The wife of late Playboy Magazine founder Hugh Hefner is trying to track down her late husband’s massive collection of scrapbooks, which she says could contain sexually explicit photos of underage girls.
Crystal Harris filed a legal complaint to find out where these scrapbooks — about 3,000 of them — are now being kept.
The U.K.’s Daily Mail reported Tuesday that Harris held a press conference on the matter with her attorney, celebrity feminist lawyer Gloria Allred.
“It is critical for the public to understand that I am not referring to images that appeared in magazines,” Harris said. “My focus is on how Hugh Hefner’s personal scrapbooks chronicle private moments that took place behind closed doors,” Harris said.
Some of the young women may have been intoxicated when the images were taken, she said.
“There are serious and unresolved concerns about the scope of what these books contain. The materials span decades, beginning in the 1960s, and may include images of girls who were underage at the time and could not consent to how their images would be retained or controlled.
“They may also contain images of women who did not consent to their images being taken in the first place. The scrapbooks include nude images, images taken before and after sexual activity, and other deeply intimate moments.
“This is not historical documentation. This is the cataloging and objectification of women’s most private details.”
As to the exact whereabouts of the albums, Harris said she was told some photographs “could be inside a private residence to be scanned and digitized,” while others are said to be in storage at a facility in California.
Hugh Hefner’s widow wants to keep Playboy founder’s sex diary, scrapbooks under wraps to protect ‘thousands of women’ https://t.co/9IPAHIviti pic.twitter.com/UJDOMSIbB8
— New York Post (@nypost) February 17, 2026
“I am deeply worried about these images getting out. Artificial intelligence, deepfakes, digital scanning, online marketplaces, and data breaches mean that once images leave secure custody, the harm is irreversible. A single security failure could devastate thousands of lives.”
She clarified her intentions in finding the photographs. “This is not about money. I am seeking dignity, safety, and the destruction of non-consensual intimate materials so that exploitation does not continue under the banner of philanthropy. Thousands of women may be affected.”
Although her cause is a worthy one in protecting these women, she’s also protecting Hefner.
His legacy stands as the man who mainstreamed pornography, making a once-deviant viewing habit the norm.
Divorce rates double with porn use in the relationship, according to a study reported by Science.org.
It is clearly a habit destroying marriages and the lives of adults, but disturbingly, those of young children as well.
In a study cited by Fox News in 2023, the average age of first-time porn users is 12, with 15 percent stating they had seen it by 10 or younger.
This is Hefner’s legacy.
Now we are learning he possibly had downright evil and disgusting tendencies beyond what appeared in his magazines. According to the Daily Mail, Harris published a memoir in 2024, “Only Say Good Things: Surviving Playboy And Finding Myself,” where she claims she never loved him and felt like his prisoner.
If she really wants to dismantle this empire, the public needs to know who the man really was, leaving nothing salvageable from what he left behind.
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