Marston And Cooper Hefner

Ql

PLAYBOY: What happens in the real world when people learn your name is Hefner, as in that Hefner?

COOPER: It's a blessing and a burden. It's not that I'm not a social person, because I enjoy spending time with people. But when I walk into a room, I feel that if they know who I am or they hear the last name. I'm going to be judged-negatively as well as positively. For instance, if I do something wrong or make a mistake or if I'm pissed off at somebody, they assume. He's doing it because he thinks he's better than us. And that's not the case. That's the burden aspect of it. MARSTON: Some people are always going to project-'He's a spoiled brat" or "He thinks he's so cool" But when you know you're being judged, it's kind of fun to change that judgment or play around with it a little. You seem to automatically have this power over people because you're this "iconic figure"-at least by blood relation-and they're waiting for you to say some­thing so they can follow your lead. It's fun to break the mold and the perception and sometimes say as little as possible. I like to be a follower as well as a leader.

Q2

PLAYBOY: With the enviable distinction of growing up in-and next door to-the Playboy Mansion comes the responsibility of pulling boyhood pranks. Mansion-style Let's list a few of your classics. MARSTON: We've always liked to shake things up a little. I remember one movie night, maybe 10 years ago, we tied a see-through string to a wallet with a fake $100 bill poking out of it, which we laid on the floor of the Great Hall, where people go back and forth into the movie. We hid up on the balcony, and whenever somebody tried to pick up the wallet, we'd wiggle it a little and inch it away so they couldn't grab it. They would have a perplexed look and be like. Huh? and try to grab it again. Eventually we'd yank it all the way upstairs, and then they'd get the gag. COOPER: We got in soooo much trouble when we were younger. Also, during parties when other companies had rented out the property, wed sneak over with our friends-nobody really knows this-wearing camou­flage or all black. We'd stake out the action from the bushes with walkie-talkies and make fun of drunk people. We would make

birdcalls and do stuff to get their attention. Or we'd shoot air-assault guns at them. Id say on the walkie-talkie, "Okay, you see the drunk girl in the red dress7 Shoot her on three! One. two. three." The girl would go. "Ahhhh!" See. we could beat the sys­tem because we knew where the security cameras were.

Q3

PLAYBOY: Marston. you're 18 and in col­lege Cooper, you're 17 and in high school. Some people must desperately want to be your friends, for obvious reasons-not least being access to Dad's house, which happens to be one that has shaped ado­lescent dreams by the millions. How do you handle that?

MARSTON: Everybody brings up the Man­sion first, the stereotypical idea of it—"Oh my Cod! Boobies! Running around! Boobs, everywhere, boobs! What's that like?" Everybody has a fantasy about it. What­ever their sexual desire is, that's what the Playboy Mansion is to them. But I some­times mistook such curiosity for a sign that somebody wanted to use me. I had

a pretty good friend, and one day we brought some girls over. Suddenly he started walking around shuffling out all these facts about the house, almost as if he lived here. Slowly I began to realize the people who use you are more undercover, and it's harder to sense right away. You pick it up in snippets, and then you're like, Oh, okay. Noted.

COOPER: When I was younger I had a defense mechanism set up in my head. It would make me uncomfort­able when people asked about the property. Now when you get the reaction—"This place is unreal!"—it's more that they don't understand our lifestyle. They don't get it when you say, "There's nothing to do here." But when you live here and come here every single day, you see the same things. Anybody else would be like, "Let's go see monkeys!" But I don't want to see monkeys. I'd rather go bowling than play with monkeys.

QA

playboy You guys come and go through a gate in the wall from the house next door, where you moved with your mom, Kimberly, a litde more than 10 years ago, after your parents separated. What were you thinking when that happened? cooper: At the time I didn't under­stand what was going on with the whole separation. I was like six and in second grade, and Marston was in third grade. It became clearer as we got older, but at first it was hard for both of us to deal. We realize now that our circumstances are unbeliev­able: Our parents live next door to each other and are separated, but we all have strong relationships with one another. How much better can it get? We're fortunate, I think. marston: We're really lucky. They'll be connected forever no matter what. I don't understand why they're not divorced, as most people think they are, because we know their relation­ship isn't sexual or physical and he has had a ton of different girlfriends. But I think he likes to know he will always have the woman he loved as part of his life. Maybe it has a lot to do with us, too. We couldn't ask for a better sce­nario, really.

