I think at his age at the time he may well have been deaf already.
It does raise the issue of body image though, and that is an interesting
subject, I think.
Brian

--

-----
Mildew_spores@blueyonder.co.uk is the alter ego of
Brian G.
Anything goes here.
Ambiguous statement intended.
"a425couple" <a425couple@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:UuyGM.544919$qnnb.242685@fx11.iad...
> from
> https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12448855/He-took-viagra-deaf-hell-living-Hugh-Hefner-playboy-bunny.html
>
> 'He took so much Viagra it made him deaf': playboy bunny Crystal Hefner,
> 37, describes the hell of living with her late husband, Hugh, as he
> imposed 6pm curfews so she'd stay home and share soup with him
> If Crystal Hefner ever gets her doctorate she plans to revert to her
> maiden name
> By SARAH OLIVER
>
> UPDATED: 20:00 EDT, 26 August 2023
>
> View comments
> If Crystal Hefner ever gets her doctorate in psychology, she plans to
> revert to her maiden name and become Dr Crystal Harris PhD. 'If I get
> that, it's over. Bye,' she says of the Hefner name and Playmate identity
> which still define her six years after she was widowed by the death of
> Playboy founder Hugh Hefner.
>
> In time she hopes to marry again and have a family, having frozen her eggs
> to increase her chances of motherhood with a man who is not 60 years her
> senior.
>
> The breast implants and peroxide blonde hair which made her a Playboy
> centrefold (Miss December 2009) and the legendary magazine's cover girl
> (she was billed as 'America's Princess' on the front of the July 2011
> edition) have already been consigned to history.
>
> 'That chest was too big,' says the 37-year-old, grimacing at the memory.
> 'I looked like a blow-up sex doll from China. My implants were just props,
> they felt like I was wearing a costume.'
>
> If Crystal Hefner (pictured with Hugh Hefner) ever gets her doctorate in
> psychology, she plans to revert to her maiden name and become Dr Crystal
> Harris PhD
> +5
> View gallery
> If Crystal Hefner (pictured with Hugh Hefner) ever gets her doctorate in
> psychology, she plans to revert to her maiden name and become Dr Crystal
> Harris PhD
>
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> Today, Crystal is more likely to be found barefoot and make-up free on the
> beach outside her small home in Hawaii. When she travels - something she
> was banned from doing by the man she calls 'Hef' - it's with hand luggage
> only. Gone are the minuscule party dresses and the racy lingerie, though
> she has kept one Bunny girl outfit for old times' sake.
>
> Now, in her final bid to break free from the decade she spent in the
> Playboy Mansion, five years as Hefner's girlfriend and five years as his
> wife, she has written an explosive memoir chronicling the last years of
> the Lothario who died just a month before the #MeToo movement encircled
> the globe.
>
> 'You can't fault his timing,' she says. 'He dipped out right on time.
> Hef's lifespan of 91 years, it ended on the cusp of #MeToo. Coincidence? I
> think not.'
>
> The book is called Only Say Good Things. This is what Hefner asked Crystal
> to do after he'd died - but it's not a request she can fulfil. 'I was so
> 'Team Hef',' she says, 'and I still am to a certain degree.' But she knows
> her forthcoming memoir will depict the Playboy boss as a misogynist, a
> narcissist and a co-dependent, controlling presence in her life.
>
> Her husband, whom she met when she was 21 and he was 81, dictated
> precisely what shade of nail polish she should wear (pink, pale and sheer,
> never matte) and gently tapped her on the head when her roots were
> showing.
>
> When he was in residence, he issued a 6pm curfew ensuring his young wife
> was home to share his dinner (always chicken soup with cream cheese and
> crackers) and watch his favourite movies. Then, after dark, she was
> expected to participate in the group sex for which Hefner was famous.
