Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Kristin Davis, and I want to know are
Speaker 1: you a Charlotte?
Speaker 2: Hi?
Speaker 1: Everybody, welcome to Are You a Charlotte? Today we have
Speaker 1: the lovely Holly Madison who is going to talk to
Speaker 1: us about the LA episode where we film at the
Speaker 1: Playboy Mansion. She has obviously a lot of insight and
Speaker 1: she's a television personality.
Speaker 3: You may know her from Girls next Door and she's.
Speaker 1: Also a New York Times bestselling author, which I love,
Speaker 1: and she has a lot of fascinating things to say.
Speaker 3: So enjoy this conversation with Holly Madison.
Speaker 1: Okay, this is very exciting. I'm so excited to talk
Speaker 1: to you. We've never talked before. I didn't get to
Speaker 1: meet you back back in the day. But also, from
Speaker 1: what I understand, when we film Sex and City at
Speaker 1: the Playboy Mansion, you had not moved in yet.
Speaker 3: Is that correct?
Speaker 2: No? And I'm so bummed I missed out on I
Speaker 2: got the opportunity to do cameo on some pretty iconic
Speaker 2: shows there, like we did Entourage and Curb Your Enthusiasm,
Speaker 2: but I wow, just missed Sex in the City, which
Speaker 2: is such a bummers. I'm such a big fan of it. Like, oh,
Speaker 2: watch that every week when I was at the mansion
Speaker 2: and we did, Yeah, we did. Half was a huge
Speaker 2: fan of it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's so strange because the whole experience for me
Speaker 1: and for us in general, was very surreal, very strange.
Speaker 1: Helf was very nice to us, like really sweet and
Speaker 1: very like almost like your uncle or something, you know,
Speaker 1: like like it was hard to believe that he was him.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, I mean that's how he comes off to
Speaker 2: most people. I mean, that's the person that I fell
Speaker 2: in love with. Obviously, my situation grew a lot more complicated,
Speaker 2: but you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's interesting because like I also feel and I
Speaker 1: personally had like such conflict, internal conflict about filming there
Speaker 1: and making it seem kind of like fun and.
Speaker 3: Light, I guess would be the word, which is not.
Speaker 1: It's not like the vibe that I personally had about Playboy.
Speaker 1: Though at that point in time, things were getting like
Speaker 1: you guys were very mainstream.
Speaker 3: You know, Oh yeah, do you feel that?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that episode came out in two thousand
Speaker 2: and he had been like you know, he got separated
Speaker 2: from his wife a few years earlier and started having
Speaker 2: the parties at the mansion again and those were you know,
Speaker 2: I always tell people like it's hard to believe, but
Speaker 2: those were like the cool parties in La that you
Speaker 2: wanted to go to that were super hard to get into.
Speaker 2: And when I got invited to my first one, I
Speaker 2: was so excited. It was just such like a bucketless thing.
Speaker 3: And how did you get invited?
Speaker 2: I was working for Hawaiian Tropic and at one of
Speaker 2: the events, half's doctor came to the event and he said,
Speaker 2: I want to invite all these girls to the party.
Speaker 2: So I was super excited.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And was this one of the like pajama parties.
Speaker 2: Yeah. The first party I went to was their biggest party.
Speaker 2: It was called Midsummer Night's Dream. They had that every
Speaker 2: August and it was kind of this like fairy them
Speaker 2: like Twinkle Lights Wonderland that they turned the backyard into
Speaker 2: and it was cool.
Speaker 1: And when we filmed there, we go to a party.
Speaker 1: It's kind of slightly confusing because we arrived in the daytime,
Speaker 1: we're kind of wearing bathing suits. I don't know what
Speaker 1: the heck we were thinking in the costume department. I
Speaker 1: think we were confused, right, But it wasn't supposed to
Speaker 1: be the Pajama party or the Midsummer Nights party.
Speaker 3: It was just some vague party. When you watched the episode.
Speaker 1: Did you think like, oh, that's accurate, l though that's
Speaker 1: totally inaccurate, or what were your thoughts.
Speaker 2: It's pretty accurate, Like I can't pinpoint, like you said,
Speaker 2: exactly what party that was supposed to be, Like, it's
Speaker 2: a little bit like the Fun in the sun Pool parties,
Speaker 2: but there were a lot more people there in your guys' scene,
Speaker 2: a lot more extras. The Fun in the sun Pool
Speaker 2: parties would have like girls come up and like enjoy
Speaker 2: the pool and everything. Half and his friends would be
Speaker 2: playing backgammon by the pool, and some of his guy
Speaker 2: friends would be out on the tennis courts. But it
Speaker 2: wouldn't be very many people at all, like less than
Speaker 2: fifty people, so they were pretty intimate. I would say
Speaker 2: the party I can compare the most to what you
Speaker 2: guys did was maybe like the Fourth of July party,
Speaker 2: because that would be like a bigger daytime party and
Speaker 2: then it would kind of move into a night time party.
