Holly Madison says Playboy Mansion was like a 'cult'

Los Angeles: Model and TV personality Holly Madison said the Playboy Mansion was like a "cult".

The "Girls Next Door" star dated Playboy founder Hugh Hefner, who died in 2017 aged 91, from 2001 and 2008 and has revealed how "isolated from the outside world" she and other girls were inside the mansion, Female First reported.

The 42-year-old further claimed the girls were only allowed to leave the house for special reasons and were told not to invite friends over.

In a preview of the upcoming docuseries 'Secrets of Playboy', she said, "The reason I think the mansion was very cult-like, looking back on it, is because we were all kind of gaslit and expected to think of Hef as, like, this really good guy. You started to feel like, ‘Oh, he’s not what they say in the media — he’s just a nice man.'"

She added: “Another thing that reminds me of a cult is how it was so easy to get isolated from the outside world there. You had a 9 o’clock curfew, you were encouraged to not have friends over. You weren’t really allowed to leave unless it was, like, a family holiday."