Rhonda Shear: From Iconic Hollywood Bombshell to Infamous Host “Up All Night” & Entrepreneur

:Introduction and Rhonda's Hollywood background

0:37 SPEAKER_01: So excited about it, Echo. And hi, and I love you. Hi. Hi, Terina. Hi, Echo.

0:43 SPEAKER_02: I'm excited too. What was interesting of how this even came up before we say who our guest is, a fan suggested our guest. And our guest is the one and only Rhonda Shear. We're going back into the 70s and the 80s, and I'm excited because I love this generation. So, Miss Rhonda Honey Shear, I love your middle name. Please like, subscribe, and leave a comment down below. Rhonda, an American television personality, comedian, actress, and entrepreneur. She's best known for her role as a host in the 1990s USA Network show Up All Night.

1:20 SPEAKER_02: Rhonda was featured in Playboy on three separate occasions. Her first appearance was in April 1975, and it was the issue called The Girls of the New South. And it was a non-nude antebellum theme pictorial. She would go on to appear in two subsequent nude features, first in Playboy's June 1991 pictorial called Funny Girls. And then she was featured in her own celebrity pictorial in the October 93 issue titled Rhonda is Up All Night. And this is the issue with Seinfeld Phone Booth cover, and I'm on that cover, Rhonda.

1:56 SPEAKER_01: I know, I love that.

1:59 SPEAKER_02: Rhonda also has an extensive modeling, hosting, and acting career earned titles in several beauty contests, including holding the title of Miss Louisiana USA in 1975 and Miss Louisiana for both Miss World and the Miss International pageants. Yeah, yeah. She appeared as a contestant in the Gong show in 1979. How fun. Now Rhonda hosted Up All Night from 1991 to 1998. She occasionally hosted the show with her Saturday counterpart, Gilbert Gottfried. Love him. Her trademark manner of speaking the show's title by raising her voice in octave when saying the word up became a catchphrase.

2:42 SPEAKER_02: And I also noticed the writers on there, Rhonda. Phenomenal, but what stood out to me was Tim Conway Jr. That's cool. So we have to get into that. Yes. Rhonda also co-starred in numerous sitcoms from playing The Fonz's girlfriend on Happy Days to The Sexy Neighbor Unmarried with Children before making her mark as a comedian. In 2010, Rhonda designed The Abra. The product was an overnight success. The Abra was the number one selling bra worldwide with over 25 million sold internationally. In 2014, collaborated with Crystal Hefner on a line of intimates and leisure wear and loungewear.

:Designing the iconic ahh bra and collaborations

3:23 SPEAKER_02: And I can't wait to get into that because it's Crystal Hefner. So, Miss Rhonda, welcome to the show.

3:31 SPEAKER_00: Thank you.

3:38 SPEAKER_00: I mean, I've had a couple of women in the background. It's so, so delightful. So thank you. And you've also walked the same shoes. And um, I I think it really makes it differently. I mean, the guys are they're great, they're all lovely and nice, and a lot of the fanboys, but uh it's really great having women do these podcasts because you see that from a different place. There needs to be more women doing this.

4:00 SPEAKER_02: I like that. That's that's a good compliment. We'll take it. Gosh, I think it we just hit our five-year mark. We did because on on YouTube it said, congratulations on five years. And I was like, Oh my god, it's already been five years, but it has been, it has been so fun and an absolute labor of love and just reconnecting with our Playboy family and also meeting new people such as yourself. It's just, I mean, it's endless what we can talk about, you know.

4:28 SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and there's such a family of Playboy from so many different directions and so many years. And I think when I did like one of my layouts, I had handcuffs on jewelry. They were jewel, gorgeous, Sebasti Swarovski crystals just hanging. And Hef didn't like it because it looked like bondage. So he airbrushed it, or it was airbrushed out, or whatever they did back then, because he didn't like making women victims. It's really cool that you did this. I mean, it's funny during COVID, I started Rhonda's shear social hour because I was just so bored.

4:55 SPEAKER_00: I mean, I didn't think of it as a podcast. We were doing it live as a talk show, and I interviewed so many cool people, and then it's become like it still runs, but I I have a producer who produces it with like just things from my past and you know, some new things, but I haven't been doing it live, so I never kept up with it. But it's great that you guys have done up with done this because you actually started the beginning when podcasts were just beginning and it's really, Rhonda.

5:18 SPEAKER_02: The reason behind it more than anything, and I'm just so happy that Karina agreed to do this show with me was it was what two years after Huff had died, and you started to see all the shit that was coming out of just absolute negativity. That's from the women that hit that loved him and he loved them.

5:40 SPEAKER_01: That's what made me say yes because this it is special, Rhonda. It is a family, and I'm not I I look back and I didn't, you know, when Echo brought this idea, I thought Playboy, come on, that's the past. I you know, I love, I love yeah, exactly. Not only know, but then we're seeing all of these salacious lies. And I thought, you know what I think? There are we could be our own sort of honest objective journalists because we have things from the horse's mouth. We're not trying to do anything.

6:17 SPEAKER_00: I've done I've done so many interviews row half pro Playboy, and my and my views are actually a little bit different too because I was a celebrity, I brought things to Playboy, but I was never a playmate. I did work at the club for a week, I'll tell you that story. But I mean, I always love Playboy. It's been in my life literally since I'm since I'm a teenager. So I've been at the mansion and I I and I know people, and just like my pageant days, too. Like I'm still friendly with some of the pageant girls.

6:44 SPEAKER_00: And it infuriates me about Playboy. It also infuriates me because people have taken things out of context that I've said. Because I've been, I mean, I was in LA pro Me Too, as you girls were. But definitely, I mean, I got there in 79, so saw a little bit of that. But the 80s, I mean, we're talking the jiggle era, everybody, all the girls. I mean, everybody makes up for Sydney Sweeney and she's beautiful, but everybody looked like Sidney Sweeney.

:Rhonda's experiences with media and media literacy

7:08 SPEAKER_00: I mean, everybody had fake boobs and everybody was sexy and sassy, and I loved it. I mean, I was totally loving it. But then you also had to navigate guys coming on to you, and not talking about Playboy, I'm just talking about in your everyday life because it was a different era. You couldn't go to anyone, even on regular auditions. I had this happen several times where people came on to me, but I also didn't take meetings in hotel rooms for uh an acting job. For an acting job, you know. I mean, not that I didn't go to parties, but I mean, if you're gonna meet and audition and read, you don't take something at nine o'clock at night.

7:41 SPEAKER_00: But anyway, I said things like that, and I got accused of not taking up for victims. And I'm like, excuse me, I was date raped. I have a book out, it's it's in the book. I I mean held down the whole thing. Uh, I had to run for my life for a couple of things, never at the mansion. It's the one safe place. I felt 100% safe there because all of us guys out. Half few people out. You couldn't get a guy in. I mean, I got a few guys in over the years. It was one of the safest places. And even when I did like one of my layouts, I had handcuffs on, jewelry.

8:10 SPEAKER_00: They were jewel, gorgeous, Swarovski crystals just hanging. And Hef didn't like it because it looked like bondage. So he airbrushed it, or it was airbrushed out, or whatever they did back then, because he didn't like making women victims. So that that just the suggestion of bondage. I mean, they were very strict, you know, that Marilyn Grobaski, they were very strict with their layouts. So, but for for women to attack me and say that I'm not pro-victim, this has happened to me several times because they took something out of context, just because I said I wouldn't meet in a hotel room for an audition.

