Holly Madison has revealed her mental health suffered while living in the Playboy Mansion with the late Hugh Hefner. More than a decade after the 41-year-old left the house, she opened up about the pressure she felt to appear perfect in the iconic Bunny costume. In a July 28 TikTok video, Holly reflected on pics of herself dressed in the corseted Playboy costume and revealed she battled body dysmorphia at the time. “So for a recent post, I was looking for pictures of myself in a bunny costume. I came across one and it reminded me of a moment in my life when I was watching a playback of myself and I thought, ‘Oh my God, I need to lose weight,'” she said in the clip.
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The former Girls Next Door star showed fans the snap of herself walking down a runway in a strapless black Bunny costume, with the signature thick bow choker. “I looked at myself when I looked like this and was terrified,” she recalled. “[I] thought that I gained weight and thought that I hadn’t stuck to my diet and thought that my thighs were huge. I thought, I need to lose five pounds at least. And that’s ridiculous … I’m sharing this because I think it might help people realize that sometimes our body dysmorphia is off the charts.”
She continued, “I really feel like worrying [about] what I look like has gotten in the way of me living my best life and living as happy as I could be. It’s not worth feeling bad about yourself.” Despite the difficult memories from that period in her life, Holly revealed she still owns a couple of outfits. “I have this one which is covered with Swarovski crystals. I have my first regular black one and a hot pink one,” she revealed, noting that she doesn’t plan to wear them again.
“I’ve had two kids since then and one thing nobody talks about pregnancy is your ribcage will expand about an inch in circumference. Your baby needs oxygen so you need more space for your lungs. And the ribs don’t go back to normal,” she said. Holly also revealed that she had to get “zipped up in the suit” and had to “breathe out all the oxygen in [her] lungs just so the zipper could get up.”