Did he really think that when they left the emotional abuse of the Playboy Mansion they would reflect on it fondly?

Hugh Hefner shouldn’t be surprised when former girlfriends from his ever-changing harem speak out publicly about their lives in the Playboy Mansion.

Hefner, 89, chooses one type of woman to join his tribe of girlfriends: the very young and impressionable kind who can be moulded into exact blonde, pneumatic replicas of one another.

Today, Holly Madison has given more insight into her life in the Playboy Mansion – and it’s one of emotional abuse and manipulation.

The weirdly regimented, isolated and loveless life inside the Playboy Mansion caused Hefner’s former number one girlfriend Madison, now 35, to develop a stutter and contemplate suicide.

Holly Madison has basically laid bare the truth about the Playboy Mansion – and it is not hot. Image via Instagram.

She even asked Hefner for permission to go and see a psychiatrist – a request he refused, telling her to go and talk to his secretary instead.

Madison was eventually prescribed anti-depressants by a GP.

The newly published book and interviews Madison has given about it have revealed even more squirmy details about Hef’s bedside manner and how she descended into despair and hopelessness.

Hefner with a bevy of girlfriends including Madison (to Hef’s left).

It seems almost as though Hefner truly believes that living in a mansion (albeit one falling into disrepair), having access to plastic surgery and being given a $1000-a-week clothing allowance is every girl’s dream come true.

However, Hef’s view of women as one-dimensional sex-bots who need only wardrobes full of pink latex dresses and regular manicures resulted in Madison becoming deeply depressed, because she is a person, and a person cannot live on a clothing allowance alone.

To me, reading Madison’s account of Hef’s emotional manipulation, his isolation of her, the way he made her financially dependent on him, the way he controlled what she looked like and robbed her of any individuality, sounds like a classic abusive relationship.

Madison writes how she once cut her long peroxide blonde hair into a bob without asking Hefner first, and he abused her, telling her she looked “old, hard and cheap”.

One of many: Hef’s girls Kendra Wilkinson, Bridget Marquardt and Holly Madison.

What I can’t understand is how Hefner has been allowed to get away with it for so long.

His schtick as the old guy with loads of hot girlfriends is passed off as benign – just Hef doing his thing.

Here’s Madison talking about the book… Post continues after video.

However, if you replaced the well-known Playboy magnate with some other rich old man and detailed his treatment of these girls – and they are girls, not yet women – I think people would be disgusted and concerned.

Madison stayed on at the Mansion from 2001 to 2008 during which time she went from small-town Oregon girl and Hooters waitress Holly Sue Cullen to Holly Madison, Playboy Bunny and number-one girlfriend to Hef.

What’s wrong with this picture? The then twenty-something Madison with her boyfriend seventy-something Hugh Hefner.

The girls were not permitted to work outside the Mansion, they had a curfew and they had to dress and make themselves up to Hef’s specifications.

Sex, Madison says, was actually the least demanding part of living in the Mansion. It occurred twice a week – Wednesdays and Fridays – after Hef and his girls would hit da clubs in Hollywood.

The first time?

This experience still haunts her. She felt like a “slut” and “damaged goods”.

Holly Madison promoting her new book. Image via Instagram.

She writes that Hefner’s bedroom was like an episode of Hoarders and that the girls’ bedrooms were furnished with tacky, falling-apart furniture.

Some of the girls took to smoking meth in their bedrooms, taping over the vents to hide it from Hef.

When she starred in the reality show Girls Next Door with her fellow girlfriends Kendra Wilkinson and Bridget Marquardt, she began to finally feel her depression lift.

Madison, Marquardt and Wilkinson weren’t permitted to have a Playboy spread until after they starred in their own reality series because Hefner feared their careers would grow and they’d leave him.

”I won’t let myself be afraid of him. I spent too many years like that,” she writes in her memoir.

”[Hef] has no mental or emotional power over me anymore. I walked away from that seven years ago. He is completely out of my life now.”

Hefner, now 89, was 76 when he and Madison first met.

She’s said she has “nothing but contempt” for Hefner now.

Holly Madison, before and after the Mansion… Post continues after gallery.

Holly Madison Gallery

Holly with Claire SInclair

Image via instagram

Holly getting glammed up

Image via instagram

Holly's new book

Image via instagram

Morning selfie

Image via instagram

Holly models for Marilyn Monroe auction

Image via instagram

Heading to NYC

Holly and Rainbow

Image via instagram

Holly Madison modelling

Image via instagram

Holly after giving birth to Rainbow

Image via instagram

playboy

holly madison 1

Hugh Hefner Movie Screening at Playboy Mansion

LOS ANGELES - JUNE 18: Hugh Hefner poses with Kendra Wilkinson (L) Bridget Marquardt and Holly Madison (R) before a screening of Bonnie and Clyde at the Playboy Mansion June 18, 2004 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Carlo Allegri/Getty Images)

Hugh Hefner and Playmates at The Standard Hotel

WEST HOLLYWOOD, CA - DECEMBER 19: Playboy founder Hugh Hefner (C) poses with playmates at The S