>
> 'It was embarrassing. I don't know the most people there'd been in our
> bedroom at one time but - a lot. Pretty bad. We were like, 'Oh, now it's
> your turn.' Nobody really wanted to be there but I think in Hef's mind, he
> still thought he was in his 40s, and those nights, the people, the
> mansion, solidified that idea. He felt, 'I've still got it.' '
>
> There were also the famous 'Sunday Fundays' when 200 young women would
> descend on the Playboy mansion. Its octogenarian owner took so much Viagra
> that it made him lose his hearing on one side (a recognised side effect of
> the drug). 'Hef always said he'd rather be deaf and still able to have
> sex. Weird,' says Crystal.
>
> Crystal was a psychology graduate living in San Diego when she applied for
> tickets to one of Hefner's Halloween parties in the hope of rubbing
> shoulders with his celebrity guests
> +5
> View gallery
> Crystal was a psychology graduate living in San Diego when she applied for
> tickets to one of Hefner's Halloween parties in the hope of rubbing
> shoulders with his celebrity guests
>
> Their own age-gap love life fascinated people. 'Everyone had questions.
> Mostly anatomical,' she remembers. Now, however she's willing to tell the
> truth, which is that even their first night together wasn't a sizzler.
> 'Unremarkable,' is her brutal verdict. 'Whatever you would like, whatever
> you would think, or however you would want a night to go, well, it wasn't
> that.'
>
> Crystal has heard all there is to say about gold-digging and young women
> marrying rich old men. 'The hardest part of trying to have a relationship
> with Hef was that it was judged so much. Rightfully so.
>
> 'If that was my daughter now - it wouldn't happen. All I can say is that
> if you come from a happy, perfect, loving childhood, you don't usually end
> up with someone who was already 60 years old by the time you are born.
>
> 'The other day I found a picture of me with him at the very beginning.
> It's just so sad. It [she means the image of herself] looks like a baby. I
> look back and I feel sorry for that girl. There was going to be this
> Wizard Of Oz moment where the fantasy fades, you draw back the curtain and
> see the reality of it. But he who has the money makes the rules, right?'
>
> She gracefully brushes off questions about how Hefner provided for her
> long-term future, although she is clearly comfortably off. This is despite
> signing what she calls 'an ironclad pre-nup', which was so unfavourable
> the first solicitor she took it to refused to take the job. Hefner's will
> was not made public but he reportedly divided his estate between his four
> children from two earlier marriages and left bequests to a university and
> charities.
>
> His widow is not ashamed of the financial and emotional choices she made
> when she was a vulnerable 21-year-old and refuses to regret her time in
> the mansion.
>
> 'When your family is broken you feel like you don't really belong
> anywhere. You depend on the kindness of others and you make yourself small
> to try to fit in. You have no power. Then I met Hef. He lived how the
> other half lives. You feel, 'Wow, I could belong here too.' At first, the
> Playboy Mansion felt like a sanctuary. It wasn't. But then you either
> abide by it or you leave, and I didn't feel like I had anywhere else to go
> or that I could make anything of myself.'
>
> Although Crystal was born in the US, her parents were British and she
> spent her early years living above the family's pub in West Bromwich in
> the Midlands. She still loves British sweets and snacks, a hangover from
> her childhood. 'Cadbury chocolate, prawn cocktail crisps, Twiglets, Ribena
> and sherbet Dip Dabs.'
>
> They settled in the States so her father, a successful singer who opened
> shows for stars such as Sammy Davis Jr and Johnny Cash, could pursue his
> career. But he died of cancer when she was just 12, leaving her mother to
> scratch a precarious, cash-in-hand living.
>
> The Playboy Mansion is the home of Playboy magazine founder Hugh Hefner
> +5
> View gallery
> The Playboy Mansion is the home of Playboy magazine founder Hugh Hefner
>
> Crystal was a psychology graduate living in San Diego when she applied for
> tickets to one of Hefner's Halloween parties in the hope of rubbing
> shoulders with his celebrity guests.
>
> Attendees at the epic annual event over the years have included Brad Pitt,
> Leonardo DiCaprio, Justin Bieber, Buzz Aldrin and Donald Trump, as well as
> female stars such as Rihanna, Pamela Anderson and Kim Kardashian.
