Hugh Hefner‘s ex-wife Kimberly is defending the Playboy founder against an onslaught from his widow Crystal … ’cause Kim suggests Crystal’s just bashing Hef to make a buck.
Kimberly — who was married to Hef from 1989 to 2010 and had two kids with him — tells TMZ … Crystal, in her mind, has no credibility and goes on to claim it was actually her who was exploiting Hef while he was still alive, not the other way around.
As we’ve reported … Crystal has a new memoir out about her marriage to Hef and their life at the Playboy Mansion, and she’s taken a ton of shots at both … ripping his bedroom skills, calling their relationship toxic and backward and saying she felt trapped/hypnotized.
But Kimberly’s firing back on behalf of her ex-hubby, saying … “As a few people speak their version of their idea of events in hopes of riding a wave of headline relevance, and making a quick buck, we should all ask ourselves whether we want to live in an environment where people refuse to take accountability and use words loosely like ‘force’ and ‘survive’ to describe choices they made willingly at a certain point in their own lives.” Oof, talk about harsh!
1/23/24
TMZ.com
The way Kimberly sees it … Crystal wasn’t forced into marrying Hef or living at the Playboy Mansion Crystal now despises. Kimberly tells us Crystal made choices that gave her “notoriety, opportunity, and money.”
Now that Crystal seems to have turned on Hef, who has been dead since 2017, Kimberly adds … “We should be wary of those who try to destroy things because they are no longer benefiting from them.”
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Remember … Crystal’s also told us she felt like she lost herself in her marriage with Hugh, and she’s said she wants to drop his famous last name because it’s not clear if it’s helping or hurting her these days.
TMZ Studios
Kimberly says it’s not fair Hef’s not here to defend himself … praising him as a “pioneer of free thought and expression” and a “leading voice behind some of the most significant social and cultural movements of our time, advocating for free speech, integrity, sexual freedoms, and civil rights.”
Bottom line for Kimberly … she doesn’t appreciate Crystal’s about-face, finishing by saying … “If you want to talk about exploitation, this is exactly what these women have done with Hef in his later years and at the end of his life.”