Q5

playboy: How do they split their parent­ing duties? What has been the disciplin­ary chain of command? cooper: When we got into trouble when we were younger, both of them dealt with us. Dad would give us the seri­ous talks, and then Mom would step in as the punisher. The parental con­versations we have with him are very relaxed; it's more searching for an

understanding than shouting. He says, "Listen, here's what you did wrong. Let's figure out how to make it right." I've always felt that worked better. But he's not a hands-on parent, and that was hard for us to deal with sometimes. You see your friends going to Lakers games with their dads, and you want to do more of that.

marstoN: We have gone to a few Lak­ers games, but we wanted more. He's just a homebody. He's not the best parent in the sense that he has grown up with this company and now he's totally enveloped by it. He's more of a hands-off parent, which gives him a lot of good insight, because when you observe something from a little dis­tance you don't have those daily biases. On the other hand, Mom was the punching bag. We could do whatever we wanted to her. We could be total dicks to her, and she would always be there for us, no matter what. We never took it out on Dad.

Q6

playboy: For the past five decades young guys have been known to hide their prized issues of piayboy from their par­ents. What do you hide from yours? cooper: We've always had an open relationship with both our parents. For instance, I've never really hidden anything from them. We've prob­ably had a different problem. When we invite people over I immediately start planning in my head, Where can I take my friends where there aren't boobs?—like pictures of them on dis­play. It was so normal growing up and seeing boobs. You're surrounded! marston: But there's also Fun in the Sun Sundays, when Playmates come over and sunbathe nude, play vol­leyball topless or whatever. Mom had that shut down after we were born, but it started again a few years ago. Not that we're ever supposed to be around for it.

Q7

playboy: By the way, what do the youngest of Hefners consider to be pornography? cooper: It bothers me when people call playboy pornography. I think pornography is a derogatory word, one that a lot of people don't know how to begin to define. I've always had trouble with the magazine get­ting lumped in with it. marston: 1 don't feel playboy is porn. 1 never thought about it. It bugs me now. It's an easy target, a scapegoat, which started with the religious right. I think pornography is defined by the taste of who is looking at it. It's not as simple as black-and-white. The word itself is bullshit. It's judgment—Puri­tan ethics that still hang on.

Q8

playboy: Describe the surreal expe­rience of not only seeing naked pic­tures of your mother regularly but knowing your friends have probably seen them too.

marston: That's awkward for me. It's your mom, naked. Imagine that, and then imagine watching TV with your friends in a room where, on top of the TV, there's a big picture of your mom naked. Imagine wondering what they're really looking at. cooper: I stopped going into that room—the library in the Mansion— because of that. It just made me uncom­fortable. I'll go in there by myself, but I stopped going in there with friends. It's like the fat elephant in the room.

Q9

plavboy: Your dad is famously a crea­ture of habit who, after the separation, established a weekly Family Night at the Mansion to help everyone stay con­nected. How have those nights evolved over the years?

cooper: Family Night started drifting about four years ago when I trans­ferred to boarding school during eighth grade. In the beginning all of us would sit down and watch epi­sodes of The Simpsons, South Park and Family Guy. We would also play board games—which Marston liked more than I did—then we'd all eat together, and that would be it. But when you get to a certain point in adolescence, you don't want to spend much time with your parents anymore. It wasn't that we were rebellious; my priority had become my friends. But I think it was hard for Dad. We started skipping out on him. I think it was our fault for not making the effort.

marston: If I could go back, I wouldn't have stopped going to Family Night. You understand things a lot more as you get older. I don't think we under­stood how it was affecting him—or us, really. I thought the dad was supposed to take the initiative, but we should have too. In the beginning I remember we'd play the board game Sorry! a lot. How's that for a clueless metaphor now?

Q10

playboy: What are you better at than your father?

marston: [Laughs] A lot. I'm better than him at video games; I'm better than him at backgammon, which kills him. Hell, yeah. Every time I beat him, he cries a little tear. He cries himself to sleep. He's going to be pissed when he reads this. Also I'm better than him at sports, and so is Cooper. I was going to say at dancing, but he actually has something happening there, whether or

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20Q: HEFNER

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not he knows it. I steal his moves. He is cool out there because his moves are so uncool. That dance of his could be trend-setting. It's amazing! He's a disco inferno from another planet.

cooper: I do the best impression of his dance moves. Have you seen him? It's not about moving to the rhythm but more like "Oh? What am I doing here? Who are you, young lady?" He's utterly confused mov­ing his body—the fast shuffles, the crazy elbows—as if he's not sure what he's doing. And all these girls on both sides are freak­ing on him. It should be awkward, but it isn't for him. It sort of works. Nobody alive can dance like him.

