Crystal Hefner, the widow of the late Playboy journal founder Hugh Hefner, is working to maintain hundreds of intimate photos in his scrapbooks and journals personal.
Crystal, 39, filed regulatory complaints with the attorneys normal of California and Illinois, alleging that the Hugh M. Hefner Basis mishandled delicate personal paperwork. In keeping with Crystal, the supplies embody scrapbooks containing express photos of girls. She additionally alleges that a few of the photos are of underage women.
Crystal, who’s being represented by high-profile lawyer Gloria Allred, stated that the photographs didn’t seem in Playboy magazines.
Allred stated Crystal was eliminated because the chief govt officer of the Hugh M. Hefner Basis after she voiced issues over publishing the personal scrapbooks and diary.
“My focus is on how Hugh Hefner’s private scrapbooks chronicle personal moments that befell behind closed doorways,” Crystal stated throughout a press convention on Feb. 17.
“There are severe and unresolved issues in regards to the scope of what these books include. The supplies span a long time, starting within the Sixties, and will embody photos of ladies who have been underage on the time and couldn’t consent to how their photos could be retained or managed.”
Crystal Hefner (L), widow of Playboy founder Hugh Hefner, and legal professional Gloria Allred maintain a press convention to announce steps they’re taking to guard sexual photos and details about girls in Hefner’s private scrapbooks and diary in Los Angeles on Feb. 17, 2026.
Frederic J. Brown / AFP through Getty Pictures
Crystal claimed that lots of the scrapbooks “may include photos of girls who didn’t consent to their photos being taken within the first place.”
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“The scrapbooks embody nude photos, photos taken earlier than and after sexual exercise, and different deeply intimate moments. They include intimate materials involving girls who are actually moms, grandmothers, professionals and personal residents who’ve spent a long time constructing their lives with no concept these photos have been nonetheless being hoarded,” she continued.
“I consider they embody girls, and presumably women, who by no means agreed to lifelong personal possession of their bare photos, and who haven’t any transparency into the place their pictures are, how they’re being saved, or what is going to occur to them subsequent.”
She stated that she is “deeply apprehensive about these photos getting out” because of “synthetic intelligence, deepfakes, digital scanning, on-line marketplaces and information breaches.”
“A single safety failure might devastate hundreds of lives,” she added.
“This isn’t about cash. I’m in search of dignity, security and the destruction of non-consensual intimate supplies in order that exploitation doesn’t proceed underneath the banner of philanthropy. 1000’s of girls could also be affected. It is a civil rights challenge. Girls’s our bodies should not property, not historical past, and never collectibles. And no group ought to be allowed to say the language of civil rights whereas denying girls their most elementary one: the appropriate to manage their very own our bodies and pictures,” Crystal concluded.
Allred alleged the inspiration has in its possession “3,000 private scrapbooks containing hundreds of nude photos of girls in addition to Hefner’s diary, containing extremely private info concerning his sexual exploits, together with names of girls he slept with, notes describing the intercourse acts that they carried out and in some situations even info monitoring girls’s menstrual cycles.”
Allred stated that they’re asking the attorneys normal to “provoke a immediate and thorough investigation of the Hugh M. Hefner Basis’s actions.”
“Crystal is very involved that these scrapbooks might include photos of minor women. Furthermore, Crystal can be involved that a few of the photos within the scrapbooks could have been taken with out the knowledgeable consent of the grownup girls depicted, similar to whereas they have been intoxicated,” Allred added.
The Hugh M. Hefner Basis was established in 1964 “to embolden those that rebelled in opposition to outdated viewpoints and pushed ahead new ones,” in accordance to its web site.
Nevertheless, now the non-profit group says that it “helps and funds in the present day’s pioneers, defending civil rights and liberties, with particular emphasis on First Modification rights and rational intercourse and drug insurance policies.”
The muse has not made any feedback concerning Crystal and Allred’s claims as of this writing.
Hugh Hefner died of pure causes on Sept. 27, 2017, on the age of 91. He helped usher within the Sixties sexual revolution together with his groundbreaking journal, round which he constructed a multi-million-dollar enterprise empire.
He started his profession working as a copywriter for Esquire earlier than founding Playboy in 1953 with the assistance of a number of traders, together with his mom, who loaned him $1,000, based on a New York Instances profile.
Hefner was married thrice — in 1949, 1989 and most lately in 2012 to Crystal.
Crystal opened up days after the dying of her late husband, saying, “I haven’t been capable of deliver myself to write down most individuals again to thank them for his or her condolences.”
“I’m heartbroken. I’m nonetheless in disbelief,” she added.
Crystal known as her late husband “an American hero” and “a pioneer.”
“A form and humble soul who opened up his life and residential to the world. I felt how a lot he cherished me. I cherished him a lot. I’m so grateful. He gave me life. He gave me route. He taught me kindness. I’ll really feel eternally grateful to have been by his facet, holding his hand, and telling him how a lot I like him,” she stated.
— With information from World Information
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