Speaker 2: That's kind of I think that's the only party they
Speaker 2: threw that was like that that went from day to night.
Speaker 1: Interesting and then so in our scenes where we come in,
Speaker 1: and I think that we filmed things that didn't end
Speaker 1: up in the show. At least I remember things that
Speaker 1: I don't think are in the show. One was that
Speaker 1: we had this scene where we were walking in and
Speaker 1: there were people, you know, girls in assorted small bikinis,
Speaker 1: playing with bubbles. I don't know what the heck we
Speaker 1: were doing, but like, what, how what was regular life
Speaker 1: there like versus a party or when people would come,
Speaker 1: you know, regae.
Speaker 2: It was pretty quiet during like a week day, but
Speaker 2: at the same time, it wasn't totally private like a
Speaker 2: home either. I started giving tours at the mansion because
Speaker 2: they tours like a few times a week, like in
Speaker 2: the mornings on weekdays, and they would do it for
Speaker 2: like contest winners or like military or people like that,
Speaker 2: and so I'm going to give people a tour of
Speaker 2: the grounds or whatever. And then one wing of the
Speaker 2: house was offices, so that's where half would go to work,
Speaker 2: and there was like a whole secretary staff down there.
Speaker 2: And then aside from his parties, sometimes at night they
Speaker 2: would rent out the backyard for like corporate events and
Speaker 2: things like that, So that would kind of be like
Speaker 2: a whole separate world. So that was kind of the
Speaker 2: day to day life of the house for me and
Speaker 2: the other girls living there. We would just kind of
Speaker 2: during the day do whatever, you know, whatever shopping errands,
Speaker 2: you know, some of us were still in college or
Speaker 2: going to school and things like that. We would do that,
Speaker 2: and then we had like a face Miss nine o'clock curfew,
Speaker 2: and there would be different activities every night a week,
Speaker 2: like a couple nights a week, like Wednesday and Friday.
Speaker 2: He would take us out to nightclubs. Wednesday night, you know,
Speaker 2: Wednesday night was a club night. Thursday night we would
Speaker 2: usually like go out to a restaurant, Friday was a
Speaker 2: club night. Saturday and Sunday he would have movie nights.
Speaker 2: Of course. Sunday during the day was a pool party.
Speaker 2: Monday he would gather with like his guy friends and
Speaker 2: watch a movie. He called that manly night, So us
Speaker 2: girls didn't really have anything to do on Monday. And
Speaker 2: then two we would usually play like board games or something.
Speaker 2: So it was a whole varietow all over the place.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that is so fascinating. I need to read your book.
Speaker 1: I need to read your book and get all the
Speaker 1: details because now I'm super interested.
Speaker 3: How many girls were there when you lived there?
Speaker 2: Well, during the last four years I was there when
Speaker 2: we were doing the Girl's next Door show, it was
Speaker 2: just three of us. But when I first moved in,
Speaker 2: he was kind of in this seven girlfriends era and
Speaker 2: that was just a nightmare. When I was there for that,
Speaker 2: nobody got along and it was a constant revolving door.
Speaker 2: So it wasn't even the same set of seven girls
Speaker 2: when I first moved in, as there was like three
Speaker 2: or four years later. So it was this cast of
Speaker 2: characters that was just all really competitive, and that was
Speaker 2: my least favorite time living there, for sure. It was
Speaker 2: just a mess.
Speaker 1: Yeah, when we were there, there were there were a
Speaker 1: bunch of girls. I mean probably they brought extras and
Speaker 1: whatever in, I don't know. They were all obviously gorgeous
Speaker 1: and you know whatnot wearing small clothing, and we chatted
Speaker 1: with them, but not a lot like they kind of
Speaker 1: had they they would put them in a separate place
Speaker 1: and then we Our place that we were supposed to
Speaker 1: spend the day was the game room.
Speaker 2: Oh, it was so weird. It is it's a capsule
Speaker 2: out there. The game room was a whole separate like
Speaker 2: guest cottage on the property. And it was kind of
Speaker 2: this weird combination of like seventies arcade games and eighties
Speaker 2: arcade games, and then Have's girlfriend in the seventies Barbie
Speaker 2: Benton had like deck heated it like all old school
Speaker 2: like American antiques. So there was a weird mix of
Speaker 2: like American antiques and like seventies eighties pinball machines.
Speaker 1: Yes, and then there was this Okay, that's so crazy
Speaker 1: that it was Barbie Benton, who of course, like you know,
Speaker 1: people of my generation know. There was like a pit,
Speaker 1: like a carpeted area with like a.
Speaker 2: Seating bare room.
Speaker 3: Yeh, what the heck was that?
Speaker 2: That was like a like a sex room on the side,
Speaker 2: and it had like a cat. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, we were scared.
Speaker 2: We were scared, Okay. So I had like a car
Speaker 2: for the mattress floor with like pillows, and then there
Speaker 2: were like mirrored walls and like the corners looked like mirrors.