Qll

PLAYBOY: Let's explore Genetics 101: Your father likes to say that, together, you are him "split down the middle." What does that mean, and in what ways do you most take after your parents? marstoN: We probably have a little bit of both of them working for us. Our mom has a very strong personality, and my brother and I both have very strong personalities. She is very assertive, and we are asser­tive—but we try to be a little more diplo­matic. She tends to be a little "my way or the highway." It's weird and awkward to compare myself to my dad, but I know he likes to make those comparisons. I like to write, and I'm very motivated. If I want to get something done, I'll get it done—which is kind of how piayboy got started, if you think about it. Cooper has a little more of Dad's wild side—he'll go to parties and shake it up a litde.

COOPER: Oddly enough, even though we spend more time with Mom than with Dad, I feel we're both more like him than her. In addition to the physical resem­blance to him, we're probably more open to things and aren't as guarded as Mom can be. Marston, like Dad, is very inter­ested and involved in human rights. He has my dad's sense of loyalty, and he's very self-disciplined. But as a kid, Dad was into drawing and writing and making mov­ies, and I am too. When I was 11 or 12 I put out this newspaper called The Cooper Times, and I'd drop off copies at the doors of everyone living at the Mansion. I didn't know it at the time, but when he was grow­ing up he did the same thing in his Chi­cago neighborhood.

Q12

playboy: Take us on a Hefner brothers filmmaking retrospective. What belongs in your highlight reel?

marston: Our most famous one—this is when 1 also used to make movies, before Cooper took over—was called The Mansion. There wasn't much plot; we just ran around the property. I would chase my friend and his accomplice, whom we'd beat up in vari­ous spots around the house. COOPER: That's what all our movies are like—funny, stupid sketch comedy starring us and our friends. But I love shooting and editing movies. We also made a music video

with our friend Austin, sort of mimicking the AFI song "Miss Murder," in which you could almost see pictures of Dad hanging on the walls behind the action. We got nearly 200.000 YouTube views of it!

Q13

playboy: Which of you would be more inclined to have multiple girlfriends at once?

marstoN: I'm not going to have multiple girlfriends—not at the same time. I can't imagine doing that.

cooper: I can imagine doing that. I don't think it's an odd thing to do. You date around to try to find a connection with some girl. I've already gotten in trouble and had the revolving-door conversation with my mom—meaning, one girl comes in the front door while the other one gets pushed out the back. "We do not have a revolving door in this house!" She's all about one girlfriend at a time.

Q14

playboy: Your dad lost his virginity well into his college years, but it's a different world now for 17- and 18-year-olds. Where are you in terms of crossing over to the other side? Did Mr. Playboy himself offer any fatherly advice on the topic? COOPER: We're both on the other side of it. Actually. I did go to him beforehand. He said, "If you're going to do it, make sure your feelings are mutual, and practice safe sex." That sort of covered it. marston: We've crossed that bridge, yes. It's the kind of thing you build up in your mind. Then when you're there, you're like, This is it! This is the quintessential moment that will define my entire existence! And then...it doesn't.

Q15

playboy: At this stage of your lives, how much fun can the sons of Hugh M. Hefner have at a major Playboy Mansion party? MARSTON: The Halloween party is fun because the haunted house on the ten­nis court is so impressive. I've brought all of my crushes through, and they cower; then they jump on me for protection, which is cool. And I like dancing at the parties. But I have Uncle Joe, who's in charge of security and whom I've known my entire life, watching me grind on this girl. That's rough.

cooper: Oh yeah! Plus the video depart­ment is filming everything that happens at the parties. You're like, Ugh, my mom is going to be seeing this! It's almost as if a bunch of spies are looking at you, because you grew up with these people. It's like, Shit, what incriminating pictures are they gonna take of us? The house, you know, it's always watching!

