S2E10.2: Bonus - Hefnerland | The Forbidden Playboy Mansion Book That Exposed Everything

In this bonus episode of MORE Girls Next Door, Megan dives into one of the most infamous and controversial documents in Playboy Mansion history: Hefnerland, the unpublished memoir written by former Mansion regular Jill Ann Spaulding.

Long before Secrets of Playboy, podcasts, and tell-all memoirs, Hefnerland offered a detailed firsthand account of life inside the Playboy ecosystem—complete with celebrity encounters, Mansion politics, bedroom routines, social hierarchies, and allegations that would later become the subject of intense public scrutiny.

Megan breaks down:

• Who Jill Ann Spaulding was and how she gained access to the Playboy Mansion
• Why Hefnerland became one of the most talked-about unpublished Playboy books
• The social rules and power structures operating behind the scenes
• The surprising details about life as a Mansion regular
• How Jill described Hugh Hefner's relationships with the women around him
• The allegations, controversies, and claims that have fueled debate for years
• Why Hefnerland remains such an important piece of Playboy history

Plus: a look back at the mid-2000s blogging era, when websites, message boards, and amateur investigators were uncovering celebrity secrets long before TikTok, podcasts, and social media made exposés mainstream.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Hey everyone, welcome back to More Girls Next Door. I'm so glad you're here for this bonus episode because today we are diving into a book that almost no one talks about. And honestly, after reading it, I can't stop thinking about it. The book is called Hefner Land, originally published in 2003 under the title Jill Ann Upstairs. And it was written by Jill Ann Spaulding, a Playboy model and poker champion from Arizona who spent several days living at the Playboy mansion and witnessed firsthand exactly what happened in Hugh Hefner's bedroom. This is a first-person, extremely detailed account. She's not speculating. She was there. And before people say, Well, how do you know she's telling the truth? I'll just point out that multiple women, including mansion party guests and former playmates who reviewed the book, confirmed her account. One reviewer literally wrote, quote, Yep, I too have been there and done that. Jill Ann tells it like it is. End quote. Today, I'll be bringing to light the most shocking and salacious claims from Hefner Land. So kick off your candies, hang up your trucker hat, and silence your sidekicks. Because this is gonna be a doozy. Before we get into the mansion, I need to tell you about two people. Jill Ann and the man who was by her side through all of it, her partner Bruce Gifford. Bruce is woven into every page of this book, and knowing how their story ends makes reading it an entirely different experience. Part one, Jill Ann and Bruce. Jill Ann Spaulding was born in Phoenix, Arizona in 1970 and grew up with a Playboy collecting grandfather and a grandmother who told her she had the look to be a playmate. She was obsessed with the magazine in the most wholesome, earnest way imaginable. She had an eight-foot airbrushed Playboy Bunny mural in her pool room, collected 76 autographed Playboy covers, Madonna, Pamela Anderson, Jenny McCarthy, Anna Nicole Smith, Vanna White, and had been dreaming of being a centerfold since childhood. She was also, by every account, a serious businesswoman, an honors student who bought and paid off her first home at age 18, built a chain of retail clothing stores, and became one of the top professional women poker players in the world. And then there was Bruce. She met Bruce Gifford when she was twenty one. He was forty-three, a twenty-two year age gap that caused a rift with her family. But throughout the book, Bruce comes across as nothing but devoted. He is her rock, her cheerleader, her safe person. She describes him calling her his princess. When she goes to her very first playmate test shoot in Santa Monica, Bruce drops her off around the corner so it looks like she arrived alone, because he knows the optics, and then waits in the car for hours, hours without complaint. When she tries to sneak into the Playboy mansion for the first time and gets turned away, Bruce hands her $600 bills to try bribing the security guards. When she finally gets invited to Hef's birthday party, with a strict no husband's, no boyfriend's policy, Bruce sends her in alone and tells her if they let her in by herself she's allowed to go. It was a once-in-a-lifetime thing, she writes, and he trusted me. And the night she goes upstairs into Hef's bedroom, the night that is the centerpiece of the entire book, the very first thing she does afterward, before she's even finished getting dressed, is call Bruce and tell him everything. That detail hit me so hard after everything she just witnessed and experienced, her instinct was to call Bruce. Now keep all of that in mind as we go through the book. Jill Ann went through the official test shoot process. She drove to Santa Monica, posed for Polaroids in a dimly lit back room with a Playboy photographer, and worked for years on her body. Surgeries, rigorous workouts, extreme diets, all in service of the dream. She eventually appeared on Playboy.com in April 2002. She got paid $750 for it after spending thousands to get there. She kept pushing for the print magazine centerfold, which is what pulled her deeper into Hef's inner circle. She attended Hef's birthday party as a civilian guest, made connections with the official girlfriends, and was eventually invited to stay at the mansion for several days. That's when things got very, very different from what she expected. Part three. What the parties were actually like. Here's the