>
> Crystal was astonished when she received an invitation and even more so
> when she caught Hefner's eye in the crowd. She became his lover that
> night.
>
> 'It was immediate, right away, it's what was expected,' she shrugs. She
> was invited to move in, taking up permanent residence alongside his
> 18-year-old twin Playmates.
>
> Today, it's a lifestyle that sounds as stale and unpalatable as the
> mansion's interior decor. 'The outside reminded me of a country home in
> the Cotswolds with five acres and a wishing well, but the inside, that had
> last been decorated in the 1970s and then Hef had hit the pause button,'
> Crystal laughs.
>
> She quickly learned she had to fight for her place in the hierarchy of
> Hefner's affections. 'Being picked or not picked, it was devastating for
> us girls, but a game to him,' she says. She would claim the top slot,
> becoming his third wife on New Year's Eve 2012.
>
> 'Looking back, I think I had a kind of Stockholm syndrome,' she says of a
> marriage which began when he gave her a box containing a 3.5-carat diamond
> engagement ring, saying 'I hope it fits'. 'There was part of me that
> always thought if this was real love, there wouldn't be other women in the
> bedroom. I reconciled myself to it by trying to believe that Hef loved me
> as best he knew how.'
>
> As a Playmate, she abandoned any idea of a career in psychology. 'I
> thought, "I have enough of my own problems, I don't know if I can help
> other people."' Now she's widowed, she's returning to her original
> studies. She is also co-founder and ambassador for First Ape Wives Club,
> which offers digital access passes and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) for the
> kind of luxury travel usually enjoyed by the super-rich and celebrities.
> (The NFTs can stand in for tickets, hotel bookings and experiences.)
>
> That's why she's in London. She's here on business, about to embark on a
> European tour and simultaneously adding to the 37 countries she has
> visited now that her husband can no longer make her stay at home. 'Working
> makes me feel more human, accomplished, part of the world again,' she
> says. 'Before this, being part of the Playboy empire, making Hef look
> good, that was my job.'
>
> Interestingly, Hefner's image is still part of her portfolio of work.
> Crystal is president of the Hugh M. Hefner Foundation, which supports
> freedom of speech in the US, and has oversight of the Hefner archives, the
> 3,000 scrapbooks in which he saved every detail of his extraordinary life
> story. Quite what a more socially conscious younger generation will make
> of his Playboy empire and his impact and influence on the 20th Century
> remains to be seen.
>
> Today, Crystal is more likely to be found barefoot and make-up free on the
> beach outside her small home in Hawaii
> +5
> View gallery
> Today, Crystal is more likely to be found barefoot and make-up free on the
> beach outside her small home in Hawaii
>
> To her credit, she stayed with her husband until the very end of his life,
> guarding his privacy as his health failed so the world would not see him
> frail and using a walker. When he died of natural causes aged 91 six years
> ago, she was at his bedside. Afterwards, she was so shocked she didn't
> leave the mansion for a fortnight. 'Hef had been so old for so long it was
> like he was immortal,' she says.
>
> She has spent the years since building a more ordinary life and writing
> her book. As for the next chapter of her love life: 'I'm having a hard
> time with relationships. I need to catch up to my age.
>
> 'The worst thing is that people were always inviting me to meet someone, a
> man, and then he'd be way older. I feel like everyone was trying to pass
> me around to the next 80-year-old. It's awful,' she says with something
> between a giggle and a groan, not quite the merry widow yet.
>
> In Crystal's book Only Say Good Things: Surviving Playboy And Finding
> Myself is available for pre-order at onlysaygoodthings.com. First Ape
> Wives Club is at fawc.house.
>
> Share or comment on this article: 'He took so much Viagra it made him
> deaf': playboy bunny Crystal Hefner, 37, describes the hell of living with
> her late husband, Hugh, as he imposed 6pm curfews so she'd stay home and
> share soup with him
> e-mail
> 136
> shares