8:39 SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, wait, I I had I use my comedy and humor as my defense mechanism to keep guys away from me just because my era, those 80s, you guys are younger, but those 80s, those early 80s, yeah, it was tough. Guys really did say stuff like, if you don't sleep with me, you're gonna get blackballed. No one's gonna hire you.

8:59 SPEAKER_02: But I I I love that you just said that about your layout that Heff never wanted to personify any of his girls as like a victim or you know, being taken advantage of or anything. Right. That that's a great soundbite right there. Incredible. It's true.

9:15 SPEAKER_00: That and also he wanted from me, because he he knew I was a comedian. I was a stand-up comic. I had brought women of comedy, we'll talk about that, but I brought that to Playboy. And um, and then um, you know, I was trying to do a com a stand-up comedy show with him. I'm like, you can be pretty and funny and sexy at the same time. But anyway, they came back to me because up all night it started to explode. But he wanted me to do a funny layout, and I think I mean it we we were we shot in places that were open and running and all night long, and they were like I was over the top.

9:45 SPEAKER_00: It was an over-the-top layout, and it was exactly what he wanted, and it's exactly what I wanted.

:Her approach to being sexy and funny

9:50 SPEAKER_00: So I mean, it was fun, and I never can say that I had a bad experience ever with anything in the Play Bay world except maybe Crystal Hefnar.

10:00 SPEAKER_02: We need to, we need to get to that. Amen. No, Karina, don't don't jump ahead. We are gonna get to that.

10:08 SPEAKER_01: Okay, but that's the one that I tell Echo when we do this podcast, we really want, you know, as much truth and memories and all of the good things and to honor Hef, no gossip, and here I am. But it's non-gossip. I love gossip, and I'm an open cook and I don't care. But I mean my age are like, what the fuck? I don't give a fuck. Oh no, and you want to speak the truth. It's like I did all of these people have a voice and they're lying, and you're going, come on, you know, we know better.

10:39 SPEAKER_02: You know what, Karina? I'll tell you, and you'll appreciate this, and you too, Rhonda. Uh because we have been growing finally. Oh, by the way, we just got approved and monetize Karina on YouTube.

10:51 SPEAKER_03: Oh, definitely.

10:53 SPEAKER_02: But there's a lot of people that are discovering our podcasts and they're like, oh my gosh, this is such a fantastic show. Oh great. And they but they know that we are telling the truth and they can see straight through, and they always reference Crystal Hefner specifically, that they can see straight through her and you know, Holly as well.

:Celebrating five years of her podcast and industry changes

11:14 SPEAKER_00: Oh, I know of them, but I I have horse's mouth with Crystal. Right.

11:18 SPEAKER_01: And to me, if if if I hear something that is untrue, because I am I am a huge fan of the ID channel, love it. I love my my brother was a homicide detective. I love when something honors the victims. If you honor the victims, if I hear a 911 call, if it's not hearsay and I hear the officer and it's not some secondhand account or someone making an issue of themselves, the whole point I'm getting at is I've heard lies.

11:46 SPEAKER_02: Tell Rhonda what show you're talking about on ID.

11:49 SPEAKER_01: I'm sure Rhonda thought the same thing if she watched the very they're very well produced. They're it's beautiful work. Right. The secrets of Playboy. So I started watching it.

:Personal stories from the Playboy Mansion

12:00 SPEAKER_01: And then when as soon as I heard someone open their mouth and say every playmate of the year had to sleep with Hef, I thought, what? I was a Playmate of the Year and I didn't sleep with Hef.

:The truth about the Secrets of Playboy documentary

12:12 SPEAKER_01: I know tons of playmates that didn't sleep with Hef. I never felt like he was a creep, you know, none of the things I was never taken advantage of. You know, it was a family home with a Kimberly. But the whole point is I you have to use your critical thinking. It's like you sit and you listen, and it's not honest objective journalism. It's a spin. But the sad thing is, my one of my best friends, we were sitting there and I said, you know, because she was loving the show. She goes, Oh my gosh, it must have been so weird and blah, blah.

12:44 SPEAKER_01: I said, You've known me for years. I I would have shared something like that. And she goes, Well, come on, some of it's true. And I thought at that moment, I thought, wow, oh wow, I don't believe anything. There's propaganda out there that that people believe, and it's propaganda. And now everything, I question everything because you know truly, truly, truly fake news, right?

13:10 SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's it's really bad. Especially, I mean, all these gals got together and and and they and it looked as I knew the gals from yesteryear and and and who had been going there for years, and of course it was sexy, and of course, girls met guys there, and uh that's part of life. But to say the kinds of things that they said was unbelievable. And it really hurt me because Playboy boosted my career and I used it as a tool, and they were always there for me. And it was a business. Everybody just thinks it was heath.

13:41 SPEAKER_00: Playboy was a mega business with publicism. It was in a publicist, it was an empire.

:Rhonda's perspective on media propaganda

13:45 SPEAKER_01: And like, he was vital with it. He never kissed us hell. Told. If anybody kissed and told, they were the ones that's a reflection of them, not of him. He always protected his brand. And what went on in the bedroom was his business, and he didn't share that. Right. It was totally his business.

14:03 SPEAKER_00: It was totally his business, and you know, it was during years of like people doing all kinds of things. There's nothing, it's your bedroom, and that's different than how he ran his magazine. And still, I never saw anything that she painted. Nothing. I mean, like I said, it was the safest I ever felt. I felt like I could look sexy and be fun and flirty, and never, I felt like the Playboy Mansion, if anything, was could be more sterile than other parties I went to. Really, you know, I'm not sure.

14:29 SPEAKER_00: I always made great contacts there. I met Olivia, the artist there. Oh, I loved it. Other artists. He loved artists, he loved writers, he loved really intelligent people. Yeah. Jeff was intelligent. I mean, there was always interesting people. It wasn't a bunch of sleaze ball men walking around like like like was painted.

14:46 SPEAKER_03: Yeah.

14:47 SPEAKER_00: Um, I think these girls were ultra young, and I I don't know what, or they they were bitter that things went on between them. And I mean, I again I can tell you about my my my from my point of view and what it did from 79. From 79. So just to tell you that story. I thought it was I get confused.

15:05 SPEAKER_01: 75, 79. I need to first ask you, how in the world do you look as uh what are you doing?

:Her thoughts on aging, beauty, and motherhood

15:11 SPEAKER_01: We need your secret.

15:12 SPEAKER_00: Because I want to do everything. Oh I tell my husband I want to lift everything and he's like, you can't.

15:18 SPEAKER_01: No, you can look beautiful. I can't even believe what you keep throwing out these dates. I'm like, what?

15:24 SPEAKER_00: No, no, I I did a lower neck 10 years ago. That was it. I haven't done anything else. Want to know my reasoning why people I think that people tell me I look younger. First of all, I'm highly immature, I'm highly honest, and I never pushed a baby through my vagina. I'm convinced of that. I never had children. I never pushed a baby. I really think that's it. It's like I never have stepchildren, but you know, it's different than having biological children. It's not that I didn't want to. I just started late in life.

15:52 SPEAKER_00: I got married for the first time at 45. So, you know, I tried, but my eggs were in walkers.

:The importance of history and preserving legacies

15:57 SPEAKER_00: It wasn't happening. They just that is it wasn't happening. But I really think if you don't have children and you don't, I mean, God knows I love all of you that have children. I think it's a blessing. I do. Maybe it wasn't meant for me to age us. They they do because you have to grow up again with them, and then you gotta go to school with them, and you gotta study with them, and then you gotta do it all again, and then they piss you off because I've got stepchildren and they pissed me off, but I didn't have as much, you know, and I didn't really have a big horse in the game, but still they piss me off.

