Crystal Harris, Hugh Hefner and Jessica Biel. Charley Gallay/Getty Images for Playboy, Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images Crystal Harris, Hugh Hefner‘s former wife, is urging Jessica Biel to rethink her decision to portray a fictionalized take on the Playboy founder’s wife in Lorraine Nicholson’s Playmates.
Harris posted a screenshot of an Instagram message she sent to the 7th Heaven actress after her casting was announced this week. In the message, she wrote, “Please reconsider playing Hugh Hefner’s wife if this film intends to romanticize him or the Playboy world. I was actually his wife, and I experienced sexual, emotional, financial and physical abuse in that relationship.”
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Harris and Hefner were married from 2012 to 2017, until the time of his death. She opened up about her experience being his wife and living her 2024 memoir; Harris also spoke out against the handling of Hefner’s private documents in February by his foundation, specifically explicit scrapbooks, which she said in a statement “may include images of girls who were underage at the time and could not consent to how their images would be retained or controlled.”
In Harris’ message to Biel, she added, “Many other woman have come forward with allegations of rape, coercion, drugging and exploitation as well. There are also deeply troubling concerns involving minors. I hope everyone involved this film takes the time to listen the women who lived it before helping Hollywood turn it back into nostalgia.”
Playmates will mark Nicholson’s directorial debut, which will tap into her frequent visits to the Playboy mansion in her childhood. Lily-Rose Depp will star alongside Indiana Elle, who starred as Amanda Seyfried’s daughter in The Housemaid. Bill Pullman will star as Hefner.
Per Searchlight Pictures, Playmates centers on “Elle, a 13-year-old know-it-all who considers the Playboy Mansion her second home, and who meets Anna, one of seven hopefuls vying to be Playmate of the Month. The two form an unlikely friendship as each tries to help get what the other wants most, a magazine cover and a boy.”
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