Updated October 9, 2026, 8:58 a.m. ET
Hugh Hefner’s widow, Crystal Harris, has expressed concerns about Jessica Biel’s role as the Playboy founder’s wife in the upcoming film titled “Playmates.”
In an Instagram direct message to the “Better Sister” actress, Harris pleaded for Biel not to continue with the performance, writing, “Please reconsider playing Hugh Hefner’s ‘wife’ if this movie intends to romanticize him or the Playboy world.”
Harris, who was married to Hefner for nearly five years until his death in 2017, detailed the “sexual, emotional, financial and physical abuse” she suffered from Hefner in her message to Biel.
“I was actually his wife,” she wrote in the direct message, which Harris shared in a public Instagram post on Thursday, October 8. “Many other women have also come forward with allegations of rape, coercion, drugging and exploitation. 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 through it before helping Hollywood turn it into nostalgia.”
USA TODAY has contacted Biel representatives for comment.
Variety and Deadline announced Biel’s casting in the upcoming Searchlight Pictures film on October 6. Bill Pullman plays the magazine’s editor, and the film will also star Lily-Rose Depp and young actress Indiana Elle, according to media reports.
Hefner, a magazine mogul and businessman, built his brand on feminization with the launch of Playboy in the early 1950s. He married Crystal, his third wife, in 2012. Considered by some a pioneer of sexual politics, his contributions were derided by others as misogynistic and promoting a culture of abuse.
Crystal Harris warns against newspapers containing nude photos of women
In February, Harris, formerly known as Crystal Hefner, raised the alarm that thousands of her late husband’s personal albums were becoming public.
Harris has filed regulatory complaints with the California and Illinois attorneys general regarding a foundation in her late husband’s name that allegedly owns albums containing intimate images of several women, including herself, according to a statement from her attorney, Gloria Allred, shared with USA TODAY on Feb. 17.
In the statement, Allred condemned the potential release of “approximately 3,000 personal albums containing thousands of nude images of women, as well as Hefner’s diary containing highly personal information regarding his sexual exploits, including the names of the women he slept with, notes describing the sexual acts they performed, and in some cases even information about the women’s menstrual cycles.”
“It is our honor to represent Crystal Hefner, who is not only the widow of Hugh Hefner, but also a brilliant and passionate advocate for women’s rights,” Allred wrote in a statement. “Crystal did not consent to her intimate images being stored and accessed by the Foundation, and we believe that many other women and/or girls depicted did not consent either.”
Allred says the Foundation removed Harris as executive director after she expressed concerns about the journals’ publication. The former Playboy playmate also warned that the photographs could be of minors or may have been taken while adult women were drunk and unable to give consent.
Contributor: Anna Kaufman, USA TODAY
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