16:25 SPEAKER_00: So it's like I think children can be aging. So I miss that part. So I've been I've been playing, even though I've been working, you know, my whole life. I mean, I love working. People ask me, what do I do for fun? I'm like, I work. You work your passion. I love to write. I keep writing, I keep creating. I've rebooted up all night again. Um, we'll talk about that later. But um, I do want to talk about my my Playboy because I love that you guys are celebrating Playboy. I love that you're playing homage to Playboy because it's iconic.

16:54 SPEAKER_00: I mean, you know, I remember as a little kid going into my my brother's bathroom and opening the the drawer and seeing two Playboys under there. And as a kid, you know, you're you're like, oh my baby kid, you know, eight, whatever. Look at these beautiful girls. I, you know, I didn't know what they were doing in the bathroom with those magazines. And that's fine because I love fantasy. This I think people should have more fantasy and be happier. And I think sexy's fine.

:Her childhood memories of Playboy magazines

17:17 SPEAKER_00: And I think there's ways that, you know, you can be sexy and and not everything, you can also tell someone that they look pretty. And anyway, that's what I'm trying to bring back. But Playboy was always really great for me. But they were they came through New Orleans and my I had an agent. I was doing a little modeling when I was there. I mean, I grew up there, so I was sort of modeling and acting there. And they came through town, and my agent let me know, and they go, Oh, you probably don't want to do nudity, but they're doing girls of the new south.

17:42 SPEAKER_00: I go, Well, I really would love to meet the Playboy photographer. I was always just curious. And I was the Playboy photographer. It was David Chan. Oh, cool. Okay. I mean, he was like long ago. And he was really so I go out to meet him, I bring my little portfolio, and I said, I'm wasting your time because I'm not gonna shoot, you know. I mean I was in college and I didn't know where I was gonna be or what my life was gonna be. And he goes, No, no, actually, I always shoot, we always shoot a few girls with clothes on.

18:07 SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you'll make it in a magazine or not, but if you do, you get$275 and you're in the magazine. And I'm like, okay, well, let's like, let's shoot. This is the first like really big photographer I'd ever shot with. So we went and shot all over New Orleans, which is a beautiful backdrop. Went to this famous plantation, and I had this dress because it was made for the Miss Louisiana pageant to represent the state of Louisiana, the Scarlet O'Howa dress. So I'm posing like this with my hands in front of my neck.

18:31 SPEAKER_00: I mean, there was nothing down, but my hands were like on my boobs, like that. But you know, but just being sweet, like, like, like sweet, like stupid sweet, because I hadn't done that much before that. Anyway, long story short, I was holding not the Miss Louisiana titles, but something that my parents had put me up for, kind of this social pageant. Well, not really a pageant, but a title, Miss Floral Trail. And it has something to do with the city and the state, and they paid money. So anyway, I was selected.

18:57 SPEAKER_00: But the women of the Floral Trail Society saw the picture when it came out, and they were like, and you know, I posed for Playboy. And back then, Playboy was a little more graphic, and the girls a little more spread eagle than it changed. In the 70s, yeah. You were a harlot.

:The story of her court case and public image

19:14 SPEAKER_00: It's harlot, it's harlot. So anyway, they this picture comes out. It's like a little picture, it's adorable, but you know, there's a girl over my head, spread eagle. And anyway, I didn't think anything of it. You know, I've been open to everything my whole life. But so I was holding this title, and before this big uh ball and this big sophisticated thing happened, they dethroned me as queen. But I brought them to court to sue them to reinstate me as queen. So it ended up being a six-hour court case.

19:42 SPEAKER_00: I had the lieutenant governor, the mayor all say, Rhonda's a fine young lady, because I had done a lot of stuff for kids in government, and I'd made speeches and just, I don't know.

:Addressing jealousy, victimhood, and online attacks

19:51 SPEAKER_00: I had been in Miss Louisiana and I had run, you know, I talked in front of the House and Senate. And so they knew that I wasn't this person they were trying to make, you know, make me into. Anyway, long story short, they wouldn't reinstate me as queen. They made they left it up to the judge, but he said you can sue the floral trail for monetary damages. Well, my career, you know, it was pretty, I was in school and I yes, I was doing some modeling, but there wasn't any great monetary damage part at that point.

20:18 SPEAKER_00: But anyway, long story short, if there would have been social media back then, my goodness, it hit AP UPI internationally that this girl from Playboy sued to be reinstated as Playboy with all of her clothes on. It was all over the world. Wow. And I was I was getting, you know, articles in from all over the world. And then um, then I also, when Playboy started, okay, I sued them, I didn't win. And then when I posed for Playboy, it started again. So Playboy was getting the biggest kick. Oh no, I ran for public office.

20:50 SPEAKER_00: I ran for public office against the guy whose wife I'm sure was.

20:54 SPEAKER_02: You did not.

20:55 SPEAKER_00: Yes, he was running for office in New Orleans. I was the first woman to run for office in Louisiana, and I was the youngest person to ever run for office in Louisiana. So it hits again all over the world. It comes out that she posed for Playboy, she sued, and now she's running for office. And then I almost won. That is so this would this would have been insanely viral today. Oh yeah. That's major. Wow. Major. But anyway, it was just this big thing. So Playboy, that started my life, kind of, you know.

:Her political run and career highlights

21:23 SPEAKER_00: And then they started writing about me in the back of the magazine all the time. No matter what I did when I got my first show in LA, it was uh Happy Days or whatever my first show was. They put it in the back, you know, that little news, the playmate news. Right. Even though I wasn't a playmate, they would put that in. And they did it over and over. I'm telling you, I must have been in there 10 times. There was so I didn't ask for it. They they did it on their own.

21:48 SPEAKER_01: I'm like, how lovely. And that was a personal hef. They hef did all of that. He believed in you and he wanted your career to take off.

21:57 SPEAKER_00: Well, he did, and he got a kick out of that. And then I get to L. And I'm, you know, and I get a modeling agency, and I'm really young. I mean, I was 22, 23, not too many years after that, after I finished college. And then I end up with the same agent that Dorothy Stratton had. So I went to dinner with Dorothy Stratton and Hef loved Dorothy Stratton. Yeah. And Dorothy Stratton was going to be a megastar. She was. She was she was going, and I think Hef really wanted that. She had all the qualities of Marilyn Monroe.

22:24 SPEAKER_00: She was soft and demure and beautiful, but in a soft way. And she supposedly had the acting chops. And I did a film with her. I had a tiny, tiny film in her first film called In Galaxena. I mean, it was like a non-speaking role. But I mean, anyway, and I went to dinner with her and I got, you know, I knew her, we knew each other from age, she was younger, but I knew we knew each other from the agency. Lovely, sweet, soft voice.

22:49 SPEAKER_02: I'm so happy you're bringing her up because we want to do a whole show dedicated to Dorothy Go on. Yes.

22:55 SPEAKER_00: So when it when she was, I forget who she was, who was she going with that she was going to marry and wanted to marry her. And she would, she would have flown. No doubt. She was the buzz of all the agents, everybody, that she was going to be his first. And Hef wanted to love that because he loved Marilyn, you know. But she was going to be the first one to really take off because none of them have really become a megastar to that term. So when she when she died, that shook Hollywood. That shook us, me to the core, the way she was murdered so brutally by our hosting.

