Crystal Harris married Hugh Hefner at 26. Years later, she revealed why she regretted marrying the Playboy founder

Hugh Hefner's widow, Crystal Harris is once again in the news. Following news about Jessica Biel playing a fictional version of her in the upcoming film titled "Playmates", Harris issued a video message pleading the actress not to go with the role. Harris tied the knot with Hefner in 2012 when she was 26 and remained married until Hefner died in 2017 at age 91. Later, she married James Ward.

"Please reconsider playing Hugh Hefner's 'wife' if this film intends to romanticize him or the Playboy world," Harris said in an Instagram direct message to the "Better Sister" actress. In the message Harris also detailed the "sexual, emotional, financial and physical abuse" she experienced with Hefner.

She added, "Many other women have come forward with allegations of rape, coercion, drugging and exploitation as well. There are also deeply troubling concerns involving minors. I hope everyone involved in this film takes the time to listen to the women who lived it before helping Hollywood turn it back into nostalgia."

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Earlier in July, Harris had in a video message explained why she regrets marrying the late Playboy founder.

“Do I regret marrying Hugh Hefner? Of course I do. And that’s not because of where it brought me. I’m grateful for the woman I became on the other side of it,” said Harris in the video. “But yes, I regret it. I regret being in my mid-20s and thinking that marrying one of the most famous men in the world meant that I had finally made it, that I finally mattered or had value,” she continued. “ I regret the years I spent making myself smaller so his world could feel bigger.”

“I regret the version of myself that I had to abandon just to survive in that environment,” she said. “I regret that it took me as long as it did to understand what was actually happening, like years.”

“And I think a lot of people expected me to never say that out loud, to stay in the story that was written for me, the grateful young wife, the lucky girl,” she added.

Earlier in 2024, Harris told the PEOPLE that being in the Playboy world caused “trauma” for many women. “A lot of women that have been in Hef’s orbit, they’ve lost their sparkle,” she said. “It has caused people trauma.”