Speaker 2: But then if you turned on a light, it would
Speaker 2: like the mirror would like disappear and it would be
Speaker 2: like sex statues would be find We.
Speaker 3: Saw the sex statues.
Speaker 1: We did see the sex statues and we were like,
Speaker 1: why are we in here?
Speaker 3: Like because it was a long day.
Speaker 1: Right, so they were trying to find somewhere like theoretically
Speaker 1: comfortable for us. But we had a weird vibe in
Speaker 1: that room, so I think we tried to move.
Speaker 2: Yeah, a lot of people thought that house was haunted too.
Speaker 1: It definitely had a lot of like kind of dark energy.
Speaker 1: I would say, yeah, I mean it's kind of a
Speaker 1: dark house as well. It looks like an old dark house.
Speaker 3: But then so.
Speaker 1: Okay, oh good, it's giving you stress just think about it.
Speaker 1: But when we went okay, so let's think about the
Speaker 1: party itself on film. And I don't know whose idea
Speaker 1: it was or I feel like the guys in our
Speaker 1: world were really into showing all this, right like you know,
Speaker 1: in a way you know that they would be.
Speaker 3: And there's so the grotto is you know, part of
Speaker 3: part of it.
Speaker 1: And as the night goes on, you like, none of
Speaker 1: the girls have tops on and whatever is this what
Speaker 1: would happen sometimes?
Speaker 2: Yeah, sometimes people would get a little crazier at night.
Speaker 2: But you know what was crazy about the parties is
Speaker 2: I always say that at the parties I never saw
Speaker 2: any thing too wild. I would hear about it, but
Speaker 2: like as a girlfriend, I would always kind of have
Speaker 2: to be seated at the table with half which would
Speaker 2: be over by the dance floor, and believe it or not,
Speaker 2: people would be more on their best behavior in front
Speaker 2: of him, because everybody wanted to stay on the list,
Speaker 2: they wanted to get invited back. So it would be
Speaker 2: more like I would hear from other playmates that like,
Speaker 2: oh my god, I saw this in the grotto at
Speaker 2: two am, but that was all the stuff we would
Speaker 2: see really got it.
Speaker 1: So what would good behavior be for hef like meaning
Speaker 1: guys wouldn't be too aggressive with you.
Speaker 3: Guys not you, but the other non girlfriends.
Speaker 1: Is that?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 3: What was the like my thing.
Speaker 1: That I felt upset about because they wanted us to
Speaker 1: all go to a pajama party in some kind of
Speaker 1: agreement about us filming there, and I was like, I
Speaker 1: am not going to that pajama party. I don't understand this,
Speaker 1: Like that seems a weird situation to put myself in.
Speaker 1: I felt worried, and also you had to wear some
Speaker 1: skimpy what I was just like, I can't even get
Speaker 1: my mind around this, And I don't know if that
Speaker 1: was really silly of me or not, you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying, Like, what was the vibe in terms of
Speaker 1: the guy woman situation at the parties?
Speaker 2: I think for most guests. I mean, obviously I've heard
Speaker 2: stories that aren't this too, but I think for most
Speaker 2: guests it was okay. I think if you were really
Speaker 2: having a problem with somebody, they could tell you could
Speaker 2: tell security and they would have them removed. I mean,
Speaker 2: I have to imagine having them removed would be easier
Speaker 2: for somebody who's more of an anonymous guy and maybe
Speaker 2: not like a big celebrity. But I think it was
Speaker 2: a pretty safe place for most party goers, again with
Speaker 2: the allowance that I've also heard that that hasn't been
Speaker 2: the case with some people, But I think for the
Speaker 2: most part, most people had a good experience at the
Speaker 2: parties got.
Speaker 1: It so people did have a feeling of like I
Speaker 1: want to be here, I want to get invited back.
Speaker 3: I'm I'm it's super fun.
Speaker 1: I'm sure there were drugs, but I'm still going to
Speaker 1: behave like as much as you know, like I'm not
Speaker 1: going to freak out. Well that's good to know, because
Speaker 1: I didn't know what to think. I just remember all
Speaker 1: all the guys I knew wanted to go, you know,
Speaker 1: and where it was seemed like, you know, for them,
Speaker 1: like for the men.
Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: That's why I didn't really feel like, yes, I would
Speaker 1: like to put myself in that in that situation.
Speaker 2: Like at the time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but it was also very interesting to be there
Speaker 1: in terms of I felt at the time, you know,
Speaker 1: it was very much held up as being empowering for
Speaker 1: women in some way, but I feel like we don't
Speaker 1: think of it that way now, that way, correct, Yeah, I.
