♪♪
Hefner: Any woman who appears in the centerfold of "playboy"
Will receive major media attention.
It changes lives.
It becomes one of the most important decisions
In a woman's life.
Victoria: They took young women. They were nameless.
They were maybe average,
And they created goddesses out of us.
You went from an ordinary woman into an icon.
Kari ann: After seeing, like, the carmen electras
And the pamela anderson, anna nicole smith,
I decided to pose for the magazine.
She said, "hef loves you."
It was crazy. It happened so fast.
When I made the choice to do "playboy,"
I didn't realize all the choices that I was making
That came with that.
When it came to playmates, they were extremely controlling,
And the way "playboy" controlled playmates
Is through shame and guilt.
They figured, "we made you this playmate, and we own it."
Hef invited me up to his bedroom,
And there are seven girlfriends and vibrators everywhere.
Announcer: Kari peniche, miss united states teen.
I didn't realize at the time that a big part of my innocence
Was actually taken at that time, too.
Playboy would introduce models to men in power
And hope that models would just succumb to their advances.
And I didn't know that I had no room for error.
Come on. I'm, like, 100% perfect.
Don't I get 1% of a little error?
With playboy, our bodies did not belong to us.
[motor revving]
My name is hugh hefner.
I'm editor-publisher of "playboy" magazine.
Reporter: Playboy is one
Of the most famous brand names in the world.
It was simply to include sex as
One natural part of a package for a male audience.
Kari ann: When I made the choice to do "playboy,"
I didn't realize all the choices that I was making
That came with that choice.
Pitzulo: We don't judge the men for buying the "playboy"s,
But we judge the women for posing for "playboy."
Jill: I was never jill anymore.
I was jill that posed for "playboy."
Ashley: I just gave in and knew that I was
Probably gonna go to hell.
Zoe: It got to a certain point
Where it wasn't fun anymore.
Sondra: This process was very painful,
But I should be able to tell my story as I lived it.
Playboy is iconic.
When you think of americana, you think of playboy.
And more than anything, I wanted to be an all-american girl.
I always wanted to go to l.A. And become an actress,
And some of the most famous, beautiful women
Have been in the magazine--
Pamela anderson, madonna, sharon stone.
So, I decided to pose for the magazine.
Playboy was a very recognizable brand in the united states.
Hugh hefner kept a very tight rein
On what he wanted the playboy image to be.
There was something about playboy
Where they wanted to keep the good girl image.
She's a good girl.
She just happens to lose her clothes for that moment.
Kari ann: When I made the choice to do "playboy,"
I didn't realize all the choices
That I was making that came with that choice.
I didn't realize at the time that a big part of my innocence
Was actually being given away and taken at that time, too.
Hugh hefner felt that, "I plucked you out of obscurity.
We put you in the magazine."
You were the playmate of the month.
You were maybe the playmate of the year.
You got this notoriety.
I think from his standpoint,
He felt he was responsible for making these girls,
And I think he felt very much,
Under those circumstances, they should kind of do what he says.
I don't like rules.
♪♪
This is my body.
I'm proud of my body, and I'm gonna do what I want.
♪♪
I think ultimately, this story is about rebellion.
My story of my entire life is about rebellion.
I think, as a woman, you don't have to fit
Within the dichotomy or category that the society imposes on you.
You could be whatever you want to be.
♪♪
I grew up in the former ussr, which is, of course,
Now ukraine and russia,
And I grew up in a family of anti-communists.
So, I've always dreamt of coming to united states.
I was a real bookworm. I never fit in.
I wasn't popular. I read all the time.
Languages was my passion. I spoke english, french, german,
But english was my favorite
Because I've always dreamt of coming to the u.S.
So, when I was 15 years old,
I met a group of american professors.
They invited me to come to united states to study.
And so, at 16, I became
The first ukrainian exchange student
As part of this program of perestroika, glasnost,
When gorbachev came to power.
I only had a one-year student visa.
I was supposed to go back, and I didn't want to go back.