first thing people don't realize. The Playboy Mansion parties that everyone saw on TV? They were actually pretty tame. Good food, celebrities at tables, girls dancing. Jill Ann describes them as like a regular Hollywood party, just with a lingerie dress code and better shrimp. She clocked cocaine use near the back of the mansion at one party, saw celebrities like Owen Wilson stumbling drunk, Ron Jeremy trying to grope guests, and Jud Nelson hitting on women with lines like, let's get out of here. The real action, the thing that separated civilian guests from Hef's inner circle, happened upstairs. And to get upstairs, you had to be personally selected. Jill Ann was selected. Part four The Shocking Claims. Okay, here we go. This is what you came for, right? These are the most jaw-dropping things Jill Ann claims in the book. All things she says she witnessed firsthand. Number one, every girl invited upstairs had to take a ritual bath first. Before entering Hef's bedroom, every woman, official girlfriends included, was required to bathe in a shared bathtub adjoining his bedroom. Multiple women bathed in the same water. There was a doctor style scale on the wall. Jill Ann notes it was there to make sure none of his playmates gained too much weight. Hef himself wandered in with a disposable camera and photographed the women in the tub. Holly Madison was in the bathroom during this, visibly unhappy to see Jill Ann there. two, Hef's bedroom had gay male porn playing on two giant TVs. When Jill Ann was led into the bedroom, she was shocked to find two massive TVs playing very explicit gay male pornography at high volume with techno music blasting. The floor was covered in stacks of videos. This is what greeted every woman who went upstairs. Number three, every woman in the bedroom was given a personal vibrator and expected to perform. Each woman was assigned a Hitachi vibrator. They would partner up and simulate lesbian sex while Hef watched. Jill Ann notes that chords were everywhere, and she actually thought to herself, he should get cordless ones. Her guide, Kelly, told her explicitly that none of the women were actually bisexual. They were all performing, and to just follow her lead. Number four, Hef had unprotected sex with multiple women and a rotating lineup. This is the central revelation. Hef lay on his back while his main girlfriend, Holly Madison, initiated and then acted as a kind of manager for the event. One by one, different women would climb on top and have sex with him for approximately two minutes each. Between every woman, Holly would wipe him off with a warm towel from a bowl and reapply baby oil. No condoms for anyone ever. Jill Ann sat there thinking, I could have sex with him, who knew what, if anything, I had. This was crazy. Number five, the women were expected to cheer and call Hef daddy throughout. The women not currently having sex with Hef were expected to call out encouragement in real time. Jill Ann quotes them: ride her daddy, give it to her daddy, oh fucker daddy, what a big cock. This was the script, and everyone followed it through every rotation. Number six, Hef allegedly distributed pills to the girlfriends in the limo. Jill Ann describes Hef passing out pills during the ride to the mansion. One of the women told her they were supposed to relax you, and that she personally pretended to swallow hers, then slipped it into her purse. Number seven, at the end of the night, Hef had anal sex with Holly Madison without protection. After the rotating lineup, Holly poured a large bottle of baby oil labeled Hef's Baby Oil down her back and had anal sex with Hef while all the other women cheered. Gillanne notes she was deeply alarmed because she knew anal sex carried the highest AIDS transmission risk, and no protection had been used at any point in the entire evening. eight, Hef then masturbated to climax in front of everyone. He did not climax during intercourse with any of the women. He masturbated to completion while they remained in the room. When he finished, he and Holly immediately began making out as if no one else was present, and all the other women silently filed out. 9. Holly Madison washed all the vibrators in the sink herself when it was over. Jill Ann returned to the bathroom to find Holly collecting all the vibrators and washing them in the sink alone. She tried to help and was waved off. ten, the girlfriends received gifts, including cars, in exchange for participation. Kelly quietly told Jill Ann that Hef had bought her a BMW. She asked Jill Ann not to tell the other women who didn't know and would be furious. The broader picture in the book is that the arrangement was transactional. Cash allowances, cars, gifts, and the possibility of a playmate centerfold in exchange for showing up on Friday nights. Number 11. One woman said her first time upstairs left her completely traumatized. Jill Ann's roommate Michelle confided that when she was first taken upstairs, she started crying. She said she would never have gone if she'd known what actually happened up there. On the night of Jill Ann's visit, Michelle told her, I feel so gross. I haven't had sex with Hef in a while, but I knew if I didn't, he would be mad. Number 12, women who did not have sex with Hef were quietly dropped from the invite list. When Jill Ann attended Hefner's after party in his bedroom, she mostly observed. After she declined to participate, keeping her pajama bottoms on, which was understood as the signal for non participation, she stopped receiving party invitations. Her contact at the mansion confirmed she'd been removed from the list, but wouldn't say why. Kelly told her she needed to write a groveling letter to Hef immediately if she wanted back in. Jill Ann did, and she was eventually reinstated, but