Hugh Hefner's widow Crystal says the late Playboy founder took so much Viagra he lost hearing in one ear

• Hugh Hefner's widow Crystal Hefner spoke about her late husband's Viagra use in a new interview.
• According to Crystal, the Playboy founder took so much Viagra he lost hearing in one ear.

Hugh Hefner's widow Crystal Hefner is set to release a new memoir next year, but she's already speaking out about her marriage and the time she spent living in the Playboy mansion.

In a new interview with the Daily Mail, Crystal revealed that "Hef," who died in 2017 at age 91, took so much Viagra that he lost hearing in one ear. Significant hearing loss is a known risk of high viagra use.

"Hef always said he'd rather be deaf and still able to have sex. Weird," Crystal said in the interview.

According to the former Playboy centerfold, she and Hefner, who was in his 80s at the time they were married, would regularly have group sex with other women in their bedroom at the Playboy Mansion in Los Angeles.

"It was embarrassing. I don't know the most people there'd been in our bedroom at one time but — a lot. Pretty bad," Crystal told the Daily Mail.

"Nobody really wanted to be there, but I think in Hef's mind, he still thought he was in his 40s, and those nights, the people, the mansion, solidified that idea. He felt, 'I've still got it,'" she added.

Crystal isn't the first of Hefner's sexual partners to make claims about his Viagra use and his deafness. Twin sisters Karissa and Kristina Shannon told The Sun in 2011 that Hefner had hearing aids and could only hear out of one ear. "We could sit right next to him and he wouldn't have a clue what we said," Karissa told the publication.

Like Crystal, they also claimed Hefner had told them he "would rather have sex than have his hearing."

Elsewhere in her new interview with the Daily Mail, Crystal said she was expected to abide by a strict 6 p.m. curfew every night while married to Hefner, so that she could eat dinner with him and then watch movies together before heading to the bedroom. (One of his favorite meals, according to Crystal, was chicken soup with crackers and cream cheese.)

This isn't the first time Crystal has been outspoken about her experience with being the late Playboy founder's third wife.

In February 2022, while announcing her memoir, Crystal said she was "exploited like never before" while living at the mansion.

"I was part of Hugh Hefner's world for over a decade. ⁣By the time I left it had been a third of my life," the model, who married the late Playboy founder in 2012 when she was 26 and he was 86, captioned an Instagram selfie at the time.

According to Crystal, she remained by Hefner's side "through wild times, calm times, and all the times in between up until the day he passed away in September 2017."