Better than a stuffed animal.
Everyone has their favorite places to read. One of those places happens to be cuddled up in bed.
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Holly Madison Reveals The Hell That Is Playboy Mansion Life
“I call myself a born-again feminist,” she tells BuzzFeed News.
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Holly Madison decided to write a book when she was excelling in her career — starring in the long-running Peepshow in Las Vegas at Planet Hollywood, as well as her own E! reality show Holly's World — and yet fans would not stop asking her about Hugh Hefner and her time as his girlfriend in the Playboy Mansion.
"Women would come up to me, and say, 'Don't you miss the mansion?' Or, 'I'm sorry Hef didn't marry you,'" Madison recalled during a recent interview with BuzzFeed News at her home on a tree-lined Los Angeles street. "I was like, can't you see I'm doing so much better on my own?"
It's safe to say that after the revelations in Madison's just-released Down the Rabbit Hole: Curious Adventures and Cautionary Tales of a Former Playboy Bunny, she has successfully squashed any such questions in the future. With little preamble — Madison and her collaborator, Leslie Bruce, know what the reader came for — Down the Rabbit Hole tells the story of Madison's time with Hefner from 2001 to 2008 and its aftermath. The result reads like a celebrity memoir infused with The Bell Jar and Going Clear. Madison's depression in the Playboy Mansion reached harrowing depths, yet she felt trapped there: by her fears about her limited professional possibilities, by her unwillingness to admit to anyone how sad she really was, and by Hefner's emotional control over her.
The book also explicitly tears down an insidious thread in popular culture in which women have portrayed themselves on reality television as dumb and less than — a phenomenon Madison herself participated in during her time on The Girls Next Door, the E! reality show that chronicled part of her time with Hefner (and fellow Playmates/Hefner girlfriends Kendra Wilkinson and Bridget Marquardt). In the author's note, Madison writes, "Around the turn of the millennium, it became fashionable for women to appear stupid — to get by solely on their looks and to be concerned only with fame and materialism. Some of the effects of that moment in the zeitgeist still linger today."
Down the Rabbit Hole is not breezy fare. Sitting on her shaded patio overlooking her garden on a hot summer day, Madison, now 35, said, "I felt like I had something to say about being in the midst of that whole thing that was going on where Paris Hilton and Jessica Simpson and Kendra were so celebrated — and I was a part of it too — for being dumb on TV. Part of the reason I wanted to write the book was to show the other side of it."
Below, Madison talks to BuzzFeed News about what you don't know in regards to Hefner, her seedy years in the Playboy Mansion, and feminism.
The first issue of Playboy in 1953.
Playboy
This One Dryer Hack Means You Never Have To Iron Your Clothes Again
Your morning routine just got so much easier.
Ironing is the absolute worst.
Lorimar Telepictures / Via tumblr.com
You have to navigate around buttons, pockets, sleeves, and your own hands with a steaming hot plate of metal.
But there's one hack to make your clothes wrinkle-free without using this plastic demon:
Alison Caporimo
First, put your dryer on the highest heat setting.
This Is What "Game Of Thrones" Would Be Like With Nicolas Cage
A hell of a lot better, that’s for sure.
An Imgur user has uploaded photos that imagine a Game of Thrones universe that is completely made up of Nicolas Cage.
One can dream...
HBO / imgur.com
Game of Cage sees just about every character from the show... improved...
HBO / imgur.com
And made better...
HBO / imgur.com
With the Face of Cage...
HBO / imgur.com
19 Genius Health Tips Lazy People Will Appreciate
Working hard or hardly working?
Alice Mongkongllite / BuzzFeed
Stock up on frozen veggies and berries to have on hand when you might need them.
It's so much easier than having to remember to buy them fresh, and then also having to remember to cook them before they turn into gross smelly puddles of goo in the back of your refrigerator.
Toss your frozen berries into oatmeal or eat a few as a sweet dessert. And cook up your frozen veggies as side dishes, in stir fry, soups, and more.
Buy a season (or a series) of a very addictive TV show. Force yourself to watch it ONLY while you're running on the treadmill, using the elliptical, or pedaling a stationary bike.
This was a tip from the story 14 Former Couch Potatoes Share Their Best Tips For Getting In Shape. Try it with 24, or Buffy the Vampire Slayer, or Pretty Little Liars, or Homeland... or any other show that'll keep you pretty riveted and desperate to find out what happens next.
Eat from small plates, bowls, cups, and jars to help manage your portion sizes.
Some research suggests that you'll have an easier time with portion sizes (and feeling good about limiting portion sizes) when you eat from smaller plates and bowls. Because when you have a small portion on a big plate, you feel like you're depriving yourself — but when that same portion takes up a lot of real estate on a smaller plate, you'll think you're eating more.
Get the recipe for the almond butter, strawberry and banana overnight oats here.
Here's Who We Hope Is Cast In "American Gods"
We’re trusting you, Bryan Fuller. Make good choices.
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