When it came to protecting the privacy of his sexual partners, Hugh Hefner didn't take any chances.
According to The Sun, the late Playboy founder had amassed an extensive collection of personal sex tapes throughout his careers—tapes that were so scandalous he feared any potential leaks would damage reputations. So what did Hefner do? Sources say he instructed his team to take a cement-lined casket, fill it up with the explicit videos, and then toss it into the sea.
"Hugh was terrified of the world finding out everything about his past," an insider told The Sun. "He had kept a treasure chest of memories of his life with all these beautiful women dating back from the 1950s to the mid-1990s [...] Some famous male movie stars, too, were in those videos and, had that come out, it would have been a huge scandal. Hef also had thousands of photographs taken at photo shoots or given to him by the girls over the years."
The source claimed some of the videos and photographs featured women who had appeared in Playboy, including the publication's first cover star Marilyn Monroe.
"Some of the women were in relationships and others never even made the magazine, but simply were partying with him," the insider added. "He had hundreds of other photographs of women who were not famous, but he had enjoyed one nights stands with or even short relationships. There were also audio tapes too."
Hefner reportedly decided to get rid of the collection after Pamela Anderson and Brett Michaels' sex tape was released. He became increasingly paranoid that the material would be stolen and sold around the world; so, in the late 1990s he decided to take drastic measures to ensure the videos and pictures never saw the light of day.
"Hugh explained that he didn’t want anyone’s lives, marriages or careers to be destroyed by what he had in his library," the source said. "[...] He even worried that if anything happened to him it could get in the wrongs hands and hurt those who were still alive."
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