Come on back to the early 2000s! It’s been nearly 10 years since The Girls Next Door aired on E! — making it the perfect time to revisit the fun-filled show.
The Girls Next Door ran for six seasons from 2005 to 2009. Created by Kevin Burns, the reality series gave an inside look at the lives of Hugh Hefner’s three main girlfriends Holly Madison, Bridget Marquardt and Kendra Wilkinson. Fans got to see the bunch as they traveled, partied and lived in the Playboy mansion.
In the show’s final season, the spotlight was shifted toward Hefner’s three new girlfriends: Crystal Harris and twins Kristina Shannon and Karissa Shannon.
Though the series showcased the Hef’s then-girlfriends fun-filled adventures, Madison has often alleged that being a part of that world wasn’t all it’s cracked up to be. In her 2015 Down the Rabbit Hole memoir, she opened up about how the severity of her depression led her to contemplate suicide three years before the series aired. However, she told BuzzFeed News while promoting the book that her experience living in the mansion got better with the E! show’s arrival.
“I was sad at times after Girls Next Door, too, but I felt like the TV show improved our experience a lot,” she previously explained to the news outlet.
The OG stars also had a falling out in the years since the show ended, but it was Madison, and Wilkinson, in particular, who publicly feuded. Speaking out on the trio’s post-show dynamic, Marquardt said that they will always be connected regardless of where they stand with one another.
“I feel like we have a bond, the three of us,” she said on Hollywood Today Live in 2016. “It’s kind of, like, it’s not like a sisterhood, it’s not like friends. I mean, it is friends, but it’s something totally different than any other relationship you could possibly imagine.”
In April 2021, the feud resurfaced when Madison mentioned their joint time in the mansion during an episode of the “Call Her Daddy” podcast.
The Holly’s World alum claimed that Wilkinson wasn’t being honest when she stated that she moved in with the late Hefner before having sex with him — something Wilkinson said during her time on I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here! in 2014. “I’m not trying to slut-shame anybody or anything, but nobody ever got asked to move in unless they had slept with him,” Madison said.
Wilkinson laughed off the comments on social media, explaining that “times have changed” and she had other priorities now.
Crystal sided with Wilkinson at the time, noting that the drama was aged and worth moving on from. “I was at the mansion for a DECADE almost four years ago now and these ladies and their drama were there years before that. I side with Kendra here,” she wrote in a post on the MeWe app.
Hugh’s widow told Us Weekly exclusively that she was interested in a possible reconciliation between the four of them.
“Let’s talk about it, let’s stop hating each other and, like, all sit down and just hash it out. That would be interesting,” Crystal told Us. “Because I have a feeling we will have so much in common and we would all be friends, but because we all hate each other for apparently no reason. I mean, how many people on the planet share this common experience? Not many. So, my hope is for us all to have a red table talk and just see how it goes.”
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For fans who still miss the popular series, Wilkinson previously hinted that a Girls Next Door reboot could potentially happen. During a March 2016 teaser trailer for Kendra on Top, Wilkinson said that “somebody did reach out about a possible Girls Next Door reunion” and added: “Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.”
The reunion never happened, and Madison and Marquardt don’t seem eager to relive those days. The duo revealed in August 2022 that it was difficult for them to rewatch the E! series. “Holly warned me that the first three episodes were really hard to watch. And when she said that, I thought she just meant, like, kind of just getting used to watching them again and once you get past three episodes, you’re good,” Marquardt said during an August 2022 appearance on Heather McDonald‘s “Juicy Scoop” podcast. “I just watched them not last night, but the night before. And I’m still traumatized. I’m sick to my stomach. I can’t sleep, I’ve been crying.”
Scroll through the photos below to see what the cast has been up to since the E! series concluded.
