Crystal Harris Admits She Regrets Marrying Hugh Hefner, But Is ‘Grateful for the Woman’ She Became

Crystal Harris is opening up about the regret she carries from marrying Hugh Hefner.

In a video posted to Instagram on Tuesday, July 14, Harris, 40, discussed her marriage to the late magazine mogul.

“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,” Harris said 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. I regret the years I spent making myself smaller so his world could feel bigger.”

Harris also spoke about learning to stay silent when she should have spoken up. “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.”

She added that she felt pressure to play a role others had written for her. “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,” Harris said.

She said she is “done” living the version of herself others expected. “Telling my truth for my younger self and for anyone who’s ever forgotten their worth trying to fit into someone else’s story,” she wrote in her caption.

Harris and Hefner married in 2012 and remained together until his death in 2017 at age 91. She married James Ward in April of this year, after he proposed to her in Hawaii in 2025.

The video drew mixed reactions in the comments. One supporter wrote, “You are breaking ancestral curses for generations to come. You are very brave and should be very proud,” while another added, “He was a predator… I hope you release yourself from blame.” Others praised Harris for speaking out after following her story for years.

However, actor Jon Lovitz pushed back, writing, “Do you regret the house he bought for you to live in, after his death? And keeping the money, after you sold it? And all the times your mother was at the mansion? And do you regret all he did for you? And do you regret leaving him and then coming back to marry him?”