Who Gets to Tell the Playboy Story? Jessica Biel, Crystal Hefner, and the Limits of Fiction.

Welcome back to the C WEB podcast. The forthcoming film Playmates has attracted controversy before a single frame has been shot. The coming-of-age drama, set at the Playboy Mansion, stars Lily-Rose Depp, Bill Pullman as Hugh Hefner, Indiana Elle, and Jessica Biel as Hefner’s wife. The twist is that Biel’s character is entirely fictional, not based on any of Hefner’s three real wives.

Written and directed by Lorraine Nicholson in her feature debut, the film draws on her own childhood experiences at the mansion. The story follows a thirteen-year-old girl who treats the Playboy Mansion as a second home and her friendship with one of seven women competing to become Playmate of the Month. Biel plays a former Playmate who has become Mrs Hefner — a composite character created to serve the story.

Fiction, however, has collided with fact. Crystal Hefner, who was married to the Playboy founder from 2012 until his death in 2017, sent Biel a direct message on Instagram: “Please reconsider playing Hugh Hefner’s wife if this film is to romanticize him or the Playboy world. I was actually his wife, and I experienced sexual, emotional, financial and physical abuse in that relationship. Many other women have come forward with allegations of rape, coercion, drugging and exploitation as well. There are also deeply troubling concerns involving minors.”

Crystal Hefner is not a bystander. In her 2024 memoir, Only Say Good Things: Surviving Playboy and Finding Myself, she described feeling “absolutely brainwashed” during her marriage, supervised by a large staff and told what to wear and what to weigh. She has said the media’s elevation of Hefner made her question her own perceptions: “I just thought I was the crazy one because all of the media put Hef on such a pedestal.”

The Playboy Mansion has always been contested. For some it represented sexual liberation; for others it was a gilded cage. The 2022 docuseries Secrets of Playboy raised multiple allegations against Hefner, and Playboy itself has distanced itself from its founder. The question now is whether Playmates will engage with that history or retreat into nostalgia.

Crystal Hefner also offered a hope: “With women in the leading roles, my hope is that the film ultimately delivers a message of empowerment: that women can find fulfillment, independence, and a sense of self beyond Playboy.” So far, the creative team, Biel’s representatives, and Searchlight Pictures have not publicly responded. The project remains in pre-production.

The larger question is who gets to tell a story — the artist, the studio, or the people who lived it. Crystal Hefner’s intervention is a reminder that those who lived it are not always silent, and that their testimony carries a weight fiction cannot easily erase.

Playmates may prove thoughtful, nostalgic, or something in between. What is already clear is that the conversation has begun, and the ghost of the mansion will not be easily banished.

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