I loved it here. I loved everything from grocery stores--
I've never seen grocery stores in my life--
To popcorn, to waterbeds.
Like, it was--everything was amazing about the u.S.
And so I knew my visa was non-extendable at that time,
And they put me in touch with this lawyer in philadelphia,
Who was of ukrainian descent, to try to extend my visa.
And he had called me, and he said,
"look, I can't extend your student visa,
But I can marry you."
I said, "great. Let's get married."
♪♪
So I'm 18 years old, and I'm moving to philadelphia.
I'm married to a lawyer,
And he convinces me I should go to law school.
So, at 18 years old, I am at villanova law school.
I'm a first-year law student.
Around the same time,
What I found is that my husband was obsessed with "playboy."
He had the biggest collection.
I remember opening the pages,
And I just remember thinking that women--they're not real.
They're just so perfect in every way.
I'm not good enough.
How could he love me when he's looking at these perfect women?
And my husband--he said,
"well, you know, you're just as beautiful as these women.
I don't know what your problem is."
I said, "no, I'm not." he said, "you are."
And so my first husband took some photos of me,
And they were lingerie, some nudes.
And I was like, whoa, I do look kind of good.
So, that was, like, the first time when I realized that,
And he sent them into "playboy."
So, with me, I think,
Because I had such an unusual story,
Playboy was very excited.
♪♪
And they said, "you're the first russian soviet.
We love the package. We love the story.
We'd love to--for you to sign the contract today."
And I remember I signed the contract,
And I called my husband, and he was so mad.
He said, "well, I am the lawyer, and you--
You didn't consult with me? You just went ahead
And signed this contract to become a centerfold?"
I said, "well, you know, I just did.
Yeah. I mean, why do I have to ask you?
Remember, I'm in law school now."
♪♪
So, if you look at my entire layout, it is an archetype.
It's a sort of a prototype of what americans think
A russian girl next door would be--
The kind of jacket she would wear,
The kind of hair she would have.
And then at that time, donald trump,
Ivana trump were very much in the news.
So they said, "oh, she has kind of the same look.
She has that eastern european look as ivana trump."
And ivana's trump's big hair was very popular.
Everything about that layout is very prototypical.
It's sort of like, "look, we finally found
The soviet russian girl next door."
♪♪
So, I ended up being miss October 1994.
♪♪
And I became a citizen the same year
That I became a "playboy" playmate.
So, it was a great year for me.
I finally was an all-american girl.
I was a u.S. Citizen. I was in "playboy."
All my dreams were coming true.
So, once you become a centerfold,
You start working for playboy promotions.
Playboy was wonderful. It was a catalyst for my career,
And the jobs were wonderful. You get paid, like, $1,000
Just to show up and sign your autograph.
Even though all the jobs we got booked for were legitimate jobs,
A lot of them bordered on, I would say, pimping.
And I know it's a terrible way to put it,
But playboy would serve as intermediaries.
They were facilitators.
They would introduce models to men in power
In hope that the models would just succumb to their advances.
♪♪
We weren't directly forced to sleep with these guys,
But there was always a suggestion,
And it wouldn't hurt, you know, your career.
It would be nice if you went out to dinner
Or were extra nice to these specific individuals.
And it's interesting because that's how I met donald trump.
♪♪
So, this is my playmate lingerie calendar,
And basically the non-nude version of my centerfold.
Here, I'm sporting the ivana trump updo.
It was very popular at that time.
It was the playboy promotions that called me and said,
Donald trump thinks he can use you
For his tropicana casino campaign.
Would you be interested in meeting him?
And I said, "of course."
And we ended up meeting. It was three meetings,
And, um, I was getting a little impatient.
So, I said, what about the campaign?
That was, like, $150,000 campaign.
And he looks at me in the eyes, and he goes, "you know what?
Even if there was a campaign, we wouldn't use you.
We use real runway models for that.
♪♪
And I'm going,
"well, then why are we going out to these dinners?
Why are we here today?"
There was never any tropicana casino campaign.
There was never campaign at all.