23:26 SPEAKER_00: And I mean, and it shook Hef to the core. Oh, yeah.

23:29 SPEAKER_02: And that was that was he'll he always spoke about time. And there's there's two playmates that were her best friends, and I beg them to please come on the show and talk about it. And they won't because it's still so painful for them. One of them is writing a bookslash screenplay. So I guess we'll find out that way.

23:50 SPEAKER_01: But yeah, it was uh the reason I was over talking is because when I came into Playboy for the first time, they brought that up.

:Reflections on Dorothy Stratton and industry legends

24:00 SPEAKER_01: So, and that how many years later? And I had a very similar personality to her.

:Rhonda's ventures: TV shows and documentaries

24:05 SPEAKER_01: I had four different people have taken me aside because I had a boyfriend that got me into Playboy. He was killed on a motorcycle, but he had that same demeanor. And what happens is she's a case study in how narcissistic, malignant, psychopathic narcissists prey on, and now we have all this information, but prepathic, malignant narcissists, they prey on kindness. If you have a kind soul, they will they love that. And that's and I've I've learned all about it because I've been through some things, but that's But you know what?

24:38 SPEAKER_00: You do resemble her, Karina. You do resemble her.

24:41 SPEAKER_01: See, I never thought I looked like her, but and then I was Miss August. You have a very he was explaining to me to be I did and I was so young, I really didn't understand, and I didn't know about her. I didn't know.

24:55 SPEAKER_02: That would have been that would have been exactly a decade, Karina, when you came in because she was star 80. 81 was playmate of the year.

25:01 SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah. So so I mean it's so tragic. When I if you ever I can help you guys maybe find some people from my era too that would have known her. Um that would be great. That'd be fantastic. Do you know Terry Groves? I Terry.

25:16 SPEAKER_01: I I know Terry, yes.

25:18 SPEAKER_00: Terry is a makeup artist. I forget the name of the girl that was doing everybody's makeup out there, who's like really famous. But Terry and this other gal, she passed away. Um, they were like Terry would do a lot of playmates of that era. Terry was doing me, and I mean so I could ask Terry if she knows anybody else. I'm sure she does. Terry was a regular at the mansion and beautiful herself. She was a model who then became a great makeup artist. She still does my makeup.

25:41 SPEAKER_02: She'd be a great, she'd be a great interview anyway.

25:46 SPEAKER_02: Yeah.

25:46 SPEAKER_00: She still works with the playmates. She works with playmates of yesterday and today. Perfect.

25:50 SPEAKER_01: I'll definitely get you. She's I feel like you met her, Echo. You have to know Terry.

25:55 SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I had to have. I had to have. Her name sounds familiar, but I can't, I can't place it. So that would be fantastic.

26:01 SPEAKER_00: Her only problem is, and you made me be she's a major vegan, so feeding her is really difficult. No, no, I don't mind the vegan part. She's a vegan who's gluten-free. Jesus.

26:11 SPEAKER_02: Poor thing. And it goes on. Okay, so so how did you end up with the show up all night? And you have to, you have to say it with that.

26:22 SPEAKER_00: Oh night. Well, well, well, I'll say, okay, so you know, I kept being told I loved comedy. And the reason why I love comedy is because a lot of these guys that would hit on me, and that's not the only reason, but nothing turns a guy off faster and makes everything go than a joke.

:Her journey to hosting Up All Night and comedy

26:36 SPEAKER_00: You're telling a joke, the guy's moving in on you, and you're like, and you're like, and so it really worked for me. It was my way of, and it just worked. And then I wanted to do stand-up comedy. And back then they were, you had to look funny to be funny. They didn't get it. Either, either they call like I got so many roles on Happy Days with Three's Company and Married Children, and they would actually ask for big-breasted blonde bimbo type. You can't do that anymore. Like you can't put that in a casting notice.

27:05 SPEAKER_00: No. You can put the name, like if you were using Bambi, and you'd kind of like, oh, the Bambi, we kind of know what that is, but you can't put those words in. But back then they would put that in. So I was always typecast, and I played that, and that was fine. It is what it is. Because I tried for the girl next door, and I'd take off my makeup and they'd say, Well, your mouth moves sexy, you do this. I'm like, fuck it. I mean, you can't make anybody in Hollywood happy. So I started playing into sexy and funny, and they didn't know what to do with that as a stand-up.

27:31 SPEAKER_00: I was dressing sexy on stage, and they're like, You can't, you know, all these male agents, they did not know what to do with me. I forged a head, I forged ahead, I forged ahead until I ended up being a regular at the Laugh Factory, the improv, the comedy store. I mean, I had just I'd sit out in the front and wait for my two minutes on stage until I built up an act. That's a lot of men you write the math to me. I wanted to do stand, I mean, and so I ended up as a headliner stand-up. So back in '91, I brought to Playboy, I forget who I went through.

:The role of humor and fun in entertainment

28:00 SPEAKER_00: I really forget who I went through. Their publicists, whoever was putting me in the back of the magazine all the time. And I'm like, I really want to bring this to Playboy. I I can't remember the names now. They they leave my head, but women of comedy. And they're like, oh, it's like just like women, women of everything they did. They did that all the years. It might have been Bill Farley. Bill Farley. Yeah. Bill. And so I did definitely Bill. I worked with Bill so closely. And he goes, It's a great idea, but where are you going to find pretty women that are funny?

28:24 SPEAKER_00: And I was like, Hello. I said, first of all, I'm going to find you some comics. He goes, Well, we're going to look too. They loved it. They loved the idea. Okay. And so it find it did happen. And they did use a couple of the girls that I recommended, along with a couple that they found. But the they the ones that they found were legitimately trying, but the other ones were really moving nicely along. And one was a major headliner already, Diana Jordan. And it was really a fun layout. And they came to Vegas and you know, had took pictures in front of the signs because I was working at at one of the um hotels as an opening act.

28:56 SPEAKER_00: And then the following year, I gotten up all night and it blew up. And uh well, I'll tell you how I got it. But anyway, that's when they they came to me. But it was comedy. I went back to uh Playboy to try to get on the channel with uh Women of Comedy, and for some reason it just never connected with their channel. But anyway, so what happened is on Up All Night, because I was being told all my years, you can't be sexy and funny, you can't, you know, you can't do both. So I got this audition to be a host.

29:22 SPEAKER_00: And back then, I don't know if you remember, but if you were a host back then or a newscaster, you wore a jacket. Like all the newscasters wore jackets. The women don't now. They're you know, like they're like the Fox News girls. They're like, but but back then, so I knew that all these girls were gonna show up to this audition and host, you know, like jackets.

:The audition story for Up All Night

29:40 SPEAKER_00: I just knew they were gonna host. And I I had gotten word that Tim Conway Jr. was directing it. And there was another girl before me for a year and a half, and um, it was a little sassy, but they wanted sexier. So my manager knew Tim Conway Jr. That wasn't gonna help me get the job, but he did know that they were going for a sexier feel. And I never got an audition for the sexier, unless it was a Bambi or a bimbo or whatever. So I decided to go into the audition with a dress cut down to my waist, spandexed, boobs were popping out.

30:15 SPEAKER_00: I took my curling iron out of my purse and I started curling my hair the whole uh time they were talking to me.

30:23 SPEAKER_01: That's brilliant.

30:26 SPEAKER_01: Brilliant.