Speaker 2: Mean I think that was what I bought into as
Speaker 2: well when I went there, is like, you know, I
Speaker 2: want to have this experience, as you know, being in
Speaker 2: the magazine and being seen as sexy and whatever. And
Speaker 2: I was just in like the deepest, deepest like inner
Speaker 2: ring where it really wasn't liberating anymore. But I think
Speaker 2: that was generally, you know, Playboy was accepted as like
Speaker 2: this acceptable retro brand that like you're grew up with
Speaker 2: and everything. You know, it seemed pretty tame at the.
Speaker 1: Time, right, right, It's interesting, it's interesting, but honestly, and
Speaker 1: this might be just like really too farward.
Speaker 3: I'm going to say we can cut it out.
Speaker 1: But like I thought, my innocent little self, you know,
Speaker 1: when you guys did did because at the time that
Speaker 1: we filmed, you weren't there yet, it wasn't the girl's
Speaker 1: next door yet. And then when the girls nextraor happened,
Speaker 1: I thought it was all fake. Like I just assumed
Speaker 1: you guys were not having to have sex with Half.
Speaker 2: Like a lot of people thought that. Yeah, my first
Speaker 2: you know, moved into the group and like agreed to
Speaker 2: like go out with Half and everything. I still wasn't
Speaker 2: clear on what was going on. Like I'm like, Okay,
Speaker 2: there has to be something going on, so I'm going
Speaker 2: to go kind of check it out, see what it is.
Speaker 2: But I didn't know how much would be going on.
Speaker 2: Or it was very ambiguous because you know, he'd be
Speaker 2: out there talking about how he takes viaggor all the
Speaker 2: time and these are all my girlfriends and things like that.
Speaker 2: But like people didn't really believe it. They thought this
Speaker 2: has to be a publicity stunt there.
Speaker 3: I did not. Yeah, I did not believe it.
Speaker 1: So no one explained it to you, Like no one
Speaker 1: said this is what it is.
Speaker 2: No, not at all.
Speaker 3: Huh wow. Yeah, so you just got sucked in, but
Speaker 3: little by little.
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally. I think when I talked about my situation
Speaker 2: and people were like, well, you knew what you were
Speaker 2: getting into. They're picturing that scene in Fifty Shades of
Speaker 2: Gray where she sits down at the table and she's
Speaker 2: given like this big contract about the consent and what's
Speaker 2: going to happen, and there's nothing like that up there.
Speaker 2: It is kind of something you can get into like
Speaker 2: little by little and kind of like lose yourself. It's
Speaker 2: very unstructured in that way.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 1: Wow, I'm sorry that that happened to you and all
Speaker 1: the other people.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it was really held up as like, you know,
Speaker 1: empowering for you guys and supporting you guys in your dreams.
Speaker 3: And you know, he seemed so kind of just like
Speaker 3: fuddy duddy ish, you know.
Speaker 1: I mean, he was wearing the weird clothes, but like
Speaker 1: I remember when he was filming, he was very nice,
Speaker 1: as I said, like in a kind of an Uncle
Speaker 1: Lee kind of a way.
Speaker 3: And then he got up.
Speaker 1: And you were just like he's so little and old.
Speaker 1: Yeah you know, but yeah, this other stuff was still
Speaker 1: going on, which just really blows my mind.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was crazy for sure. And I have to
Speaker 2: say the scene you guys did there, the casting was
Speaker 2: so spot on because they have so many female extras
Speaker 2: and I recognize some of them. Some of them were playmates,
Speaker 2: some of them weren't. But and then they have a
Speaker 2: few men sprinkled in there, and the men are all
Speaker 2: super old. And the actor they have you talking to
Speaker 2: when you're laying down on the pillows talking to that actor,
Speaker 2: he looks like he so fits the part, like everything
Speaker 2: about his face and his teeth, like he looks like
Speaker 2: he would be one to have spuddies.
Speaker 3: Like I agree. How did they know? I don't know.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I think they did a great job too, and I
Speaker 1: had forgotten a lot of it. There's certain things I
Speaker 1: remember really well, like I remember the room that they
Speaker 1: put us in with the games and the six statues,
Speaker 1: and I remember they kept trying to tell us that
Speaker 1: we wanted to go to the zoo, but I was
Speaker 1: so freaked out that he had wild animals there.
Speaker 3: There's like, no, thank you, I don't want to go
Speaker 3: to the zoo, like it's weird.
Speaker 1: Like but everyone was very nice to us, obviously, But
Speaker 1: when we went to do the scene, I do remember
Speaker 1: being just so generally ACKed out, And I felt like
Speaker 1: that guy that I'm talking to wasn't even an actor.
Speaker 1: He just seemed fully I mean, I'm sure he was,
Speaker 1: but like I felt like he was a guy that
Speaker 1: you would meet at a Hollywood party.
Speaker 2: Oh he embodied it like that guy was so good.
Speaker 3: He really did too good, too good.
Speaker 1: And I also didn't really remember what happened, which I
Speaker 1: often feel when I'm rewatching now because it's a while ago, obviously,
Speaker 1: and I remember the experience of filming more than the scenes,
Speaker 1: and I thought, oh, no, what is youre the do?