♪♪
Playboy played into these celebrities,
And I think they figured,
Well, it's a good idea to get these girls interacting,
Maybe sleeping with these celebrities.
It's just good for the brand.
♪♪
Yes, of course.
During these meetings with donald trump,
Of course, he tried to seduce me.
It's never, like, direct pressure.
He's never directly said,
"look, I think you should [bleep] me," you know?
He's waiting for you to sort of succumb to his charm.
Like, the entire time, he's telling me,
"you know, women just adore me.
I have madonna calling me.
I have models chasing me."
And so his idea of seduction
Is just for you to be so impressed with this man
That you just throw yourself at him.
I didn't sleep with him just for...
You know, to--to make clear.
♪♪
We had a certain utilitarian purpose
To look good and to please the men
That were important for playboy organization.
So, our bodies did not belong to us.
♪♪
Around 1996, I was still working for playboy promotions,
And I was in graduate school, finishing my doctorate,
And I figured I needed to make some more money.
I was bringing my whole family from ukraine over here,
And I was supporting them.
So, this was the wild west of the internet,
And I decided I'm gonna create my own website.
Wow. This is my old website.
I thought planet victoria was cute.
There was this whole concept all of a sudden
That some playmates could
Post our own pictures on the internet,
And we could charge our fans to view them.
And that was, of course, a novel concept.
The only way our fans could locate us is by meta tags.
"playboy playmate" was one of those meta tags,
And that's what I had right on the front page.
It said, you know,
"victoria zdrock, playboy playmate.
Welcome to planet victoria."
♪♪
So, I started posting more risqué images,
Maybe a little more open leg stuff.
They were openly sexual, and I liked it. It felt good,
And it wasn't so much about what the image
Was supposed to be projected, but what we wanted.
I felt I could be myself more,
Something that playboy did not like
Because they wanted the good girl image.
I was charging $25 a month, and I could not believe
How many people were signing up for this.
♪♪
So at some point, the playmates who had successful websites,
We started receiving messages, phone calls,
And eventually letters from the playboy enterprises
Asking us to cease and desist using "playboy" meta tags,
Metadata in our websites.
♪♪
And that's how the terri welles lawsuit eventually started.
♪♪
I had the pleasure of representing terri welles
When she was sued by playboy enterprises in 1998.
Terri was the playmate of the month,
I believe, in December of 1980.
And then in June of 1981,
She was named by hugh hefner
And "playboy" as the playmate of the year.
1997, she launches her website.
She's not aware of any objection to it.
She drew the ire of this huge corporation at the time.
They came down on her hard.
The case was about whether it was permissible
For terri welles on her website
To refer to herself as a playboy playmate
Or a playmate of the year in the text of her website.
And playboy was simply taking the position
That terri's website was not "girl next door" playboy.
Therefore, she was damaging the playboy name.
The trial judge and the trial court
Granted terri welles' motion,
Dismissing playboy's trademark infringement claims against her.
The outcome of this case is very significant to many people,
But in particular those playmates
Who also wanted to further their careers,
Express themselves online,
Rather than having playboy make those decisions for them.
So, I was continuing to use the metadata.
I was continuing to post what I wanted to post.
And at some point, somebody from playboy enterprises called me
And said, "victoria, what is your choice?"
♪♪
"are you gonna abide by our standards
Of what we wanna see in your website,
Or are we gonna let you go?"
And I jokingly said,
"well, I can always pose for 'penthouse.'"
After that conversation,
I received a letter from hugh hefner himself.
♪♪
"dear victoria,
I'm really sorry to learn of your venture into porn.
I've always felt you were one of the best and brightest
Of playboy's playmates,
And I hate to see you take the step
That will obviously hurt your reputation and ours.
Sincerely, hef."
So, when I got this letter in the mail,
I knew this was probably the end of my relationship with playboy.
So, basically, if you stepped outside the playboy boundary,
You were sort of an outcast.
You were called a rogue playmate,
And they were playmates who stepped out of the boundaries.
Terri welles was one of them.
Shauna sand was another one.
♪♪
I started working when I was really young.