30:27 SPEAKER_00: I had gotten no so many times. I mean, now I'm in my 30s, you know. I'd been through my 20s and I lost my father and I went through a period of depression. I definitely was flying high in the sitcom world. That's where I wanted to be, but I took a little, kind of took a couple of years off because of being young and losing my dad in my 20s. It was just really hard for me. But anyway, this comes along. I'm in my 30s, and I'm like, I'm just going for this. If I don't get it, I don't get it. I've not gotten a million other things.

30:52 SPEAKER_00: So I go for it, and then I got it. And I, you know, talked it over with Tim and the directors and everybody that I wanted to do this over the top, accepting character, that I would accept everything. I would be accepting of, you know, gay, straight, trans, whoever came on the show, I wanted to be this accepting, naive, not stupid, but naive and loving character. That's what I wanted to be. I wanted it to be, I mean, it wasn't Pee-Wee Herman's Playhouse, but kind of like that female version. Over the top.

31:21 SPEAKER_00: And when they came into Rhonda's world, anything went, like anything would go, anything crazy.

:Her vision for inclusive and accepting entertainment

31:26 SPEAKER_00: If I had playmates baking bread or got a lot of playmates on, you know, whatever, just stupid stuff, they would go for it. And that's what happened. And it was just this playful, joyful time where I a lot of bee queens and scream queens came on, and I would take them out of their world and put them into this crazy world of on my set of them just doing crazy stuff, bowling. We did this whole show, bowling without a ball, where they had to be.

32:02 SPEAKER_00: I would do it today, but they would walk up to the alley and go, because they all had big boobs.

:Reflections on Hefner's kindness and support

32:07 SPEAKER_00: And then we would show the pins, you know. It was so politically incorrect. And of course, the fans loved it. I mean, I can't remember who was on that show. I'm I'm sure you know some of the girls. Are you friends? Shannon, Shannon Tweed. I know Shannon. I I'm not friendly with her, but I know Shannon and I knew Kimberly. Not, I mean, not well, but I knew it from being at the mansion, and I really liked Kimberly. We love her. Yeah, I really was a great gal.

32:31 SPEAKER_03: Yeah.

32:31 SPEAKER_00: Um, great gal. The kids look just like half. Um yeah. I mean, that was you're right. It was very family, very family time with him.

32:39 SPEAKER_02: And then so that is so I don't know if you know, but Karina, her her um her repertoire is acting, and she's a comedian, and she's hysterical.

:Memories of industry icons and the Playboy family

32:50 SPEAKER_02: And she had this show in um in Vegas for several years, uh, and it was uh God, why am I going blinking?

32:58 SPEAKER_01: Alibi the show that isn't a show. It was a comedy improv pub crawl, but it had improv artists, the best improv and comedians in Vegas. It was so silly. Just silly.

33:10 SPEAKER_00: It's yeah. So now I laugh.

33:12 SPEAKER_01: They would call it.

33:13 SPEAKER_00: Well, you have to have to come in and do the show. We're in Florida. You have to come in and do the show. Yeah. As a matter of fact, I don't do you know a guy named Jonathan Scott. That sounds he's he's a host and has been a host forever. And and he looks the type, he's a nice guy, but he looks like he'd be the old school with the cigar in LA. But Jonathan Scott hosts uh shows in Vegas, and he once I did a show called Ron DeShear's Up All Night Pajama Party. And what it was, it was me, I hosted the show.

33:39 SPEAKER_00: I mean, I did stand up, introduced the girls, and they were um all comics and they did their best time. But we were on stage in our either they could wear anything they want. So either they wore pajamas or negligents. So the bed the stage looked like a bedroom. So we had beds and lounges and chairs, and they could drink whatever they wanted. So we were the audience on stage, and then we had the audience, and then we'd invite the audience to wear pajamas too. And it was such a fun show. So it was ahead of its damn time because I wanted to put singers in it too.

34:11 SPEAKER_00: I wanted to, you know, I had just comics, but it was easy just to have a singer pop in and do a couple of songs. So I told Jonathan about this recently because we're gonna we're getting ready to do some stuff together, and he's like, let's bring it to Vegas. So I'm gonna bring it to Vegas. Yeah, I'm gonna bring it to Vegas for a one-time show in a in a in a in where we don't have to four wall it. He's gonna get me a club or a room. It's a 150-seat room. We're gonna do the show, but it's the kind of thing that if it took off, I could have guest hosts do it for me and it could just keep living.

34:39 SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah. You gotta move creative.

34:42 SPEAKER_01: And I think people are hungry for going back to what you said, Ron. Yes. We're living in times where there's a lot of young people and young men especially that are like, what happened to femininity? And it's and like you said, sensuality and and and women being beautiful and sexy. There's what it these girls.

35:02 SPEAKER_00: I I'm in the intimate apparel business. I hire models all the time. Don't know how to model. They don't know, they don't know their bodies in space, they don't know how to stand. And some of them are beautiful. Now I've hired a few playmates like Jessa Hinton and Atlanta Cap Post. You know, if you know these girls, they're they're later on. And they know how to pose. You know, they they're you know, but they're a little bit older. Those these new gals, oh my gosh, are you kidding me? Or they're just so skinny.

35:31 SPEAKER_00: Or they're like, I'm like, okay, we're an intimate apparel. You have to, you know, even if you don't have the curves, even if you don't have the curves, you can create the curves by the way, you stand, but they don't even know that. I mean, you stand a certain way, you can create a hip, you know. Yeah, they don't know they don't know. So they they I I've told my young people that work for me, I'm like, flirting. They're like, What's that? I'm like, you use your eyes, like a guy walks into a restaurant, you you know, you use your eyes at them, and they're like, We need a school.

:The dynamics of relationships and elder abuse

36:00 SPEAKER_02: We need a school. What a different generation we are dealing with. That blows my mind.

36:06 SPEAKER_00: They know nothing. I'm telling you, there's no podcast here. We can just do another podcast. I'm dying to do a women's podcast where it's just this kind of stuff. Yeah. Because these young girls know nothing. Yeah. And they don't know how fun it is. Like, and that's like, girls, I got so much jewelry and I never did anything for it. Yeah. Unless there's our spin-off. There's our spin-off of right. That's the name of it. I I got so much jewelry and I didn't do anything for it. Here we go. I love it.

36:33 SPEAKER_00: I mean, I need to come to your school. Well, at least at least you, at least you young ladies get a free meal. Like, don't pull out your credit card. What? I always pay for half. No. No, at least get a free meal. I'm sorry. Yeah. You're fine to get a free meal.

36:49 SPEAKER_02: So, you know, it's a very different day. What was it like working with Gilbert Gottfried? I just love him. He's one of my favorites.

36:56 SPEAKER_00: He was great, brilliant, dirty as hell. Yeah. I mean, he would keep it clean. He he was like me, he knew when when to do it and when not to, but really brilliant. I'm really happy that he found love in his, you know, and had two kids before he passed away. Yeah. And his kids are thriving. Uh, I mean, people still talk about him. And so his picture was legends on our set. Legendary. I mean, his brain, I never knew a brain that worked that fast because he was truly of genius, IQ. You know, his brain, you know, not too many people could come up with comedy on the it's written and then it's memorized.

37:30 SPEAKER_00: It just seems like it's not. And that's that's part of the art of it as well.

37:34 SPEAKER_01: The comedic mind is genius to me. It's the most beautiful defense mechanism there is. It is. Beautiful. It is.