Speaker 3: Hang down? Talk to that guy? Who?
Speaker 1: But that's good to know that you think we did
Speaker 1: a good job of casting it.
Speaker 3: That's good.
Speaker 1: Did you feel because okay, so you watched this particular
Speaker 1: episode that aired in two thousand and before you lived there,
Speaker 1: and then once you lived there, did you did you
Speaker 1: feel like, oh, yeah, Sexy City was pretty accurate or
Speaker 1: did you feel like no?
Speaker 2: I think I thought it was accurate for sure, because
Speaker 2: it's just showing a party, and it looked exactly like
Speaker 2: what a party would look like. Of course, it doesn't
Speaker 2: capture everything about day to day life there, but it
Speaker 2: wasn't supposed to do. It was just right characters going
Speaker 2: to a party, So I thought it was super accurate.
Speaker 3: Oh that's good.
Speaker 1: Isn't it weird to think that three HBO's shows filmed there,
Speaker 1: like entrage, courber, enthusiasm.
Speaker 3: I do not remember this and us that is bizarre.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's like everybody it was crazy.
Speaker 1: Do you feel like, and I don't know, this is
Speaker 1: probably you know, I don't know if I should even
Speaker 1: say this, but like, did we help to forward a
Speaker 1: kind of untrue narrative? You know that it was glamorous
Speaker 1: and fun when it was really more than that.
Speaker 2: I wouldn't say an untrue narrative, because there was that
Speaker 2: side of it that was like that for sure, and
Speaker 2: I think that's the experience a lot of people had
Speaker 2: who didn't get deeper into it. But I mean, it
Speaker 2: doesn't cover the whole thing. But I don't think it's
Speaker 2: right supposed to.
Speaker 3: No, No, I mean, it wasn't supposed to.
Speaker 1: But I do feel just some mixed feelings about the
Speaker 1: fact that, you know, our show, which is absolutely supposed
Speaker 1: to be about empowering women, and that was something that
Speaker 1: we felt really strongly about and really empowering and making
Speaker 1: space for all different kinds of sexuality, but freedom within
Speaker 1: that and you know, consent and all of those things.
Speaker 1: And I remember at the time feeling uncomfortable about it,
Speaker 1: but that has a lot to do with how I
Speaker 1: grew up in my mom's opinions of it all, you know,
Speaker 1: very feminist and not into that. And then I remember
Speaker 1: later on feeling like, oh, maybe I was wrong, you know,
Speaker 1: like because when you guys did the show, it did
Speaker 1: seem like you were somehow being supported or forwarding your
Speaker 1: dreams or you know, it didn't seem negative, right, And
Speaker 1: I thought, oh, well, I'm glad for them, you know,
Speaker 1: That's how I felt at the time, of course, not
Speaker 1: knowing still the whole story, which you guys hadn't had
Speaker 1: the opportunity to tell. So I'm glad number one that
Speaker 1: you have had the opportunity to tell the whole story,
Speaker 1: because I do feel like sometimes there's things in our business,
Speaker 1: maybe less so now, but in our world, the entertainment
Speaker 1: world in general, where it seems like, oh, this could
Speaker 1: be a good opportunity for you, and yes, it involves
Speaker 1: your sexuality, but that doesn't mean that it's inherently bad. Right,
Speaker 1: but yet it's a slippery slope.
Speaker 2: One hundred percent. That's why I talked about it as
Speaker 2: much as I do. As I've heard, you know, Playboy
Speaker 2: doesn't exist in the same way as it did back then.
Speaker 2: But I've heard, you know, people tell me that they
Speaker 2: grew up watching Girls next Door and thought it was
Speaker 2: so fun, so they thought the next best thing to
Speaker 2: get into would be poorn and now they regret it.
Speaker 2: So it's crazy that kind of effect those things can have.
Speaker 2: So that's why I yeah about it and love talking about,
Speaker 2: you know, what my motivations were and what I thought
Speaker 2: I was getting into and what it was really like,
Speaker 2: just so people kind of know what those situations are.
Speaker 3: I think that's great.
Speaker 1: I think it's so important and I'm so glad that
Speaker 1: you're okay, you're at a place in your life where
Speaker 1: you can do that and you can share that, and
Speaker 1: you're you've done the work on yourself to be able
Speaker 1: to share that without it being you know, re traumatizing yourself.
Speaker 2: Thank you welcome.
Speaker 1: It's so important, and I mean that's also one of
Speaker 1: the things that I think about when I look at
Speaker 1: the episodes. You know, did we unwittingly take part in
Speaker 1: also glamorizing something that maybe wasn't great for women.
Speaker 3: I don't know, you know, I don't know. It really
Speaker 3: was part of our culture though at that point in time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so in that way, I feel like, well it
Speaker 1: kind of makes sense, right, And of course we couldn't
Speaker 1: know everything that was going on behind the scenes because
Speaker 1: no one was talking at that point.
