Hugh Hefner’s Break-Up Meltdown: What E! Didn’t Show Us

While the Playboy Mansion has been emptying out for what feels like weeks, Hugh Hefner is only now getting around to acknowledging the recent bust-up with his beloved Holly Madison. And even considering the lithe 19-year-old twins he found to replace her, an interview yesterday reveals a guy whose “down in the dumps” demeanour reflects the corrosive, pyjama-clad equivalent of an Ingmar Bergman drama.

“If Holly says it’s over, I guess it’s over,” Hefner told the AP on Wednesday, adding that Madison is still living in the Mansion despite her recent confession that she’s ready to settle down and start a family. Hef also acknowledged telling Madison six months ago that he wanted none of that, apparently triggering an internal crisis about which even he was unaware:

“The fact that she was depressed after that, I didn’t know at all. That was a revelation in the last days and weeks. Quite frankly, we thought when the time came, we would make a combined statement and we expected that combined statement would be somewhere in the weeks and months ahead.”

Of course, anyone who’s seen The House Bunny can corroborate this and vouch for Hef’s despair; nobody leaves the Mansion without saying goodbye, lest the 82-year-old’s sad voice turn up on the other end of her phone at the most inopportune time — like, in the middle of a date with Colin Hanks or something. Awkward! Moreover, this is why some of us choose to avoid The Girls Next Door — how have we missed out on the drama of this dissolution since April? Step it up, E! Man cannot live by Kendra’s Olive Garden controversies alone.

• HEFNER ‘DOWN IN THE DUMPS’ ABOUT MADISON SPLIT [AP]