Holly Madison and Bridget Marquardt have opened up about the paranormal encounters they’ve had inside the Playboy Mansion, saying they’ve both seen female ghosts in Hugh Hefner’s Gothic-Tudor home.
The former Girls Next Door stars, who lived in the mansion as the Hefner’s girlfriends in the early 2000s, have not only remained friends over the years, but they also share a passion for ghost hunting.
‘The mansion is a home that’s very intriguing for so many reasons,’ Madison, 41, told Nylon. ‘People talk about it being haunted. There’s all these weird urban legends like trafficking tunnels. It takes on a life of its own.’
Paranormal activity: Holly Madison (right) and Bridget Marquardt (left) have claimed to have seen modern-day female ghosts wandering the Playboy Mansion while they were living there
Is it true? Various people have claimed the mansion is haunted over the years, with reports of scantily-clad female ghosts and the spirit of an older man haunting its hallways
Built in 1927 and located in the Holmby Hills, the Playboy Mansion features 29 rooms, a wine cellar, and a grand hall, as well as a swimming pool with its own grotto.
Hefner, the founder of the Playboy publishing empire, lived there for 43 years before his death in September 2017.
Various people have claimed the mansion is haunted over the years, with reports of scantily-clad female ghosts and the spirit of an older man haunting its hallways.
Madison explained that neighbors would call it ‘the haunted house’ in the early 1970s because the creepy estate looked like something straight out of Scooby-Doo.
Throwback: The former Girls Next Door stars lived in the mansion as Hefner’s girlfriends in the early 2000s, and they both moved out when the reality show ended in 2009
Property: Built in 1927 and located in the Holmby Hills, the Playboy Mansion features 29 rooms, a wine cellar, and a grand hall, as well as a swimming pool with its own grotto
Legacy: Hefner, the founder of the Playboy publishing empire, lived there for 43 years before his death in September 2017
The Down the Rabbit Hole said the Playboy Mansion was just one of the haunted houses she has lived in over the years, though she was a reluctant believer at first.
Marquardt, 47, has had a similar connection to the supernatural over the course of her life, and she told Nylon that she feels she was ‘born spooky.’
She started taking classes in paranormal investigation and research while living in the mansion, and her interest played out on the show. In the first season of The Girls Next Door, she hired a paranormal investigator and a medium to host a séance at the supposedly haunted mansion.
Marquardt turned the hobby into a career after getting certified in paranormal investigation and in parapsychology, which she continues to study.
She launched her spirit-focused podcast Ghost Magnet in 2019, with Madison joining her as a guest on the show to talk about the haunted Playboy Mansion in an episode cheekily titled ‘Holly Madison and the Ghosts Next Door.’
Say what? Madison told Nylon that she saw a woman with highlighted blonde hair and workout clothes in the mansion’s basement gym before she vanished
Scary! Marquardt, who is now a celebrity paranormal investigator, said that she saw a woman with ‘long, black stringy hair’ standing in her room and then disappear
On the show, Madison detailed how she was working out on the treadmill in the basement gym when a ‘very contemporary looking’ woman walked out of the tanning room.
She said the stranger had highlighted blonde hair in a ponytail and was wearing a hot pink workout top and black pants. While she didn’t look like the typical Playmate at the time, she resembled someone who would hang around the mansion.
‘She didn’t look at me or acknowledge me at all,’ Madison recalled. ‘She just was looking straight forward and walked toward where the weights were, which were around the corner from where I was standing. So I was like, okay weird.’
After finishing her workout, she decided to introduce herself. That’s when she realized the woman had disappeared.
‘I go around the corner and she’s not there. I was like where did she go?’ she explained, noting that she was facing the door to the gym the entire time and would have seen if the woman had walked out.
Believer: In the first season of The Girls Next Door, Marquardt hired a paranormal investigator and a medium to host a séance at the supposedly haunted mansion
Old friends: In 2019, Madison detailed her paranormal encounters in the Playboy mansion on Marquardt’s podcast Ghost Magnet
Madison, who lived in the mansion as Hefner’s girlfriend from 2001 to 2008, told Nylon: ‘I never saw that woman again in my life.’
In late June, she recounted the story of the ghost at the gym in a viral TikTok video, which has been viewed more than 4.2 million times. The clip was in response to a viewer who asked if the Playboy mansion was haunted. Madison confirmed that it is.
‘Not long after I moved in, I was working out in the gym and I full-on saw a woman come out of the bathroom and just walk across the room and disappear,’ she said. ‘And that was the first thing.’
Madison was initially skeptical about her brushes with the otherworld and would try to rationalize what had happened, but she soon changed her tune.
On another occasion, she was scrapbooking in Marquardt’s room when she wished for a sign that ghosts are real. She told Nylon that the moment the words left her mouth, the ‘TV turned on by itself and the volume went all the way up.’
Marquardt has had similar experiences in which TV channels or the volume would change without any explanation, and like Madison, she has also claimed to have seen a female apparition.
Questions: Madison recounted seeing the ghost in the gym after confirming the Playboy Mansion is ‘haunted’ in a TikTok video that went viral in June
She recalled how her sister and friend were in her room helping her with her new puppy when they saw a woman standing in the doorway of her closet looking into her room. Her terrified sister burst into tears.
‘She had long, black stringy hair, very pale, very thin. She was wearing a white T-shirt that was too big on her and black acid wash-y jeans,’ Marquardt told the digital magazine. ‘She was more modern-day and I feel like I recognized who she was.’
She believes the ghost was a woman named Joanie, whom she had met when she first started spending a couple of nights a week at the mansion. Joanie used to help the women at the house and take care of the pets.
After Marquardt moved in full-time, she learned that Joanie had died of cancer. While it was ‘scary’ to see the ghost, she feels the woman probably just wanted to see the new pet that was in the house.
The celebrity paranormal investigator said there is also speculation that the mansion is haunted by the wife of its original owner, Arthur Letts Jr.
It’s rumored that she either jumped, fell, or was pushed from the balcony and died after landing on the marble floor, which makes for a good ghost story, but has never been proven to be true.
Spooky: Madison has also been candid about the ghosts that allegedly haunt her current Los Angeles home
Haunted house: The Holly’s World star’s home is being investigated for paranormal activity in the new episode of Ghost Adventures that airs on Thursday
Marquardt plans on continuing her research on the claim, though she has never been able to find proof that anyone died in the house.
Madison explained that Hefner told her a woman that he had dated in the 1980s had made up the story about Letts’ allegedly ill-fated wife, noting that he was ‘not a believer.’
The Holly’s World star has also been candid about the ghosts that allegedly haunt her current Los Angeles home while detailing the paranormal activity she has experienced in her TikTok videos.
Her home is investigated in the new episode of Ghost Adventures that airs on Thursday and features both Madison and Marquardt,
Madison’s boyfriend Zak Bagan co-hosts the show, which follow ghost hunters as they travel to haunted destinations.
Bagan told the Las Vegas Review-Journal that they ‘captured some really incredible evidence’ at Madison’s ‘old castle house.’
‘I don’t know if that’s going to make her rethink living there,’ he added. ‘But her house is so absolutely cool, and she’s in love with it. I think that she’s just accepted that she has a roommate that she can’t see.’