Speaker 2: Yeah, one hundred percent. Yeah, just interesting, so harmless back then, right.
Speaker 1: Except when you were there, it didn't feel harmless.
Speaker 3: I didn't feel the vibe.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean they put us in the
Speaker 1: sex room, so yeah, we got the vibe.
Speaker 3: And I feel like the people that they hired, And.
Speaker 1: It's interesting for you to say that you recognize some
Speaker 1: of them. I do feel like some of them. I
Speaker 1: feel like we're living there, you know, And we were
Speaker 1: so fascinated, but we also didn't know.
Speaker 3: We didn't want to overstep our.
Speaker 1: Bounds in terms of like talking to people, are asking
Speaker 1: them questions like what is your life?
Speaker 3: Like? You know what I mean. But we were there
Speaker 3: for a few days.
Speaker 1: It seemed like it was a while, you know, that
Speaker 1: we filmed, and it didn't seem like they were just
Speaker 1: heavy go Lucky who we're living the life we want.
Speaker 3: It seemed like there was more stress, you know than that.
Speaker 2: I feel like I can almost see it on the girls,
Speaker 2: the twins he's dating, you know, the twins. Yeah, they
Speaker 2: didn't seem in the light mood, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: I do know what you mean. And that's what we felt.
Speaker 1: That's what we felt when we were there. But yet
Speaker 1: we were supposed to be showing this glamorous there was
Speaker 1: really no way to, you know, do a better job
Speaker 1: of telling the story. And also no one was really
Speaker 1: volunteering any information to us either, not that that was
Speaker 1: even our job. But like for me, you know, when
Speaker 1: I go into a place, I'm always interested in, you know,
Speaker 1: how do people actually seem like?
Speaker 3: Do they seem happy?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 1: And at the time, it was such a like you said,
Speaker 1: I mean those parties, you would hear everybody went to
Speaker 1: those parties. You know, they were very much mainstream Hollywood.
Speaker 3: You wanted to go.
Speaker 1: I mean not myself because I was scared, as I said,
Speaker 1: but men in general wanted to go.
Speaker 3: And I feel like women wanted to go.
Speaker 1: I mean, I definitely know people who went and I don't,
Speaker 1: but they were actresses and I don't think anything negative happened,
Speaker 1: you know, because I mean, you could go to any
Speaker 1: party in LA and people are going to hit on you.
Speaker 1: It's not shocking obviously, and yeah, nothing worse than that,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean?
Speaker 3: But how how just curiosity sake? How long did you
Speaker 3: live there?
Speaker 2: I lived there seven years? Wow, all of my twenties.
Speaker 3: Yeah, wow, wow, wow.
Speaker 1: Well, it's really great that you got out and that
Speaker 1: you're writing about it. Is there anything else that you
Speaker 1: wanted to talk about from the show or from the
Speaker 1: episode that I didn't touch on?
Speaker 3: I'm just so curious your own perspective.
Speaker 2: Yeah. One thing I'm curious, do you remember what the
Speaker 2: lead time on your show was, Like, how far an
Speaker 2: advance you filmed versus at that point?
Speaker 3: Not far.
Speaker 1: It would have been just been a couple months, yeah,
Speaker 1: because we would go back to work in February. We've
Speaker 1: been pretending it was spring because we always came on
Speaker 1: in June, and so by this point I have the
Speaker 1: date here somewhere we would have been filming, and it
Speaker 1: would have been like maybe two three months before it
Speaker 1: was on, so pretty quick, pretty quick. We would have
Speaker 1: been there in the summer of two thousand. It would
Speaker 1: have been on, and it was on in September, so
Speaker 1: we would have been there in the middle of Yeah.
Speaker 1: And I do think that the Midsummer Night party was
Speaker 1: the week that we were filming, because we were all
Speaker 1: supposed to go, but I.
Speaker 3: Was like, well, no one asked me, I'm not going
Speaker 3: to go.
Speaker 1: No one got my okay, you know, and I was
Speaker 1: in some trouble because we had been apparently committed, you know,
Speaker 1: to do it. Any of the I think they all went, oh,
Speaker 1: we would have to ask them. I think they all
Speaker 1: went to kind of like make an appearance and go
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. I don't think they hung necessarily,
Speaker 1: but I think that they were good employees as opposed
Speaker 1: to myself, where I was like, my mother is going
Speaker 1: to be really mad at me, you know, very Charlotte
Speaker 1: type of a situation. But you know, I grew up
Speaker 1: with they It was just not thought of as empowering
Speaker 1: right to be, to be, you know, outwardly sexual or whatever.
Speaker 1: But then I find myself on the show called Sex
Speaker 1: and the City, so you know, it's all really interesting.