37:42 SPEAKER_00: No, Karina, you well, you both have to come on the show. I mean, I'd like to have women on the show. It's like one of the things that the show is lacking. I mean, we've re I've rebooted up all night on Roku, just so my little promo for myself. So I've rebooted up all night on the Roku app so people can come to the up all night. They can go to Roku store, if they have a Roku device, and download up all night. And we are programming it. I'm working with a licensing person. I'm doing new shows. Awesome.

38:09 SPEAKER_00: And then I have another channel, and I'm kind of like doing what you guys are doing for Playmates. It's called the Scream Queens channel, Rondish Scream Queens. And I'm and what I'm doing for these girls is I'm paying homage to Scream Queens because a lot of them did Playboy, a lot of them did sexy, a lot of them did nudity. They've had long careers, they're still working. These and onward, you know, 50s, they're all still working, and they go to these conventions and people love them, but Hollywood has never paid attention to them.

38:36 SPEAKER_00: They've they're they've just been in this world. So what I'm doing is I'm doing these little mini documentaries around them that plays before their movies, so that we just know who these people are. This is beautiful. Well, that's amazing. So I love paying homage to women because as much as women, and they'll hate me for saying this, say that they support women, they don't. They don't. Yep, they don't. There's still jealousy, and there's a young lady that I'm working with um who I adore, and um, her name is Jessa Flux, and she's beautiful.

39:06 SPEAKER_00: She's she's totally playmate kind of material because she's soft looking, but she's sexy. She wrote me just devastated because these people online attacked her. That's what they do now, is they attack online. And I said, they're jealous of you. You don't, you've got to just push it away. I know you you don't see that at your age at 23 or 4. Yeah, but you're working. And she's like, But these women were my best friends. I'm like, Oh, honey, I've been there. Yeah, yeah. You're working, she's working constantly.

39:32 SPEAKER_00: She's so she's been on my set bunches of times. She's professional, she listens, she comes made up. I mean, if we have time, you know, we we want to make her up, but she listens, she pays attention, she's really got this great work ethic, but she dances on the side, she does some things to make money. She's on her own, doesn't have parents. Her lonely living person passed away, her grandmother.

:Supporting women and overcoming jealousy

39:54 SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, you just have to do this. You just have to, I know it's hard and it does hurt, but you they're jealous. So women don't always lift each other up.

40:02 SPEAKER_01: No, they don't.

40:03 SPEAKER_02: It's very and today more than ever, you see it. I mean, I I have a 15-year-old daughter, and it's appalling how these young girls treat each other. It's just, it's disgusting. It's very grateful.

40:16 SPEAKER_01: And people that we're supposed to be close to. I've I it's it you still suffer that. I know, Rhonda, with your career, you think about it. Anything in entertainment, entertainment is the most it's the most vicious thing there is is jealousy. As far as I'm concerned, it's what motivates murder. Murder, the worst murders are are jealousy, whether it's a man or a woman that's you know, someone else's affections. But the the point is, I it it is that's something that is very interesting. Jealousy. It is.

40:47 SPEAKER_00: And and the thing is nowadays what's happening is these these people are hiding behind their phones or the other. Exactly. Right. Where, you know, I there were I won't go into it, but there was some stuff that happened with me, and I was attacked recently because of um supposed political values. I'm not gonna say it, but suppose it, you know. And I got lamb-blasted all over with this new world that I'm in, the horror and the uh rebooting of the show. And these are by people that I'm trying to help, not God, mainly, mainly men.

41:15 SPEAKER_00: Totally, I'm like, you all don't even know me, and you're saying things that you don't even know, and you're taking out of context, and you're finding something online, and you're trying to piece together and you don't know me from Adam. Yeah, and so yeah, it hurt. And then I I went, I kind of argued online, and I'm like, this isn't gonna get me anywhere. No, you are. No, I was being really funny, but they didn't even know I was being funny. So I've been going to a line. People like that have no sense of humor at all.

41:40 SPEAKER_00: It's lost. It's lost. Young people don't have sense of humor. So I've talked in front of colleges. I said, I'm like, that was funny what I just said. But anyway, what what happened is I um, you know, I just you had to like put this down. You can't you can't argue. Yeah, and then because they're just going to, you know, believe what they want to believe anyway. And that's what I told this young lady, you just have to move forward.

42:01 SPEAKER_02: And it's hard to do, but you but it's it's part of the it's part of the deal in this world that we live in today. I mean, if you are going to put yourself out there and you're going to have a voice and have a show and be a name, people are going to attack you. They're jealous. You cannot.

42:18 SPEAKER_01: What's odd to me is that people don't understand that two things can be true or that you can have an opinion. You can have an opinion, and that's that's not against you, and you shouldn't be against me because my opinion differs from yours. That's what makes the world goes around, go around. What interests me is that all of these young people, and I and then I won't get political, but fascism. It's like you're doing what fascism is and you're calling others fascists, and you are stifling people, calling people out, and you're the most vicious people I've ever seen.

42:51 SPEAKER_01: Right. I keep seeing that. And I'm like, Yes, you're 100% right.

42:55 SPEAKER_00: You're 100% right. They're completely doing that, and that's really upsetting to me. But I've been going to these conventions, and so I just went to a couple of conventions where you sign autographs. I know Playboy has that, but these are like these scream and horror conventions. And I'm sure some of these people that attacked me online were there, not a word in person. They all love me. No, they never did meet me. Yeah. So it's like, and I love them. I mean, I don't get not here to for politics.

43:20 SPEAKER_00: I'm here to entertain. And and I want to bring sexy back. And I want the young people to see what we did in the 90s and 80s on TV and the fun we had.

43:29 SPEAKER_03: Yeah.

43:29 SPEAKER_00: And that you can speak your mind and someone else can have another opinion. And it's called debating. It used to be debate clubs. It's okay. So, but I just want to be, I want to bring humor and fun back and entertain. That's that's what I'm here and showcase like what you guys are doing, putting the pedal playmates on pedestals and showing who they are and what they're doing today and what they've been doing all these years. That's yeah, you don't just throw things away.

43:51 SPEAKER_01: It's like people just want to go, oh, that's bad. That was bad. That was like it, it they're they're lumping hef with all of these. Real monsters. They're real victims of real crimes.

:The importance of honesty and integrity in industry

44:02 SPEAKER_01: And Echo and I we've been talking about the FBI files. You know, real Hef would get in get the FBI involved if a woman anything went wrong, you know? He would put his empire on the line to protect a woman. So I uh that's what we've seen.

44:18 SPEAKER_02: Yeah. Yeah. So tell us how this adventure even occurred with at the time it was Crystal Hefner, but she's no longer Hefner, she's Crystal Harris. So yeah, did she approach you? Like what was that about?

44:32 SPEAKER_00: I was shocked when I saw that. So Crystal Hefner, you know, I've been in the intimate apparel business now 25 years. Started this business 25 years ago, intimate apparel. And luckily it's it's been going that that long. But anyway, Crystal Hefner had a manager, I forget his name now, but he reached out to my husband. I won't say it, but my husband just said the name. That's very good that you remembered that. But anyway, he reached out and said, We'd love to do a line with Crystal Hefner. I've actually done a line with a few celebrities.

44:59 SPEAKER_00: And usually when you do a line with a celebrity, you're paying, I'm paying for it. I'm paying for it, and then I'm going to pay the talent a fee. So it's my creation, but it's she's gonna represent it, or he or whoever it is. Attached to it. She's she's attached to it, and then she goes on air, because that was what she was trying, her manager's trying to get her on air on Home Shopping Network. And I was also on a Canadian channel, which I'm still on after all these years. So, long story short, we met with Crystal.

