What We Know About Playboy Cutting Ties With Hugh Hefner

Playboy has shut down the print magazine that built its brand, sold the Playboy Mansion to a developer and closed its last operating club, moves that together mark the company's break from the legacy of founder Hugh Hefner, according to a report by The Conversation published on CNN.

The changes arrive as the company approaches the 70th anniversary of its founding this year, a milestone that has prompted a reassessment of how Hefner built the brand and how it intends to operate without him at the center of it.

When did Hugh Hefner launch Playboy?

Hefner launched Playboy Magazine 70 years ago, according to The Conversation. The first issue included a nude photograph of Marilyn Monroe that Hefner had purchased and published without her knowledge or consent, the report states. That image became the commercial foundation for a publication that, in the decades that followed, built its identity around the women featured in its pages and what the report describes as their "performance of heightened feminine sexuality."

What happened to the Playboy Mansion and the clubs?

The Playboy Mansion, long the physical symbol of Hefner's brand, has been sold to a developer, The Conversation reports. London's last remaining Playboy Club closed in 2021. The magazine itself is no longer in publication. Taken together, the three closures remove the three most visible pillars of the original Playboy business: the print product, the flagship residence and the club network that carried the brand's name into nightlife.

Why is Playboy repositioning as a post-#MeToo brand?

The report frames the closures as part of a deliberate shift to keep the company relevant "in a post-#MeToo world." Hefner died roughly a month before a wave of sexual misconduct allegations against a prominent entertainment figure reshaped public conversation about consent in the industry, according to The Conversation, though the report's full detail on that timing was not fully available in the material reviewed for this story.

The magazine's origin story, centered on a photograph published without its subject's consent, sits at the core of why the company has moved to separate its current identity from Hefner's personal legacy, the report suggests.

The numbers

• 70 — years since Hefner launched Playboy Magazine, as of the report's publication
• 2021 — the year London's last remaining Playboy Club closed

The first issue's cover photograph of Marilyn Monroe was purchased and published without her knowledge or consent, according to The Conversation's account of how the brand was built.

What is Playboy without the magazine, the mansion and the clubs?

With no print magazine, no mansion and no club, the company that once anchored its identity to those three assets is left to define itself through whatever remains of the Playboy name and its licensing or media operations. The Conversation's report does not detail what business lines currently generate revenue for the company, and no such figures were included in the material reviewed for this story.

Timeline

• Playboy Magazine launches, first issue features a Marilyn Monroe photograph obtained without her consent
• Hefner dies, roughly a month before entertainment-industry misconduct allegations shift public discussion of consent
• 2021 — London's last operating Playboy Club closes
• Present day — magazine no longer publishes; Playboy Mansion sold to a developer; company nears its 70th anniversary

What to watch

• Whether Playboy retains any print or club-based presence going forward, given the magazine's closure and the 2021 shutdown of its last club
• How the company frames its 70th-anniversary messaging around Hefner's role versus the brand's current direction
• Whether other media companies built around similar founder-centered identities face comparable pressure to separate brand from founder

The Conversation's report does not name a buyer for the Playboy Mansion or specify what has replaced the magazine as the company's primary product, and those details were not available in the source material reviewed for this story. Readers seeking the full account, including additional detail on Hefner's death and the industry allegations referenced in the report, can consult CNN's original publication of The Conversation's analysis.