Speaker 1: But I do feel like, you know, it's an interesting
Speaker 1: thing to think about too, because obviously your personal experience
Speaker 1: and what you're going through is not good. And the
Speaker 1: fact that no one was upfront with you about it
Speaker 1: is even worse. Right, So, like you're little by little,
Speaker 1: you know, pulled in. That's the worst situation, I think,
Speaker 1: and happens so frequently unfortunately. But I do feel, and
Speaker 1: it's an interesting thing, you know. The openness about sexuality.
Speaker 1: I do feel is generally important for women.
Speaker 2: Oh I think so too, Yeah, And it's.
Speaker 1: So hard to know when it crosses the line into
Speaker 1: not being empowering. It's a very interesting thing.
Speaker 3: I think. No, I think too, right, because we can't
Speaker 3: just hide ourselves.
Speaker 1: There's no why should we have to hide ourselves like
Speaker 1: we're sexual beings, just like menosexual beings like that. It's
Speaker 1: it's unfair and you know, inequitable to think that we can't, right,
Speaker 1: But then there's so much danger in the world, you know,
Speaker 1: in many ways, right, so you want to be careful.
Speaker 1: It's an interesting thing to me. And I have a
Speaker 1: fourteen year old daughter, so I think about these things,
Speaker 1: you know what I.
Speaker 2: Mean, I think so too. My daughter's twelve, and oh wow, yeah,
Speaker 2: I think I think more discussion is better, honestly, because
Speaker 2: when I was young. Kind of the trend was like,
Speaker 2: or the way it was portrayed in pop culture was
Speaker 2: like women should just be able to have sex like
Speaker 2: a man and not care, and you know, that's empowerment.
Speaker 2: And I feel like nobody talks about like the emotional
Speaker 2: impact of sex.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I agree for.
Speaker 2: Some reason, and I think you know, and of course,
Speaker 2: like females, we operate a little bit differently. Obviously there's outliers,
Speaker 2: but I think for most females there's a huge emotional
Speaker 2: impact that comes with sex, and just people don't want
Speaker 2: to talk about that for some reason. They just act
Speaker 2: like everything should just be casual. They act like you
Speaker 2: should either be totally casual about it or you need
Speaker 2: to like have like religious principles that keep you in line,
Speaker 2: and nobody kind of talks about the in between, like well,
Speaker 2: why is it not so great? And how do you
Speaker 2: really feel.
Speaker 3: That's so true? So true? Allie?
Speaker 1: I mean, I think it's super interesting, certainly when we're
Speaker 1: thinking about our daughters too, because we have come so
Speaker 1: far in so many ways, and then in some ways
Speaker 1: we still don't have total freedom to talk about anything
Speaker 1: freely that impacts us, right, Like why why is it
Speaker 1: not okay to talk about the fact that women are
Speaker 1: going to potentially be navigating sex differently than men.
Speaker 3: That makes sense, right, And.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's maybe it's not true, right, Like maybe there's
Speaker 1: a Samantha out there and she wants to have sex
Speaker 1: like a man, and more power to her, right, But
Speaker 1: what about all of the kind of realities of it,
Speaker 1: you know, like the realities and what do we say
Speaker 1: to our daughters?
Speaker 3: And you know, I think it's important to think about that.
Speaker 1: My daughter, they still have sex ed classes that are
Speaker 1: about like consent and you know, really important and interesting
Speaker 1: things that I certainly never we didn't get anything like that.
Speaker 1: We were like, you're going to get your period, Like
Speaker 1: that was really it, you know.
Speaker 3: But and I think it's so great. My daughter hates
Speaker 3: these classes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, she's like, oh.
Speaker 3: No, And I'm like, just just do it, just do it.
Speaker 3: It's going to be useful information.
Speaker 1: But it's so so hard to navigate one hundred percent.
Speaker 2: It's really tricky. So I think the more discussion and
Speaker 2: the better.
Speaker 3: Honestly, I think you're right.
Speaker 1: I think you're right because really, really, you know, covering
Speaker 1: things and having secrecy just leads to bad, badness because
Speaker 1: then people feel like they can't talk and they can't
Speaker 1: say something that's true for them, or they can't report
Speaker 1: something bad that happened to them, or they can't stand
Speaker 1: up to people.
Speaker 3: That's the worst. That's what we need to get rid of.
Speaker 2: Absolutely.
Speaker 1: Yes, when you look back and you see like if
Speaker 1: you were ever to just be flipping in or not
Speaker 1: that people flip, if you were ever to be streaming
Speaker 1: the episode of Sex and the City at the Mansion
Speaker 1: was there, would you think like, oh and watch it?
Speaker 3: Where you'd be like, oh, no, I don't want to
Speaker 3: watch it.
Speaker 2: I mean for me personally, like I've already seen it
Speaker 2: and I like it, and I think it's fun and
Speaker 2: I think it's like a fun glimpse into that era.
