Hugh Hefner's widow Crystal Harris begs Jessica Biel to drop out of Playboy biopic amid abuse claims: 'Do not glamorize him'

Hugh Hefner's widow Crystal Harris has publicly begged Jessica Biel to 'reconsider' her involvement in the upcoming Playboy Mansion biopic, Playmates. 

Biel will play Hefner's wife in the film, although the character is fictional and not actually based on any of Hefner's three real-life wives. 

Bill Pullman will play Hefner while Lily-Rose Depp will portray a Playboy model who aspires to become a Playmate of the Month. 

After the film was announced, Harris, 40, privately messaged Biel on Instagram and asked her not to take the role, before posting the message publicly to her three million followers.

'Please reconsider playing Hugh Hefner's "wife" if this film intends to romanticize him or the Playboy world,' Harris urged in her message.

'I was actually his wife, and I experienced sexual, emotional, financial and physical abuse in that relationship. Many other women have come forward with allegations of rape, coercion, drugging and exploitation as well,' she continued.

'There are also deeply troubling concerns involving minors. I hope everyone involved in this film takes the time to listen to the women who lived it before helping Hollywood turn it back into nostalgia.'

Former Playboy model and journalist Lisa Guerrero also backed Harris, writing, 'Any attempt to soften or humanize this man's image is one too many.'

Guerrero, who hosted A&E's controversial Playboy exposé Secrets of Playboy, added: 'We talked to dozens of women who spoke about their abuse at the hands of Hugh Hefner and the other people in his circle. This has been well documented, and I'm surprised anyone would accept a role in a film like this.' 

When reached for comment, Harris bluntly told the Daily Mail: 'Hugh Hefner was not an artist or anyone to be celebrated. He was a narcissistic and misogynistic pornographer who mistreated and exploited women at the highest level.'

She also recounted his alleged sexual abuse and said that her marriage to the Playboy mogul left her as an 'empty shell of a human.'

'I wasn't human to him. He didn’t "see" me. Women were objects,' she said.

Harris admitted that she has yet to see the script for the film, but she urged the filmmakers and studio behind the project to make it an 'honest' depiction of Hefner. 

'I would like to see an honest portrayal of Hugh Hefner and the control he wielded, rather than another film that glamorizes a man who spent his life carefully mythologizing himself and his image,' she said.

'With women in the leading roles, my hope is that the film ultimately delivers a message of empowerment: that women can find fulfillment, independence, and a sense of self beyond Playboy.'

The film is being helmed by actress and director Lorraine Nicholson and is inspired by her own experiences growing up in Hollywood and being at the Playboy Mansion as a child.

Deadline describes Playmates as a 'coming-of-age story following 13-year-old know-it-all Elle, who considers the Playboy Mansion her second home.

'During her time at the Mansion, Elle meets Anna (played by Depp), one of seven hopefuls vying to be Playmate of the Month. The two form an unlikely friendship and try to help each other get what the other wants most, a magazine cover and a boy.' 

Harris exchanged vows with the Playboy founder on New Year's Eve 2012, becoming his third and final wife when she was just 26 and he was 86. 

They stayed together until his death in 2017 at age 91, and two years ago she released a brutal tell-all memoir about her life in the Playboy Mansion as Hefner's wife.

Although Hefner and Harris signed a prenuptial agreement, she reportedly received a $5million lump sum upon his death, along with a four-bedroom Hollywood Hills house he had bought her in 2013 that she later sold for a further $5 million.  

Harris was a Playmate of the Month in 2009 and was featured as one of Hefner's girlfriends on his smash hit E! series The Girls Next Door.

She became engaged to Hefner for the first time in 2010, only to dump him the following year, five days before their scheduled wedding.

'Hef's lifestyle isn't the most normal lifestyle,' she explained at the time in a radio interview with Ryan Seacrest. 

'This isn't the lifestyle for me, multiple girls around all the time, the Playboy lifestyle. I don't know. I just wanted to be true to myself.' 

She and Hefner reunited shortly thereafter and finally tied the knot at the end of 2012, to a blare of headlines about how he had finally pinned down his 'runaway bride.' 

She later said that she 'regretted' ever marrying Hefner. 

'I regret being in my mid-20s and thinking that marrying one of the most famous men in the world meant I had finally made it, that I finally mattered or had value,' she shared on social media.

'I regret the years I spent making myself smaller so his world could feel bigger. I regret learning to stay quiet when I could have spoken. I regret the version of myself that I had to abandon just to survive in that environment. I regret that it took me as long as it did to understand what was actually happening - like years.'