Former Playboy publisher Hugh Hefner installed pervasive cameras and microphones throughout the Playboy Mansion and allegedly used the recordings as leverage over visitors, former employees and residents told a new documentary and interviews.

Those claims, recounted by a whistleblower and former staffers, revived scrutiny of the late mogul as media outlets mark what would have been his 100th birthday. Hefner, who founded Playboy and died in 2017 at 91, has long been accused by some former partners and employees of cultivating a culture of secrecy and control at the mansion.

"Every single room, and they were going 24/7," Jennifer Saginor, daughter of Hefner's former doctor and author of the memoir Playground: A Childhood Lost Inside the Playboy Mansion, said in interviews cited by Radar Online.

A former valet, Stefan Tetenbaum, who worked for Hefner from the late 1970s into the early 1980s, said in the A&E docuseries Secrets of Playboy that "every place had microphones and little cameras" and that Hefner "taped everything in his bedroom."

Tetenbaum said the recordings gave Hefner leverage over high-profile guests who visited the mansion, including "stars and athletes." He added that Hefner "never participated" in sex with the women who lived at the mansion but that he "wanted his girls and the stars," suggesting the surveillance created a power dynamic that benefited the publisher.

Holly Madison, one of Hefner's most prominent ex-girlfriends and a former star of the reality series The Girls Next Door, told the documentary she feared leaving the mansion because "there was this mountain of revenge porn waiting to come out." Madison said Hefner took intimate photographs of women "when we were wasted out of our minds."

Crystal Hefner, who married Hugh Hefner in 2012 and remained his widow, said in social media posts after the documentary aired that she had destroyed thousands of disposable camera photos she said documented intimate moments at the mansion.

"I immediately ripped them up and destroyed every single one of them for you and the countless other women in them. They're gone," Crystal Hefner wrote.

The allegations are difficult to verify independently. Sources cited unnamed insiders and former staffers, and the documentary includes firsthand accounts from several people who lived and worked at the mansion.

Playboy's corporate successor, PLBY Group, sought to distance the brand from Hefner after the series premiered.

"We trust and validate women and their stories, and we strongly support the individuals who have come forward to share their experiences," the company said in a statement. "As a brand with sex positivity at its core, we believe safety, security and accountability are paramount, and anything less is inexcusable. As you know, the Hefner family is no longer associated with Playboy, and today's Playboy is not Hugh Hefner's Playboy."

The resurfacing of the recordings allegations follows years of reporting and memoirs from former Playboy Mansion residents who described a controlling environment and alleged misconduct, as per The Cut.

The documentary and the recent accounts add to an ongoing public conversation about consent, power and privacy in celebrity spaces.

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Hugh hefner, Playboy Mansion