45:25 SPEAKER_00: She came here first, or we went there. I think we went there. We went to the Was she dead in the eyes?

45:29 SPEAKER_02: Like she has been.

45:31 SPEAKER_00: Yes. She was. And it's really funny because my stepson, who's exactly her age, was there. Krista was looking at him. He's very good looking, my stepson. And they were both giving each other looks. I mean, they were in their 20s, and I was like, you could feel like an energy between these two young people, right? But anyway, sitting at the dining room table in the daytime, and it was just her. Hefner was not there. So I don't know if Hef had a lot to do with this. Probably not. Or maybe she it was through her manager.

45:57 SPEAKER_00: I don't never really knew that because Hefner, I thought, wow, this would be great for me to talk to Hef. I'm doing this with your wife, it'd be really cool. But he was never around. So anyway, I sent my people out there, and so they were out there to for her to pick what she liked. Let's go in the direction. She was never like, she'd be like, Well, I don't know, I don't know. So my people basically picked the the styles of athleisure for her to do. And so then it it takes a while. It's a process because you have to design, develop, and then get product in.

46:25 SPEAKER_00: So we got her on TSC, which is the shopping channel in Canada. And so for the first show, I was to go on with her. Now we were also to pay her airfare, which was first class back and forth, and she had to be home by 9 p.m. or a certain time, or so she said, for Hefner. So we we fly her to Canada, but she actually took a private plane, brought her mother and her entourage, but we only had to pay, you know, what we were supposed to pay. It was first class for Crystal or whatever. And anyway, so the whole time I'm on air with her and she's hiding behind me.

46:55 SPEAKER_00: Like she she had the information and the and the actual pieces that you play with, and she never studied it. I mean, at least know, okay, this isn't Nike Ann and it's in red, pink, and blue. Like she knew nothing. She didn't care. And it's not that she was stupid, she's not stupid by any means, but she just didn't. I don't know what happened. So, you know, her manager kept calling. We were trying to get her HD. I'll tell you who it was. It was her her mother behind it, I guarantee. Her mother was behind everything.

47:21 SPEAKER_00: So her mother was there. Well, I'll tell you what what upset me. I'll tell you the story really quickly. So we were going to the mansion and we we still were going to the parties. Now halfway's getting older, so he always did have his hand-in invites. I know that. But um, so a party was coming up, and I actually I knew he was older, and I wanted to get a couple of my friends up there, and he had done this before, especially at my age. You know, he was like, Okay, I wanted to take two really dear friends.

47:44 SPEAKER_00: It was on his bucket list. So I reached out to Crystal and I'm like, I would like to take two friends and never heard from her, never heard from her, never heard from her.

47:51 SPEAKER_02: Yeah, because she eradicated the guest list and all of his closest friends. Nobody was allowed to see him for the last time.

47:57 SPEAKER_00: I'm working with her, I'm working on a line with her. We are going out there, I'm putting her on air, and she lies and says, Yeah, I have nothing to do with guest list.

:Memories of the Playboy Mansion parties

48:07 SPEAKER_02: Yep. And I'm like, she was the one behind.

48:10 SPEAKER_00: I've never not been invited to I've talked to one of the big parties. I don't remember which one it was, but whatever. New Year's one of those. And I can't get you invited. So anyway, I was mortified and I was pissed. Yeah. And and that was really she wouldn't do anything. And we got her on entertainment tonight for the line. She wouldn't go. Well, I just can't, you know. Hef, I have to be home by this in time. I so I don't know how much of that was real or fake. I just, yeah, it's all bullshit.

48:35 SPEAKER_00: I could tell you this much.

48:35 SPEAKER_02: If if Hef knew I was doing that line, yeah, he would have been so supportive of it and he would have been like, You need to go, Crystal, like go. She wouldn't do entertainment, she wouldn't do any of the PR that we could do. No, she was just standing by waiting for him to die slowly. That's exactly what was happening.

48:49 SPEAKER_00: So just three years of his life. The multi-million dollar house that he bought for her. Yep. And um, I mean, she got really nasty.

48:56 SPEAKER_02: Do you want to hear something interesting? So you know, you know that they had the house that they bought across the street, the Playmate House. Yes, yes. Guess what her mom did? Her mom went and got her real estate license so she could list the house and sell it and pocket the four or five, probably recognition. Found that out from Dan Gibb, a butler. That's there's some real shady shady stuff that happened. Well, the mother was on her.

49:24 SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's a shame you have to when you have her mother.

49:26 SPEAKER_02: Her mother was the one that that you know made her go back because she was the runaway bride, and her mom was like, No, you're going back and you're gonna get that bag.

49:33 SPEAKER_00: That's because she was always able to you say, I was the last Mrs. Hefner. She used the name. Yeah, and no one cared at that point, but no, she could say I was Mrs. Hefner. And then I knew that she was gonna do this. I felt it. We all felt it. It's funny. My whole team felt that there was not, it wasn't gonna be good for him. Yeah, it's very sad. And she was very, very sad. She was gonna see him out to the end, and then the kind of things that she said that she saw pick found pictures, she was probably looking for things that, you know, were not true.

50:06 SPEAKER_02: Well, and and now, and now she like started this case with Gloria Allred. And that I guarantee you, that's why I uh she dropped the last name Hefner, because Gloria Allred probably was like, This doesn't look good. You need to be back to your maiden name Harris. And so and and she's trying to stop the the digitizing of the scrapbooks. She's claiming their child pornography. Oh my god, Christopher made me so sad such a lie. That is such a lie. Number one, he was history, and so he's been scrapbooking since he was a child.

50:40 SPEAKER_01: That's what he does. Well, he wasn't a wolf in sheep's clothing or a pedophile. He was he was the original Playboy. And there's it's like trying to remove history. And it's so sad. I know that he really cared about every letter that people sent. Yeah, he cared about it.

50:59 SPEAKER_00: Yeah. He did. He cared about women. Yeah. I mean, even like even just the little thing, like the handcuffs, just everything about my layout. Funny, wanted it funny. All those years, like he supported me because I ran for office and they dethroned me. That's being supportive. The fact that he gave me the back of the magazine when everybody in the universe read it. That kind of you didn't have to do that for someone.

51:20 SPEAKER_01: And it's it's interesting to me when you bring up the curfew. You know, none of us put ourselves in that position with him. We didn't have a curfew. Yeah. And and he wa he was an icon. I would think he's very careful with where you are at what time and very protective. He was a gentleman.

51:42 SPEAKER_00: And he was also older. He was getting older and he wanted his if in his mind she was his wife. I know that my husband, if he wasn't feeling good or getting older, he would want me by his side. Yes.

51:54 SPEAKER_01: Well, my friend Jennifer came to movie night, and it was, you know, it's it's really interesting because he had all of these wonderful friends that are now, they were all up in age and now have since passed.

:The significance of legacy and history

52:07 SPEAKER_01: And this was, oh gosh, seven, eight, right before he died, actually, however many years ago. Yeah. He was scooting along, and and my friend Jennifer is who pointed out to me. She goes, Crystal's like mean to him. And then I'm looking over, she goes, I can't believe like she's obviously like uncaring. She goes, This is sad. She goes, Karina, this is sad. I said I know, and I haven't been to them in forever.

52:36 SPEAKER_00: And I it's stain or abuse. I mean I heard rumors that she now wanna gossip. But I heard I heard rumors. But you know, to me, if mean things are said, there's always something there. No, it's it's fact. I mean and I think I think there was meanness, and I and that's seen it's elder abuse, really. Because I'm sorry when someone gets older. I mean, she's gonna get old one day too.

