Crystal Hefner, the widow of Playboy founder Hugh Hefner, has called for a probe into his foundation. She alleged her late husband’s foundation possesses his personal scrapbooks and diaries which have a ton of highly sensitive information and explicit photographs of women, even ‘possibly’ underage girls.
The announcement came on Tuesday at a news conference. “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,” Hefner said.
She added “They may also contain images of women who did not consent to their images being taken in the first place.” Hefner also noted she was removed as the chief executive officer and president of the Hugh M. Hefner Foundation on Monday after she refused to resign when asked to do so.
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Given that the announcement about Hefner has come during an ongoing interest in Jeffrey Epstein, many wondered if the Playboy founder was mentioned in the Epstein files.
“Oohhh I bet Hugh Hefner is in the Epstein Files for sure,” one person remarked on X. Another added “Hugh Hefner and Jeffrey Epstein were presumably connected. Also, multiple accounts over the years have demonstrated ate most of the Playboy Bunnies were in fact victims of sexual enslavement in one or another way.”
Yet another said “They were basically doing the same damned stuff!!!,” while a person concurred adding “I wonder why nobody ever brings up Hugh Hefner…he pretty much had the same thing going on as Epstein but it was socially acceptable??”.
Is Hugh Hefner in the Epstein files?
Hugh Hefner died in 2017, two years before Epstein was found dead in his prison cell, with authorities ruling it a suicide. While those on social media have drawn parallels between Hefner’s style and Epstein’s, the Playboy founder does not directly appear in the Epstein files.
That is to say, Hefner is not mentioned in Epstein’s list of clients. However, Hefner’s name does come up in the documents related to Epstein in various capacities.
There is one email about a Hugh Hefner auction that Epstein was made aware of. “Hugh Hefner auction is going on now and tomorrow,” the subject line read.
More relevantly, there is one email from 2019, where Epstein and his then-lawyer David Schoen were in conversation. Schoen mentioned Hefner to Epstein when the late convicted child sex offender told him that they needed ‘some sort of short narrative in public’.
Epstein wrote to Schoen, saying “girls got money, and; a deals a deal. . no trafficking. no pre pubescent women Jane doe 1 and 2 worked in strip clubs . BEFORE meeting me.” To this the lawyer had replied “there is a big difference to people between 17 or 18 year old posing as 19 or 20 vs. the story of the man/father who paints you as a guy with 14 year olds etc. It is Hugh Hefner vs. rapist and rich guy who bought his way out to repentant who made all “victims =9D whole (even those with no real claim), got ripped off by opportunistic lawyers who pounced and became rich off of “victims”, whole life changed with scarlet letter sex offender, etc”.