I had my first newspaper layout when I was, like, 3 weeks old
With, like, one little curl on my head.
And it just, like, took off from there.
♪♪
I moved to mexico when I was 15, 16,
And I started working.
I was doing modeling, magazine covers.
I did music videos.
At that time. I met the owner of playboy mexico.
♪♪
And it was my dream, you know, because I had seen
My first "playboy" when I was maybe 12.
And I was like, oh, my god, this is absolutely gorgeous.
It was just incredible,
The impact that that one cover had on me.
And I'm like, I'm gonna be a playmate.
But my mother-- she was very strict with me,
And she said, "absolutely not. You will be cut off."
And I said, "okay, I'm--I'm not gonna do it."
So, I went back to la jolla to stay with my mom,
And I wasn't able to do it.
♪♪
I'd always been with agencies for acting and modeling.
And when I was 23, my agent at the time called me and said,
"we have a part for you on this tv show called 'renegade.'"
Announcer: An outlaw hunting outlaws,
A bounty hunter, a renegade.
♪♪
And I was like, "okay," and that's when I met lorenzo.
♪♪
He was very handsome.
He was gorgeous, and he was really nice to me.
He was very sweet. He was a gentleman.
He was 37, and I was 23.
It was like love at first sight, and we moved in together,
But I still was obsessed with this idea of playboy.
I said to him,
"what are your thoughts about me being in 'playboy'?"
And he said his friend was the editor,
Marilyn grabowski of playboy america.
He said, "I can call her for you,"
And I-I literally got the chills.
♪♪
So, he called her.
He said, "my girlfriend would like to be in 'playboy.'"
And she said, "okay,
I need you to take some pictures of her."
Then I got the pictures.
I sent them to marilyn grobowski,
And she called me right away, and she said,
"you are approved to be in 'playboy.'"
I-I-I couldn't believe it.
It was just the most amazing feeling. It was...
It was finally real.
♪♪
The theme of my centerfold was my wedding to lorenzo,
So it was a wedding gown theme,
And everything was bridal, and everything was white.
And they wanted it to come out at the same time as my wedding.
I was literally in a dream.
1995--I'm gonna tattoo it on my body.
That year was the best year of my life.
All of my dreams were being fulfilled,
And everything that I had manifested was like a reality.
It was crazy. It happened so fast.
So, the magazine came out. We were married.
Then we started to create our beautiful family.
♪♪
I continued to work for playboy
Throughout my marriage and having kids.
I did different magazines.
They had a magazine called "playboy's book of lingerie."
I did personal appearances.
Like, we would go to vegas, and the playmates would go
And do personal appearances, for example.
So, I continued to work for playboy on a regular basis.
After my third daughter was born,
Hef would call me and say, "do you wanna go out?"
And I mean, I had been pregnant for six years.
It was crazy. I just kept having baby after baby,
And I-I really didn't go out, stayed home.
But I had the urge to, like, go out again.
Like, I need to get out of the house, you know?
And who else better to go out with than hef?
♪♪
So, I just started going out a lot.
And then this particular evening,
Hef gave me the quaalude.
I mixed it with too much.
I had, like, too many margaritas,
And I remember getting out of the limo.
I was walking to the door of the playboy mansion,
And I literally fell down,
And my knees were, like, bleeding.
And I went and I stayed at my girlfriend priscilla's house.
She was a playmate.
I didn't go home.
I didn't call lorenzo because I fell asleep.
I didn't even wake up until the next day.
I didn't do anything wrong.
I never did anything wrong, you know?
But I-I didn't call him.
He was furious.
I had no idea that I was crossing a line,
But I had never crossed a line.
I had been like this perfect stepford wife.
Everything was the way he wanted it,
And I didn't know that I had no room for error.
Like, come on. I'm, like, 100% perfect.
Don't I get 1% of a little error?
But I guess I didn't.
And so then he left.
♪♪
Man, in general-- they're control freaks,
And I had a curfew
With my husband, but yet I had no curfew growing up.
How crazy is that, right? I have the chills.