Speaker 2: The things I get triggered by more personally, I mean,
Speaker 2: it's always surprising, Like I do a rewatch podcast with
Speaker 2: one of my co stars from Girls next Door and
Speaker 2: the show will hit a certain way. But then we
Speaker 2: did an episode where we talked about the movie The
Speaker 2: House Funny with Anna Faris that yeah, with the Mansion
Speaker 2: and we had parts then and it was weird because
Speaker 2: this was a very lighthearted comedy. But I told Bridget
Speaker 2: I'm like watching it on that movie like hit differently
Speaker 2: for some reason, like I never really know how it's
Speaker 2: gonna hit. But I think it's in the City episode
Speaker 2: because I wasn't in it, and because it more captures
Speaker 2: the time period when I was just aware of Playboy
Speaker 2: as kind of an outsider, Like I think I hadn't
Speaker 2: even gone to. I think that party that the rest
Speaker 2: of your cast went to was the first party I
Speaker 2: went to.
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, wow.
Speaker 2: So it more kind of captures the era where I
Speaker 2: still like only knew Playboy from the outside and was
Speaker 2: kind of fascinated by Like I remember thinking the twins
Speaker 2: he was dating were so gorgeous. I remember seeing them
Speaker 2: at that party. So for me, it's more one of
Speaker 2: the ones I like. And you know what else I
Speaker 2: love random is in the scene you're wearing this bikini
Speaker 2: top that's like cherry print a blast from the past,
Speaker 2: because I remember so specifically like that summer, like the
Speaker 2: cherry print being everywhere, Like I think Coach did a
Speaker 2: bunch of cherry print bags, and like I was like
Speaker 2: in downtown because I was like a broke college student,
Speaker 2: so I was like in downtown looking for all the
Speaker 2: fake Coach cherry stuff.
Speaker 3: I love it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was Shoshana. Do you ever remember Sea? That
Speaker 1: was Shoshana? Because Shoshana was cut for people with hips,
Speaker 1: which would be me, And there was always some stress
Speaker 1: where we would have like beach or bathing suit or whatever,
Speaker 1: because I, you know, I didn't know what the heck
Speaker 1: to wear, and Pat Field, our costume setter, was always
Speaker 1: unsure about me.
Speaker 3: And then that's my own so wrong, I just died
Speaker 3: on Yeah, thank you so much.
Speaker 1: But I also think that we were fundamentally confused in
Speaker 1: that costume because we come in the daytime but then
Speaker 1: it's nighttime, and.
Speaker 3: Were we supposed to get in the ground?
Speaker 1: I don't even know. Like to me, I watched that
Speaker 1: episode and I think, like, what were we doing? Like
Speaker 1: what were we actually doing? I don't know, But it works.
Speaker 1: I mean I love that picture of us with the
Speaker 1: four of us walking walking in And also because we
Speaker 1: are from New York, we also don't really know, you
Speaker 1: know what, Like the characters aren't supposed to know.
Speaker 2: They are so shadow water.
Speaker 3: So yeah, oh, I'm glad.
Speaker 1: I'm glad that you have a positive association when you
Speaker 1: watch it.
Speaker 3: That's good.
Speaker 1: That makes me happy, That makes me happy. Well, you
Speaker 1: are such joy. Thank you so so much. I have
Speaker 1: a pressing question for you. Yes, are you a Charlotte?
Speaker 2: You know what? Back in the day when Sex and
Speaker 2: the City was on and I watched it regularly, I
Speaker 2: was for sure a Charlotte. I identify as being a
Speaker 2: hopeless romantic and all that, but as time goes on,
Speaker 2: I think I'm more of a Carrie. I've written a
Speaker 2: couple of memoirs, so I identify as a writer. And
Speaker 2: also like all the kind of like anxious attachment style
Speaker 2: cringe stuff that Carrie does has totally been me. Like
Speaker 2: have you seen those edits where they do the three
Speaker 2: times she shows up in big storeway?
Speaker 3: I love them so much.
Speaker 2: I'm a crop and the guy doesn't give up that
Speaker 2: that's been me so many Oh no, I think I'm
Speaker 2: really Carrey.
Speaker 3: Wow, I love it. I love it.
Speaker 1: I'm also kind of a Carrie. I'm like half Carrie
Speaker 1: half Charlotte. And I do love those edits because there's
Speaker 1: just a way where you can see things from a
Speaker 1: different perspective where you're like, that is so embarrassing.
Speaker 3: Do you know what I have to say?
Speaker 1: We've all been there, We've all been there and then
Speaker 1: the funny thing is like, at the time that we
Speaker 1: were making the show, it never entered my mind that
Speaker 1: she should stop trying. Like I was like, of course, yeah,
Speaker 1: go in your McDonald's, you.
Speaker 3: Know, the big mag you know whatever.
Speaker 1: I mean. It's also interesting and I like the show
Speaker 1: in that way and that at different times in your
Speaker 1: life you will look at it with different perspectives.
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure, I like.
Speaker 1: That part the best, I think, because we all relate
Speaker 1: in different ways.
Speaker 2: Totally.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Okay, you're wonderful, Thank you, Thank you so much.