Kendra Wilkinson has opened up about her time as Hugh Hefner's girlfriend and how life at the Playboy Mansion affected her.
The now-38-year-old was just 18 when she met Hugh Hefner at his 78th birthday party in 2004, where she was working as a painted lady, before asking who she was and inviting her to become one of his girlfriends.
Kendra soon moved into the Playboy Mansion where she would live until 2009 when she met her then-husband Hank Baskett, and was also one of Hugh's three girlfriends along with Holly Madison and Bridget Marquardt during the filming of the reality show Girls Next Door.
She has now shared details of her mental health following her time at the mansion, admitting she has questioned many of the decisions she made in her young life.
Kendra, who was hospitalized in September after suffering a severe panic attack, spoke to People about the moment she hit rock bottom last year, admitting: "I was dying of depression. I was hitting the end of my life, and I went into psychosis. I felt like I wasn’t strong enough to live anymore."
She believes a lot of her struggles originated from what she went through during her time at the mansion, adding: "It’s not easy to look back at my 20s. I’ve had to face my demons. Playboy really messed my whole life up."
Since being hospitalized, Kendra has been prescribed medication and is having outpatient therapy three times a week for trauma from her time in the mansion as well as her divorce from Hank, 41, in 2019.
She admitted she reached the "lowest place [she'd] ever been in [her] life" and could not see a way forward in the depths of her depression, before begging Hank - whom she shares her son, Hank IV, 14, and daughter Alijah Mary, nine, with - to take her to hospital.
Having been through so much, Kendra now feels "protective" of her younger self, having first experimented with drugs when she was just 15 and describing herself as "having a lot of issues" when she was a teen.
She moved into the Playboy mansion at just 18 - three years before the legal drinking age - in order to be able to embrace the party lifestyle, but now admits she regrets the choices she made while there.
"I really got into deep regret [afterward]... deep. I struggled with depression before and at the mansion. I drank a lot. I was there for the partying, OK, let's just be real. I was not there for Hugh Hefner to be my boyfriend," she told the publication.
Kendra says that being sexualized from such a young age and living at the mansion ate away at her self-esteem, adding: "I hated my boobs, my body, my face. I got to that point where I started hating myself.
"Why did I have sex with Hugh Hefner at that age? Why did I do that?
"Why did I go to the mansion in the first place? Why did I get big boobs? Why am I a sex symbol? Why did I bleach blonde my hair? Why did I do this to myself? Why did I?"
Now, Kendra is working to leave behind the "vortex of horrible things" from her past and move on with the real estate career she has been carving for herself in recent years.
She is also hoping to guide her own daughter down a different path, adding: "I see loopholes in my life where I'm trying to correct now so my daughter doesn't have to experience what I did at a young age. I don’t want my daughter sexualized like I was.
"As a mom I Iook back at what happened to where I felt like I had to date an older man at the age of 18. What brought me to that point? These are the things I’m trying to correct in my parenting for my daughter. What can I do to show her that she is more than that? And that’s what I am doing now in real estate. And that’s truly the gift I’m trying to give back to my children."
Kendra is not the first Playmate or girlfriend to have spoken out about their time in the mansion, as Holly has spoken extensively about being "traumatized" by her time as Hugh Hefner's main girlfriend.
The Shannon twins, who became Hugh's girlfriends after Holly, Bridget, and Kendra, have also revealed their experiences, including Karissa having an abortion after getting pregnant with his child.