♪♪
The divorce was really traumatizing for me.
♪♪
Seven and a half years of this love affair,
And then all of a sudden, it's over in one second.
I was in shock.
♪♪
I think for seven and a half years,
We only spent maybe three nights apart
Out of the entire relationship.
Now here I find myself alone.
I was focused on surviving.
♪♪
Even after my separation,
I continued to work for playboy through playmate promotions.
But I think it was, like, 2003, 2004,
Uh, larry flynt contacted me.
He said that he wanted to take a meeting with me
At his office on la cienega.
I was like, wow. "hustler."
I heard that's kind of, you know,
Pretty raunchy and stuff, and I'm not really into that,
But I was like, I wanna hear what he has to say.
I scheduled the meeting with larry flynt,
And I get there. I go into his office.
♪♪
I walk into this, like, enormous office.
Everything is, like, gold. I feel like I'm at
The château de versailles or something like this.
And he has a giant desk, and he's sitting at his desk,
And I sit in front at this little chair.
I'm, like, so little, you know?
And so he tells me he wants me to be the hustler girl
And do all the videos.
I thought, okay.
And then he tells me to take off all my clothes.
It's just him and I. No one's there.
So, I stand up.
I take off all my clothes,
And he says, "come here."
So I walk up to him, turn around,
And I have a playboy tattoo on my stomach.
And he said, "you know, you're gonna have to remove
Your playboy tattoo."
♪♪
He offered me a decent amount of money,
And career-wise, and as far as money,
It would have been advantageous for me to accept that.
So we have a very nice conversation, and I leave.
And then afterwards, I call hef.
And I said, "larry flynt wants me to pose for the magazine
And work for him and do his videos and all of this."
And hef said, "absolutely not."
♪♪
"if you want to work for larry flynt,
You can have nothing to do with playboy.
You won't be allowed to work for playboy anymore."
I can't do what I want with my body
As far as working for any other company.
Playboy controlled who I posed for
And my nude modeling,
And basically, I couldn't work anywhere else.
Hef said, "if you want to work for larry flynt,
You can have nothing to do with playboy."
And that crushed me because
That had been my extended family.
I had been to the playboy mansion
Nonstop since 1995.
My kids went to the playboy mansion
Every year for the easter egg hunt.
That was basically my family.
I already lost one family.
I'm not gonna lose my other family.
So, I called larry flynt and I said,
"thank you so much for your offer.
I'm very honored, but I won't be able to move forward with this."
♪♪
Come on. Come on. Good girl.
Look, we're gonna do your polish.
Good girl. Look at your pretty polish.
She'll lay here like this for an hour
And just let me paint all of her nails.
♪♪
Good girl, buddha.
Even after my--my separation, I still went out with hef.
We would go out with all the girlfriends.
We would go to a club, and I would stay at the mansion.
It was fun, though.
When you've been locked up in your house for seven years,
You wanna go out.
♪♪
So, this particular evening,
Hef invited me up to his bedroom
After we had gone to a club,
And I witnessed what was going on...
♪♪
...With seven girlfriends and, like, vibrators everywhere,
And it was definitely a-- something I hadn't seen before.
I'd come to the bedroom, and there's seven girls
And, like, porn on and weed, and I'm like, oh, my god,
Uh, I need to go. I'm gonna go.
I didn't wanna have anything to do with that.
I chose not to be a part of it.
I was never one of hef's girlfriends.
He wanted me to be, and I could have been,
But I was not interested in that.
I'm, like, a very family-oriented person,
Where I want to be with one person.
I wanna be married.
I loved him as a person,
Um, but I was not about to sleep with him.
But everything was okay.
He didn't put any pressure on me.
He was about my personal choice.
If I wanted to participate in any kind of activities,
Then that was up to me.
If I didn't want to participate, I just said no,
And everything still stayed the same.
I still worked for playboy. I was still his friend.
I still went out to dinner with him. Nothing changed.
♪♪
So, in 2009, I ventured out into the french market,
And I started doing reality shows in France,
And I filmed the french "big brother."