Q16

PLAYBOY: So daily life at the Mansion isn't dissimilar from life at the White House—part residence, part bustling hub of power.

marston: My mom has always reminded us that this is more of a corporate environ­ment than a home—"Do you know how much Dad has to pay for these rooms?" But

I've grown up with and loved the Mansion employees. They're cool and interesting— the office people, the butlers, even the secu­rity guys we've had some awkward dealings with. Whenever we pulled pranks, the real element of risk was that we never knew where the security guards were posted. But that just heightened the fun until they caught us—i/they caught us. COOPER: Sometimes we would get into con­frontations with the security people because we were doing something we weren't sup­posed to. Other times we never quite knew how we got caught. This is pretty funny: When we were eight or nine—it's not even that you understand what nudity or sex is—they had Playboy TV on here at the game house. To mess with friends, we'd click it on for five seconds for shock effect and then change it quick. I remember it was channel 10. One day we came in and I started clicking the remote, got to chan­nel nine and then said, "Okay, you guys ready?" So I pressed and it went straight to 11. We were all pissed off because we fig­ured my mom had it shut down. Maybe the Mansion video department tipped her off. We still don't exactly know.

Q17

playboy: Your birth dates have sort of a mathematical magic. Marston, like your father, was born on April 9 and Cooper on September 4, which means, if you go in for such things, you're numerically the inverse of each another: 9/4 and 4/9. What else might that mean? MARSTON: I think it means we were born to coexist very well and in the future we will work as a team. The thing I value most is that we feed off each other in social situa­tions. Even though we have different inter­ests, we joke that when we grow older we're going to be not only the best brothers but a great fucking solid team. COOPER: I think the birth-date thing is ironic. Even my mom and grandma are 8/6 and 6/8. But here's a good example of our teamwork: Recently we were in Barce­lona, where the drinking age is lower and wine at dinner is a normality. We were at dinner with our friends from Spain, and I had a glass of wine but wanted another one. I told the girl next to me to look at my watch because I was going to show her a magic trick. It was about 10:45, and I said, "I'm going to make this watch move to 12 o'clock." As she was staring at my watch, Marston snatched her wineglass and gave it

to me. The watch didn't change to 12------

marston: But she never knew. Brotherly magic!

Q18

playboy: Do you guys imagine yourselves running playboy one day? Where do you see the magazine heading by that lime? marston: To be honest, I want to first go find my own thing to do for a while. But if there were this urgent need for me to join the company, I might consider it. Our sister, Christie, has a strong and posi­tive hold on the business right now. She's great; I love her. But down the road, I'd say it would probably need to take a dif­ferent direction. In the 1960s we had

amazing civil rights leaders doing inter­views or writing stories for the magazine. The fight is still out there. The civil rights movement may not be that big, but we could still do articles on edgy things that people are afraid to talk about and appeal to forward thinkers.

COOPER: I definitely want to be involved with the company—it's an interest of mine, and I like business. I agree the direction will change, since everything needs to keep changing, right? If I were to take over the company or have a say in what's going on, I'd want the girls to be presented more as they were in the pictorials back in the 1950s and 1960s—kind of artsy, classy. I would like to bring back that retro-class feel.

Q19

PLAYBOY: Would either of you consider one day succeeding your father as master of the Mansion by making it your primary residence?

marstoN: No. I just want a nice, roomy country home, maybe one-story ranch-style, with a wife, a dog and a big countryside view. That would make me more than happy. COOPER: Really? I think I'd do it. I like it here a lot. I love L.A., and if I lived in L.A. I would want a house with a fairly large

property. I still feel this is my home, and it's comfortable. I would like to live here.

Q20

PLAYBOY: All right, as princes of the king­dom, how about sharing your insider tips for properly appreciating the swimming pool's legendary Grotto? marstoN: The Grotto's probably the weird­est place on the property. It's like entering the twilight zone. There is something magi­cal about it—maybe because it's so hot and it makes you woozy. It gets a woman right in the mood. Then again, on the day after a big party, sometimes a tampon suddenly floats up out of nowhere to the right of the woman and it takes away the mood—fast! COOPER: You're right. After parties it's a little murky, and you don't want to touch it. But I've seen diem drain the pool. That's why I'm not scared to swim in it. The pool team goes in with hazmat suits and gas masks. They scrub it for hours at a time; I've seen them. It's wildly chlorinated, which is good. Your eyes burn when you're in there. So it's well taken care of for what it goes through. Thank God!

Read the 21st question at playboy.com/21q.

HEF'S TEENAGE SONS GO PUBLIC ABOUT OUTWITTING MANSION SECURITY GUARDS,

DEALING WITH THEIR FAMOUS LAST NAME, GETTING SEX ADVICE FROM DAD AND HOW

THEY'LL RUN PLAYBOY WHEN THEY TAKE OVER