh Hefner's family are firing back at shocking allegations made by the late Playboy mogul's widow Crystal Harris, who has accused Hefner of leaving behind thousands of scrapbooks filled with indecent - and potentially illegal - photos.
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Harris held a press conference on Tuesday with powerhouse attorney Gloria Allred, where she announced that she had filed legal complaints to have her late husband's scrapbooks investigated amid fears that they contained non-consensual photos of naked women and possibly underage girls.
Hefner's youngest sons, Marston, 35, and Cooper, 34, hit back at Harris in a statement to Daily Mail, stressing that they had 'never seen inappropriate images of minors' in Hefner's scrapbooks.
'In response to recent public comments made by Crystal Harris regarding our father, Hugh Hefner, and his scrapbooks, we have personally reviewed these materials extensively over many years, as have numerous historians, filmmakers, and journalists, including those who have both celebrated and critically examined his life’s work,' the siblings said in a statement.
'Over more than a quarter century of familiarity with these materials, we have never seen inappropriate images of minors, as has been suggested. The scrapbooks document decades of personal, professional, and family history,' they continued.
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'Our father lived much of his life publicly and assembled these materials as a historical record, with the intention that they ultimately be preserved and reviewed in full context, not hidden or concealed.
Hugh Hefner's family are firing back at shocking allegations made by the late Playboy mogul's widow Crystal Harris
The late Playboy founder is pictured with sons Cooper and Marston in 2011
'We believe claims of this magnitude should be supported by evidence and precision, not implication without proof. We support the preservation of the scrapbooks in partnership with a university or museum, along with responsible public access consistent with his long-standing wishes.'
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.
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Harris fears that some of the women in the images may have been intoxicated at the time they were taken and therefore could not properly consent, 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.
'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.'
She added, 'This is not historical documentation. This is the cataloging and objectification of women’s most private details.'
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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'.
The Hefner brothers told Daily Mail that they have 'never seen inappropriate images of minors' in Hefner's scrapbooks, as Harris suggested
Harris fears that Hefner's scrapbooks may contain non-consensual photos of naked women and possibly underage girls
'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.
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'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 Attorneys General 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.'
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.'
Harris held a press conference on Tuesday with powerhouse attorney Gloria Allred
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Harris has filed complaints with the Attorneys General of California and Illinois, requesting that they initiate an investigation into how the images are being handled and stored
Harris famously wed the Playboy founder in 2012 when she was 26 and he was 86.
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.
Harris, who now works as a real estate agent, has been at war with her late husband and his family over the last few years.
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 during their four-year marriage.
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She has since had a public falling out with his sons Cooper and Marston, with Marston even calling Harris 'controlling' and a 'master manipulator'.
Marston made the damning claims about his father's widow on Holly Madison's Girls Next Level podcast in 2024, suggesting that Harris was hellbent on power and oversaw changes to his father's will when he was mentally fragile.
Harris famously wed the Playboy founder in 2012 when she was 26 and he was 86
Cooper is pictured with his late father and Harris at the Playboy Mansion in 2014
'When Crystal came in [to the mansion], there started to be tribes. And so there were people who were on Crystal's team,' he explained to Madison.
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He said Harris became addicted to the 'idea of control and power' and would determine who could and could not enter the infamous mansion.
'She liked controlling the guest list,' he said. 'She liked taking girls off and on the guest list depending on how, whatever the whims were at the time… She liked being in that position where you had to go through her or you had to ask her for things.'
Marston also suggested that Crystal oversaw changes to his father's will while the Playboy mogul was 'sick' and 'dosed with f***ing medication'.
'The year that he passed away, he changed the will and he gave me, another person, and Crystal more money,' he claimed.
'And I don't know how much more, I don't remember if Crystal got more than us,' he continued.
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'I was looking at that when I was getting the inheritance, and I was like, "Why? When he wasn't here, when he didn't know what the f**k was up or down half of the time, why would he change his will?"
'And that's why I sent an email saying, "I don't think he's competent anymore, guys, can we agree on this?" And nobody really wanted to address what I perceived as the elephant in the room.'
In 2024, Harris published her explosive memoir, Only Say Good Things: Surviving Playboy And Finding Myself
Responding to Marston's claims, Harris later told Us Weekly, 'I feel that obviously he has a lot of pain and hurt still from the relationship or lack thereof with his father.
'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 themselves.'
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Crystal also strongly denied Marston's claims that she had Hugh 'dosed with f***ing medication' and that she had 'invited strangers' to Hugh's funeral.
'I was married to him. I was closest to Hef,' she insisted.
Harris also slammed Madison, who was engaged to Hefner, and her Girls Next Level co-host Bridget Marquardt, accusing the pair of trying to 'sabotage' her.
'If I have a problem with someone, I’ll go to the person and talk to them. Obviously they just want attention,' she sniffed.
Harris has even taken aim at Hefner's youngest son Cooper, 34, calling him a 'narcissist' in an Instagram post last year.
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'Hef didn't even like his own kids, he would tell me he's not a good dad and shoo them out of the room when they would come in trying to talk to him,' she wrote.
Harris also denied an accusation that she had 'walked away with inheritance meant for [Hefner's] family', but did confirm that she had been left with the $5million Hollywood Hills home that Hef bought her during their marriage.
Playboy magazine was relaunched last year after a five-year hiatus, with Playmate of the Year Gillian Nation appearing in a nude centerfold
The magazine went through a short-lived woke rebrand in 2019, with no nudity and a focus on progressive activists and the LGBTQ community
Playboy magazine was officially re-launched last year after a five-year hiatus.
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The iconic publication went through a woke rebrand in 2019 after Hefner's death, with the magazine's new editors banning nudity and featuring progressive activists, feminists, men, and transgender models in the magazine instead of the glamorous pinups of the past.
The woke rebrand was a disaster and temporarily tanked the magazine until last year, when it came back with a vengeance.
For the relaunch, editors brought back the beloved Playmates, fully nude pictorials, celebrity interviews, and the kind of bold journalism that the magazine was famed for back in its heyday.
Steve Harvey's influencer daughter Lori Harvey posed for the magazine's cover, while Guess model Gillian Nation stripped naked in the centerfold to celebrate being crowned Playmate of the Year.
A follow-up issue in November featuring twelve new Playmate pictorials along with rarely seen images of Jane Birkin, one of which is featured on the cover.
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