53:00 SPEAKER_02: I'll give you a quote because when The Secrets of Playboy came out and Holly had put out her show as well, I reached out to Kemberly and I was like, This is your perfect opportunity to come on to the show. And she was, I'm not ready to talk right now. She's like, I appreciate what you guys are doing so, so much. And if I ever do a podcast, it will be with you and Karina. And she said, the only thing I will say is elder abuse is a very real thing. And that's a quote from Kemberly Hefner. So everybody knew what was.

53:30 SPEAKER_02: I mean, she she kept the boys from him.

53:32 SPEAKER_01: She kept, I mean, oh my god, and she loved and she and she will always love Hef. All of his Kimberly wives will all everyone will. You know who loves him?

53:42 SPEAKER_00: It's like is Barbie Benton. She always loved to have Barbie on, and she always I could maybe get to Barbie through her best friend. I I know Barbie. I mean, I have her number in my in my book, but I haven't talked to her in years, but her best friend, I could try to do that for you gals. That would be I know Barbie loved him so much. So I mean, there's so many backstories about that that I know through her best friend, and he was kind to her her whole life. She married someone richer than than half.

54:11 SPEAKER_00: I mean, she ended up.

54:12 SPEAKER_01: He was a kind man.

54:13 SPEAKER_00: He was a she used to bring her kids up to the Easter egg roll. So, I mean, she was always part of his life, and he always so she knows him from the teens all the way into to being beyond an adult. I mean, with kids.

54:28 SPEAKER_01: I'd be interested in knowing how much money has been made off of victimhood. It that's an interesting, a whole other interesting subject because you know, you have people that almost worship the victim and and it makes you sad because if you really have a brain and can look at the facts, you can see what a real victim is versus someone versus someone who, like you said earlier, puts themselves in a situation meeting, you know, whatever it is, they know exactly what they're doing. Yeah.

54:58 SPEAKER_00: You are so right. And and by the way, I got chastised for just saying the stuff that we're saying because these people were like because every woman is innocent. Every woman is innocent. Exactly. You're you're putting down you're putting down the victims. I'm like, I was a victim. I can go back so many years and being a victim, and then a really bad situation. But I also was very protective of myself. Some of these women are not, and they're using it, and I'm not putting them down. I mean, I had girls, or they have guilt, you know.

55:26 SPEAKER_01: A lot of them come from a place of guilt and they feel ashamed. And instead of just calling it out and saying, This was my life, I made that life choice, they're ashamed, maybe in front of their new husband or whatever it is. I don't I don't know, but you can kind of see that going on where they're trying to save face. It's like you're doing the opposite for anyone that has a brain.

55:47 SPEAKER_00: You know what? I had friends back in the day who did sleep with producers and would tell you they did. I had a friend who used to walk into Neiman Marcus with guys and make a buyer an outfit. And back then Neeman Marcus gave you cash, she'd return it, you pay for her rent.

:Final thoughts and appreciation for Hefner

55:59 SPEAKER_00: And she would tell everyone she'd go, I'll be like I got him to take me in an eman market. I'd return it the next day. Honesty, what she is honesty. She was honest. So, but she wasn't going, oh, I'm a victim. No, that was her way of doing it in between. And she was working all kinds of jobs. But don't play this victim when you put yourself in the mansion and you no, you had no bars on your windows there. Yeah, by the way, none of that was going on.

56:26 SPEAKER_02: When you could come and go as much as you want.

56:29 SPEAKER_00: Can I tell you one thing the funniest story that happened at the mansion to me? All the years I go up there, and this is like really funny. Here's all these guys. I got guys in, I got really big producers, friends in through the years, too. And I never ever went into the um grotto. Usually I just hung around the huge shrimp table because I love the food that was there. It was amazing. And I was, you know, it was so much fun. The best food. The best freaking food. And we were served, and the girls were beautiful, and someone looked at beautiful girls and beautiful men.

56:59 SPEAKER_00: It was just fun. I mean, my gosh, just parties ever. He had the best parties ever. Best music. And there wasn't craziness going on there, but just fabulous, sophisticated, gorgeous parties. And finally go there, and I'm a newlywed. My husband and I uh I've been married now many years, but we were a newlywed and we were again 40s, I was 45, he was 46. And so I get him in, and it wasn't easy. I had to set in a picture and to do the whole thing, and this is anyway. I get him in and we go up there, and I'm like feeling sexy because you know we're newlyweds.

57:30 SPEAKER_00: And so um I said, let me show you the top of the grotto. And so I showed him the top of the grotto, and then we start like kissing and we're messing around, and the next and the whole place was tented. This is the first time I'd ever seen the grotto was tented. They tented over the grotto, and then we're starting to fool around and we're in opposite directions, if you know what I mean. So there's a number with that. So we're just we're not undressed, because you know clothing is moved around. There's clothing moved around, but we're not naked or anything, and we're up there.

57:58 SPEAKER_00: And then and then and then my husband looks down and there's people like at the bar, and he goes, Well, I can see people. I go, they can't see us up here. And he goes, Well, I can see them. I said, They can't see us. Well, the old saying, if they can see you, I mean them, they can see you. So we we pull ourselves together and we walk down the back of the grotto. There's a phot a Playboy photographer, you know, inside photographer, right? Who snaps our picture? There was like 50 or more people. And when we stood up, and they started clapping.

58:26 SPEAKER_00: And he feels like a man right now, applauding. Yay! It was hysterical. What a memory. That is memory. And then the other time we went, we finally got naked and went into the grotto, and we were there so late that it was like, I think it was like 3:30 in the morning, and they come in, and this is this is the salacious Playboy mansion where all the stuff goes on. They turn on the lights. Okay, everybody out. I feel like I'm at my mom's house. I'm like, what? I'm making I mean, they literally we got thrown out of the it was fabulous.

58:59 SPEAKER_00: I mean, they weren't mean, but I'm saying, you know, it was a party and there was an end to it, and it's an adult magazine, an adult magazine.

59:08 SPEAKER_02: It was an adult magazine, but it was a home. It was somebody's home. We all have a lot of people. Someone's family, someone's home. You know, right. So we always finish the show with two questions. Okay. First question. Yes. Three words that define Hugh Hefner to you.

59:25 SPEAKER_00: Oh, brilliant, kind, and this isn't more than three words, uh, three words, but very supportive of women. There, that's three words right there.

59:32 SPEAKER_02: I love that. And had you had the chance to see him before he passed and say anything to him in memoriam, what would you say? Thank you.

59:41 SPEAKER_00: Thank you for teaching me and learning so much and even learning about photography. And um, he was a great man. I adore him. I didn't even know him at the level that you girls know them, but I highly respect him and the mega iconic world that he built. And no one will ever do it again. It was a time, I mean, they'll try. It was a time and place. It can't be repeated. I'm really glad that I was part of it. Thank you. I love you, Rhonda.

1:00:05 SPEAKER_01: You're a gym.

:Closing remarks and thank you!

1:00:07 SPEAKER_02: You to our audience. Thank you so much. Please like, subscribe, and leave a comment down below about the show, or if you would like to see anything in particular, suggestions, or anything else. We'll see you next time. I'm Echo.

1:00:23 SPEAKER_01: I'm Karina.

1:00:24 SPEAKER_02: And this is the Bonnie Chronicles. We'll see you guys next week. Thanks for tuning in. Thank you so much. What a fantastic show.