While I was there, I realized a sex tape
With my boyfriend at the time was missing.
It was stolen from me,
And vivid got ahold of this tape.
In my mind, I was like, pamela anderson has a sex tape.
I didn't think it was that big of a deal.
Sex tapes were common back then.
It was gonna come out anyway.
So, I worked with vivid, and we did a deal,
And then I was actually a creative part of the tape.
They wanted me to translate it because it was in french.
So, I did that, and vivid released the tape.
I called into playmate promotions.
I always worked for them, and I said,
"what jobs do I have coming up?"
And they said, "hef called us, and we were going to call you.
Because of your tape, you can no longer work for playboy."
♪♪
And I was heartbroken.
I was in shock.
I turned down larry flynt for hef. I was faithful.
I did my part, and then you're, like, throwing me away.
That devastated me because I had been
Working for them since 1995. That was my family.
♪♪
I don't really think they took into consideration my feelings.
It's like you build up a personal relationship
With someone after all these years,
And you just don't expect them to do something so hurtful.
And they can't control everything.
We should be able to do whatever we want with our bodies,
And I don't want any man nor any business
Telling me what I can and can't do.
♪♪
You had young women
Who are now being presented this glitzy opportunity
To appear in the magazine and to associate with playboy
And to go to the mansion
And sometimes to live at the mansion
And to be invited by playboy to promotional events.
I have no doubt that that looked all very, very attractive.
I think a lot of them really felt
That this wasn't the peak of their career.
This is a springboard to a much bigger career
That they could have in hollywood
And the movies, et cetera.
Well, actually, it turned out to be an impediment.
♪♪
Growing up in high school,
My mom wrote words on my walls, right?
So, above my bedroom door, I had,
"you can be anything you wanna be."
Successful, model, um, best friend.
And then behind my bed, it said, "I will be famous.
I will be a star. I'm going to hollywood."
So, I always knew I wanted to go to hollywood.
I was born in san diego, and I moved around quite a bit.
I went to 17 schools altogether.
My sophomore year of high school,
We moved to portland, oregon,
And I modeled overseas in high school.
I was picking up a check from my modeling agency,
And the receptionist-- she was like,
"are you going to the pageant next weekend? Miss teen oregon."
I'm like, "what's miss teen oregon?"
I knew what a pageant was,
But I didn't know what a pageant was.
Like, I don't think I ever watched a pageant, to be honest.
Like, I-I knew what, like, a beauty queen was, I think.
So, I told my mom I wanted to compete for miss teen oregon,
And she's like, "kari, these girls have been doing this
Their whole life, like, since they were, like, little kids."
I was like, "mom, I got this. I got a homecoming dress.
I have a swimsuit. We just need to go buy an interview outfit."
And so, I competed in two weeks, and I made the top 10.
I didn't win that year,
But then I came back the following year, and I won.
In 2002, I competed at miss teen usa,
Which is part of the miss universe organization.
I didn't win that one,
But then I competed the following year
At miss united states teen, representing oregon,
And I won that pageant in 2003.
Announcer: Kari peniche from oregon
Is miss united states teen.
So, after I got my crown,
I moved to l.A. To pursue acting.
So, I called an agency.
I asked for the head of the commercial department
And got the assistant, and I hung up,
And I went in the next day and said
I had a meeting with that agent.
♪♪
And the assistant came out, and I was like,
"hi. Are you laura?" and she said, "yeah."
And I was like, "it's so nice
To finally put a face to your voice."
And then the agent came out, and I met with the agent.
He had me come back the following day
To meet with the theatrical department.
They sent me on an audition. And then laura, that assistant--
She's the one that gave me the "playboy" offer.
So, when I got the call from the agency that
"playboy" had made an offer for me to pose in the magazine,
My answer was no, 'cause it was nudity.
I didn't want it to affect my reign or the pageant.
You know, I wanted to do a good job for the pageant,
And I didn't want to disappoint them.
I-I really liked my directors.
But then I knew that the contract
For being miss united states teen
Didn't have a nudity clause.
