Warning: This article contains some distressing allegations.
A former Playboy Playmate and one of the last women to date Hugh Hefner has said that sex with the founder was "like rape".
Karissa Shannon and her twin sister Kristina appeared in the final season of the E! reality show The Girls Next Door when they were 18.
Their relationship with Hefner (who was 83 at the time) was depicted as fun and consensual, but the sisters have opened up on A&E's docuseries Secrets Of Playboy, where they explain that the reality of the relationship was different from what was seen on TV.
The documentary reveals that the sisters were working at a Hooters-style restaurant in Florida when they were scouted to do a test shoot for Playboy, as cited by the Huffington Post.
The images that were taken attracted the attention of Hefner, who named the women July and August 2008 Playmates, and they were soon whisked off to live in the Playboy mansion.
They met up with Hefner who was allegedly acting nervously. He suggested the trio take a pill to ease their nerves, and the girls obliged.
Karissa stated that the pills made both her and her sister "really f***ed up ... the most inebriated we’ve ever been." She alleges that Hefner used their inebriated state to his advantage and forced them to engage in oral sex with him.
Karissa said that it was like "having sex with your grandpa", and the pair scrubbed themselves in the shower afterward to try and sterilize themselves.
She went on to say: "Every time I’ve done it with him, it’s assault. To me, it’s like rape. He used control mechanisms completely through everything."
The sisters say they felt imprisoned in the mansion as they worried about their careers if they were to leave. Karissa explained that they would often need to be drunk in order to cope with Hefner and his alleged behavior.
The worst came when Karissa found out she was pregnant. "I got a call saying, ‘Hey, you’re pregnant’ [and] I freaked," she explained. "[I said] 'don’t call Hef, don’t call anyone, I don’t want anyone knowing.’"
She said she felt disgusted by her body and it was like having an "alien" inside of her, so she took the decision to terminate the pregnancy. Due to the nature of how the baby was conceived, she has no regrets about her decision.
Hefner died in 2017 at the age of 91.