she never regained full standing in the inner circle. thirteen, the backstabbing among the girlfriends was relentless. Kelly told Jill Ann that one woman had claimed Holly Madison maintained her figure through bulimia. Women constantly worked to get rivals removed from Hef's inner circle. One woman got another evicted from the mansion entirely by whispering in the right ears. Kelly told Jill Ann, they are miserable people. They're sad and miserable. You know it's got to be rough to live there. You have a 930 curfew. You can't date other guys. Number 14, one of the girls next door allegedly had a secret life as a stripper. Kelly told Jill Ann that Bridget Marcourt, one of the women who later appeared on The Girls Next Door, was known in Las Vegas as Paris and had allegedly worked at the Spirit Rhino Gentlemen's Club in California. Kelly said she'd always known this, but was such a good secret keeper. Number 15, cocaine was openly used at the parties, including by recognizable playmates. During one party, Jill Ann was pulled aside and asked if she partied. When she said yes, she found herself staring at lines of white powder. She declined, but watched multiple women snort cocaine one after another. She writes, I saw one of my most admired playmates among them doing her fair share. Number sixteen, a stranger was brought home from a bar and had sex with Hef that same night. Kelly told Jill Ann that a woman named Brittany had been picked up at a bar and brought back to the mansion, where she then had unprotected sex with Hef the same night. He has no fear of AIDS, Kelly said. When Jill Ann asked if it was because of his age, Kelly replied, Yeah, I think he would rather die young than at 102. Number 17. There were no confidentiality agreements ever. Jillanne was shocked that no one asked her to sign an NDA either before or after the bedroom event. Kelly confirmed strangers went upstairs regularly. Brittany had just been picked up off the street. Jillanne could have been anyone, and she was free to walk out and tell the world. Which eventually she did. Number 18. The mansion had baskets of condoms for guests, but Hef used none himself. At the big Midsummer Night's Dream Party, condom baskets were placed throughout the mansion for guests. Jillanne notes the irony with barely concealed fury. Too bad Hef doesn't seem to practice what he preaches. Maybe he cares more about his guests than his girlfriends. Part 5. Bruce the Whole Time. I want to pause here and come back to Bruce because reading this book knowing what eventually happened to Jill Ann adds a layer of tragedy to every single scene he appears in. He waited in the car for hours outside the test chute. He handed her $600 in cash to try to bribe her way into the mansion just because it would make her happy. He gave her his blessing to go to the birthday party alone, trusting her completely. He was the first person she called after the upstairs event, whispering into the phone in the dark, telling him everything. When she described what she witnessed, he didn't get angry or accusatory, he just listened and let her get it all out. He went with her to Playboy golf events, stood guard while their friends had sex on the trampoline at the Las Vegas party, and was there at every turn, proud of her, supportive of her, in love with her. The book describes him as her best friend and companion. She dedicated the book to him. It reads, quote, This book is dedicated to Bruce Gifford, my best friend and companion, who stood by me through it all. End quote. Part six The Ending. Jill Ann and Bruce eventually married. They spent roughly two decades together, but the relationship began to unravel after the wedding, and they ultimately separated. In 2017, Jill Ann, now 47, started dating a man named Benjamin Childs, who was closer to her in age. In December of that year, she and Benjamin went to her grandfather's house in Mesa, Arizona for Christmas. On December 23, 2017, at around 2:30 in the afternoon, police received a call about a possible shooting at the house. When they arrived, they found Jill Ann and Benjamin both shot to death. Bruce, now 67, also died, and what police theorized was a murder suicide. He had allegedly shot Jill and Benjamin when they arrived at the house, then turned the gun on himself. Jill Ann Spaulding was 47 years old. The man she had dedicated her book to, the man she called from a bathroom at the Playboy mansion to tell him everything she'd just seen, the man who waited in parking lots and pressed hundreds into her hand and called her his princess. That man killed her. Her story was later covered in Investigation Discovery's The Playboy Murders in an episode titled Playboy Model Tells All. And her publicist, Ivy Supersonic, who appeared in the book's opening pages, noted that when Hugh Hefner died in September 2017, Jill had gotten herself back into the headlines, including a piece in the Daily Mail. She was murdered within months of that renewed public attention. My conclusions: Hefner Land by Jill Ann Spaulding deserves to be read. Hefner Land was one of the earliest and most detailed first-hand accounts of what was actually happening inside the Playboy Mansion, published in 2003 years before The Girls Next Door debuted, years before any of the documentaries, years before the world was ready to hear it. She saw the rabbit hole for what it was, she got out, she told the truth, she donated the proceeds to domestic violence charities and STD prevention programs. And then life, in its cruelest way, brought her full circle to a different kind of violence entirely. Rest in peace, Jillanne. And that's today's bonus episode, everyone. Share it if it moved you. Subscribe to the More Girls Next Door podcast. I love you guys, and I'll see you next time.