Down the Rabbit Hole - Holly Madison

my dreams so much easier, but that wasn’t turning out to be the case.
I had managed to hold on to my day shifts at Hooters for a few months—I guess Hef didn’t feel
particularly threatened by a lowly waitressing job—and I was able to slowly start paying off the debt
I had amassed in college. It wasn’t much, but it was a start. As they do every year, Hooters chooses a
waitress from each region to be featured in the Hooters magazine and participate in their national
bikini contest. One day, the general manager called me into her office and told me that Hooters
wanted me to represent Santa Monica.
I was very flattered. There were so many beautiful girls that worked at the restaurant and they
had chosen me! My friend Roxy had been chosen the year before and had told me how much fun it
was and how many people she had met. I was still hoping to break into the entertainment world and
was eager to take any opportunity—even if it was just a pageant title.
“No,” Hef said when I told him about the offer and asked permission to leave for two days. I
expected him to maybe pout a bit, but I wasn’t really anticipating a flat-out no. Hef never seemed
bothered by my job, and since he wasn’t eager to feature me in Playboy, I couldn’t imagine why he
would care about me being in another magazine, especially since there was never anything racier than
a bikini photo in the Hooters magazine.
“You can’t do it,” he shouted, pounding his fists on his desk. His voice had become irrationally
loud.
“Why?” I asked. I had already agreed to do it and was totally perplexed by the strange tantrum
he was throwing.
“Because you working there makes me jealous,” he yelled, his hands flying in the air, doing his
best to well up some more fake tears.
In the months I worked at Hooters, Hef never once expressed feeling threatened by my being
there. But now that I was getting an offer to do something fun, something that made me feel special, he
all of a sudden had an issue with it? The timing was a little too convenient.
Hef was waiting for me to argue or to cry, but I just stood silently in front of his desk. I could see
the anxiety creep across his face; he didn’t know how to read my nonreaction, so he took it a step
further: “I don’t want you working there while you’re living in this house,” he shouted, hoping this
would evoke some response. He thrived on this kind of drama; he was half hoping for me to surrender
and half hoping for a fight.
Without saying a word and as stoically as possible, I turned around and saw myself out of his
office. Inside, I was crushed, but I was trying to keep my dignity.
The next day, with a heavy heart, I called the general manager and let her know that not only
could I not attend the pageant, I was quitting my job as well. Honestly, I can’t even remember what I
said. It was a crushing defeat—and it felt like I was saying good-bye to a part of me. In hindsight, that
incident should have been a blaring indicator of what my life was going to be like behind those gates,
but I still had high hopes.
I felt like my last shred of independence was gone. But at that point, I thought I’d seen the worst
of it. It wasn’t an ideal world, but I could make it work. I could find some happiness here while I
figured out my next move, I reasoned with myself. After all, it would only be a few months, maybe a