Bridget Marquardt Says the Playboy Mansion Is Haunted

In case you missed it, getting into paranormal activity is very much in for celebrities right now. Demi Lovato is friends with aliens, Kesha is having sex with ghosts and now one of Hugh Hefner’s ex-girlfriends, Girls Next Door star Bridget Marquardt, is telling Playboy Mansion ghost stories.

Any fans of the bubbly mid-aughts reality show will recall that Marquardt is a big Halloween fan, hosting a murder mystery dinner party for her birthday in multiple episodes of the series. More than a decade after moving out of the mansion, Marquardt still has taste for the spooky stuff, and this year the Ghost Magnet podcast host is getting in the Halloween spirit by sharing tales of real-life paranormal activity at the famed Playboy Mansion.

According to Marquardt, who lived at the house as one of Hefner’s multiple blonde girlfriends from 2002 to 2009, the Playboy Mansion is haunted by more than bad memories, sexism and Legionnaires disease. Appearing on a recent episode of House Beautiful’s new haunted house podcast Dark House, Marquardt recalled numerous experiences of spooky goings on during her time as a live-in girlfriend, including a sighting of a late mansion employee.

“My sister, myself and my friend Stacy were all sitting on my bed,” said the Girls Next Door star. “We were talking, having a glass of wine, and the TV was on. All of a sudden, out of the corner of all of our eyes, we saw a woman standing in my closet.” According to Marquardt, the woman looked like a former mansion secretary the star had met years before when she first came to the mansion to test for the magazine. “She was super friendly. She was kind of like the house mom. She knew about all the pets and she knew about all the girls. She was just amazing,” said Marquardt. When she returned to the mansion as a girlfriend years later, she found out the woman had since died of cancer.

“I’m pretty sure it was her who was standing there,” she said, adding that the ghostly encounter was more “shocking” than scary.

Marquardt also reported strange activity in the game room, including unexplained door slamming and generally eerie vibes. “I never felt right when I was in there,” she said, adding that housekeeping also preferred not be alone in the supposedly haunted game room and often requested a butler or security to accompany them.

The former mansion resident hasn’t returned to the famous compound in years — except for in a spooky dream she reportedly had right around the time of Hefner’s death in 2017. But if the Playboy Mansion wasn’t haunted back in Marquardt’s day, I’d be willing to guess it’s probably gained a spectral new resident since the late Playboy founder’s passing.

Regardless of whether Hugh Hefner actually haunts the brick and mortar monument to his empire, the Playboy brand is definitely still haunted by its founder’s complicated legacy — from which Playboy has been trying to distance itself since the company first when totally Hefner-less a few years back. Either way, Playboy’s definitely got ghosts.