It had a morals and values clause.
So, I saw that as it being an opportunity
For me to make that decision and that choice.
After thinking about it and seeing the carmen electras
And the pamela anderson, anna nicole smith
Come from "playboy," I decided to make the choice
For myself as an adult woman, now 20,
To pose for the magazine.
So, I talked to my family about it,
And everyone was supportive.
My mom just said, "no crotch shots."
I said, "okay. I won't do any."
♪♪
So the "playboy" shoot, I was so nervous.
You know, I was young. I'd never posed nude before.
And there's all these, like, young, cute guys
That hold these reflectors, and, like,
They have you positioned in the funniest ways, right?
And you're like, I know you're not photographing right there,
But I'm totally naked, and there's somebody, like,
Shining a shiny thing...
[laughs] right behind me, and he's really cute.
My shoot was, like--
I think it was, like, four or five days long.
♪♪
It was a pageant theme, so I was, like, in this
Pepto-bismol pink gown and pink balloons,
So, it was very cute.
And there was one crotch shot, but not too much. [laughs]
♪♪
So, one of the things I negotiated with playboy
Was that I would be doing the November issue of "playboy,"
Which was--would be coming out five days
After my reign of miss united states teen.
But they published in the October issue that I would
Be coming out in the following month's issue.
I didn't know that there was going to be
Any tease or press release of any kind that I would--
I was gonna be in the November issue at all.
♪♪
I found out from my directors when I got a phone call,
And they said the father of some delegate
That was gonna be competing in the pageant
Had seen miss united states teen was going to be in "playboy."
The pageant director said that my first runner-up
Would be going to crown the girl in five days
And that I wouldn't be crowning the--
The new miss united states teen.
So, the pageant stripped me of my title
Because I made the choice to pose for the magazine.
They wanted back my crown and my banner
And all of my used prizes.
I kept everything 'cause I didn't break any rules.
I might have not told them what I was doing,
But it was my choice.
You know, there was a morals and values clause.
So, those were my morals and my values,
And I chose to do the magazine,
And there wasn't a nudity clause in the contract
For being miss united states teen.
I didn't break any rules in my contract.
When I first got to l.A., like, I'd go to my auditions,
And I'd be like, "here I am. Aren't you so happy to see me?"
[laughs]
And then after I did "playboy,"
I noticed people started to be like,
"oh, you're the miss teen girl who lost her crown"
Or, "you're the beauty queen gone wrong,
The beauty queen gone bad, the beauty queen
That got stripped of her title for stripping in 'playboy,."
I started to get more insecure and nervous.
I started to feel shy when I was auditioning
Or, like, I didn't know how to answer questions sometimes.
I just didn't think about those things before I did it.
I was just so excited to do "playboy."
I didn't realize at the time that a big part of my innocence
Was actually being given away and taken at that time, too.
♪♪
So after posing for "playboy,"
I do the whole press tour, and I did a lot of appearances.
So for, like, two and a half, three years,
That's all I did, was club appearances,
Getting paid quite a bit of money
To just show up and party.
I was 21, 22, 23, showing up at the clubs
And just taking pictures and drinking.
It became such a big part of my identity in a weird way.
Three years had passed, four years had passed
Since I had really done anything.
Yeah. Yeah.
No, I was just partying a lot, and I just got caught up.
You know, I got caught up in the l.A.,
The hollywood lifestyle for a little while.
You know?
Then I ended up in rehab. What are you talking about?
[laughs]
♪♪
I knew I needed some kind of life intervention to, like,
Get my [bleep] together, get my life together, you know?
So I did "sex rehab with dr. Drew."
I did "celebrity rehab with dr. Drew," season three.
And then I did "sober house," season two.
♪♪
I learned so much in rehab.
All the therapy that I did and to look at things
That I'd never looked at before was really beneficial for me.
I think I chose playboy initially because I thought
It was about liberation of women.
But what I realized is that it wasn't.
It was still very much using women
To maintain their idea of what beauty, sexuality was.
Shauna: How can we all be so perfect?
