Hugh Hefner’s widow alleges his foundation has nude photos of potentially underage women

The widow of Playboy founder Hugh Hefner has filed legal complaints to stop the spread of images in alleged private scrapbooks once owned by Hefner.

At a press conference with attorney Gloria Allred, Crystal Hefner, 39, said that the Hugh M. Hefner Foundation has over 3,000 scrapbooks containing images that were not published in Playboy. 

Ms. Hefner is the former head of the foundation, and was married to Hefner from late in 2012 until his death in September 2017.

The books “chronicled private moments that took place behind closed doors,” and span decades, Ms. Hefner said. 

She said the notebooks “may include images within of girls who were underage at the time and could not consent to how their images were being retained or controlled,” and depict nudity and sexual intercourse, along with other intimate moments.

Ms. Hefner expressed concern that the images could be digitized, saying that “artificial intelligence, deepfakes, digital scanning, online marketplaces, and data breaches mean that once images leave secure custody, the harm is irreversible. A single security failure could devastate thousands of lives.”

The complaints were filed to get the California and Illinois attorneys general to investigate the foundation and to stop the potential digitization and distribution, accidental or otherwise, of the material inside the books, according to CBS News.

Ms. Hefner also claimed that she was removed from her position at the Hugh M. Hefner Foundation over her concerns regarding the scrapbooks and their digitization, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

The Hugh M. Hefner Foundation did not respond to a request for comment.