Hugh Hefner, founder of Playboy magazine and the associated Playboy Mansion cult, is accused of "coercing and drugging women into sex" with him, reports the BBC, part of decades of systematic abuse and exploitation playing out in plain sight.
Former girlfriends describe the iconic publisher as "like a vampire" who "sucked the life" out of young girls.
The company is pledging to "actively listen and learn" from the women.
"Today's Playboy is not Hugh Hefner's Playboy," read an open letter published over the weekend.
"We trust and validate these women and their stories and we strongly support those individuals who have come forward to share their experiences."
To call Playboy a shadow of its former self is an insult to shadows, all the same: it hasn't published since the pandemic began and its own statement was posted at Medium—a good idea, as that helps Playboy avoid association with its own sleazy, NFT-strewn website. Hopefully the victims can wring some measure of justice out of it beyond these platitudes.
The "revelations" come as part of a 10-part A&E miniseries about Hefner and the Playboy empire.