We can't do what we want with our bodies
Without having such consequences.
Kari ann: When I made the choice to do "playboy,"
I didn't think about the fact that I was a role model
For teenage girls,
But I was making a choice for myself
As an adult 20-year-old woman at that point.
And the father of some delegate was flipping
Through the magazine, and he called the directors,
And it was okay for him to look at the magazine,
But it wasn't okay for me to pose in it.
Shauna: I've always felt that there's just
A lot of hypocrisy going on with women's bodies.
I think it was around 2011 or a little bit thereafter,
Playboy sold most of their catalogs to porn sites.
Absolutely.
I don't think there could have been anything else
That could have pissed me off even more than that.
I mean, that's so hypocritical.
That's against everything that he told me
That he was mad about me for doing,
And then he goes and he does it.
The way playboy controlled playmates
Is through shame and guilt,
And if you open your legs a little more,
It's shameful, that it's not dignified.
Playboy is only within this boundary
That photography has to be beautiful and lit.
It has to be airbrushed.
Anything that's raw and airbrushed is undignified.
You're gonna judge me and tell me I can't do this
Or judge me because I did something.
But yet, what do you really do when
You close the door to your house?
You know, how do you really behave?
What are you really doing?
It was a double standard.
There's just no question about it.
What company in the united states
Other than playboy had their ceo or chairman of the board
Wearing his pajamas and smoking jacket every day
And saying, "I've had sex with over a thousand women"?
How many girlfriends have you had? Hundreds?
Well, certainly over a thousand, I'm sure.
And the women--they were vulnerable, they were young.
He knew exactly what he was doing.
But it was also born of their proprietary notions that,
"we made you. We plucked you out of obscurity.
Now you need to follow the rules,
And you need to do what we want you to do."
Eventually, when I departed from playboy,
It was very liberating because I realized,
Now I can be in control.
I can choose what I want to be, how I wanna portray myself,
And that was extremely liberating and empowering.
Onlyfans--it's a uk-based subscription service
Known for x-rated content,
And while it's been a hub for sex workers,
It also hosts everyone from fitness bloggers
To musicians to a growing list of celebrities.
I'm on onlyfans.
It's a lot of fun. It's basically taking pictures,
And you can actually talk to the people.
Like, you can do a live video
Where they see you and can interact with you
And ask questions.
And it's funny, because it's actually like playboy,
But I'm my own boss.
It's liberating, and it's normalized.
Like, it became so normal.
And what I like about adult industry is--
Is this ultimate choice.
A woman decides what to do with her body.
That, to me, is why adult industry
Can be so empowering if you use it the right way.
No, I do not regret posing for "playboy."
Forever, there'll be that picture,
And that picture will be young, and in the minds of men
Who look at that picture, I will always be that.
And therefore there's a bit of a symbolic immortality to that.
I don't believe in regrets because I think
That you can only learn from your mistakes.
Even after all of the conflict that came along with it,
The dream coming true of being a playmate, it was just magical.
And it also gave me such an amazing amount of pride,
And I was so proud of my body,
And I carried myself in such a different way.
I was proud of the pictures.
I don't blame "playboy" for anything,
And it totally changed my life.
Even though it did cost me my crown, I would do it again.
Yeah.
I think it's really unfortunate
That so many women are bound by choices
That others, particularly men, make for them.
I believe women should own their bodies
If they want to use it for procreation,
For profit, for pleasure.
Our bodies belong to us.
It's time that women choose what they wanna be,
And just because you make one choice doesn't mean
That you can't be something else.
You don't have to worry what others think,
What society is gonna impose upon you.
You know, you live one life,
And that life should be about your narrative,
And that narrative, you should choose to write your own way.
There is a lot of backlash
When you are a female athlete who posed for "playboy."
I didn't think anybody was gonna make a big deal about it,
And for some reason, people lost it.
♪♪
There were incidents that happened
That could have destroyed my entire career.
They asked me to show my vagina.
I just gave in and knew that I was
Probably gonna go to hell.
This was shocking.