Book club!! We’re recapping and reflecting on Izabella St. James’ memoir, Bunny Tales: Behind Closed Doors at the Playboy Mansion. As one of the girlfriends in the final group of seven, leaving just before the Girls Next Door era, Izabella reflects in this book on the benefits, drawbacks, and misconceptions about living as one of the Seven Girlfriends of Hugh Hefner. I’m highlighting anecdotes and pointing out some differences in what Izabella tells us in this 2006 account, versus what we’re hearing more recently from her and others about this time at the mansion.
Find me everywhere! Linktr.ee/literallylaurad
Time stamps:
00:00 Intro (+ my biases!)
02:08 What Izabella really thought of Zoe Gregory
03:28 Zoe + Izabella vs Holly + Bridget
04:59 Youth
05:25 Pepperdine Law School in Malibu, her intro to Playboy
07:46 First Fun in the Sun
09:17 Graduation + prepping for the Bar; meeting Zoe
11:10 Grammys 2002 + not passing the Bar
15:02 Becoming a live-in Girlfriend
17:36 Rumors about previous Girlfriends
18:53 Housemates – Holly, Renee, Stacy, Bridget
22:01 Selling tickets to Playboy parties
25:58 Doing less
27:56 Internship at Playboy Entertainment Group
29:37 Benefits of Girlfriend Status – why won’t he pay her loans?
35:20 Cost of his lifestyle
37:37 In-house Conflicts
39:29 Nightclubs + Bedroom Routines
41:51 Boys boys boys
43:16 Beauty standards
44:52 Playmates
46:33 Prepping to leave
53:06 Finally moving out
54:26 Unfriendly terms
55:50 Girls Next Door
56:47 Closing Thoughts
Watch…Women of Playboy/Girls Next Door Laura Diez hosts guest conversations and shares stories and pop culture history…on SloppBoxx.Com.
@lauraediez you need to do a look on Lena Li, who I think did a cover and was with Tiffany Holliday were the only Asian girlfriends. There’s a whole lot of mysterious, contradictory things online so I really hope you see this. And have you read Down The Rabbithole yet?
Jill Ann: Upstairs for the next book
I feel like most Libras are off putting and maybe that’s why she doesn’t like Bridget. Libras are kinda fake
Loved this long video 🎉 one of my favs
Mama keeping us FED lately!!
Izzy isn’t a nice woman.
I’ve only just started binging your videos and love anything related to playboy. I was sad when I had caught up so seeing this pop up today made my dayyy ❤ thank you !
Shelia Levall intrigues me
you have such great taste in jewlery. I wouldn’t be surprised if you had your own line one day.
when you do claire, can you cover her drama with holly? I’m still confused by it.
I loved this!! ❤
I have read Stephanie Heinrich’s, Jennifer Saginor, Holly & the butlers books. You are doing an excellent job of breaking things down! Keep it up girl!!! ❤
I’d love a book break down with all of the aliases used in the books and who you think/know they are for, along with the stories about the girls and how the stories compare. I finished Holly’s book yesterday and plan to read more bunny books, but I just KNOW I’ll get confused with the different aliases for the same women.
It seems to me like both Zoe and Izabella, by their own confessions, wanted all the perks of living at The Mansion but didn’t really want to put in the “work” of what it required to be a girlfriend. Hef notoriously didn’t like spending time alone and was a creature of habit and routine. It’s no surprise that in the end he asked them to leave over the other girls because they were happy to stay home on game nights, buffet and movie nights, and didn’t avoid him or have a problem with curfew like the other two did. They kept asking for more and more and there was a very big imbalance.