The Vegas Diaries: Romance, Rolling the Dice, and the Road to Reinvention (6 page)

“I am amongst the living!” read the message. It was attached to a photo of Hannah swathed in a fluffy white robe with her wild red hair swirled into a sexy, bedheady nest on top of her head. She was wearing sunglasses and had a Corona in hand. From the looks of it, she was in the courtyard of a luxurious penthouse suite high above the Vegas Strip.

“Where are you?” I replied immediately. I waited for my phone to light up with her response, but nothing. She was clearly off on an adventure.

The next morning, I was back in L.A. and driving to rehearsals when I heard my phone buzz. Hannah had apparently spent the night in Elvis’s legendary penthouse suite at the top of the Las Vegas Hilton with Brendan Williams, one of the most notorious billionaire high rollers ever to grace Vegas with his presence.

“Call me,” I quickly shot back.

Seconds later my phone buzzed, and before I could even say hello, she was already diving right in.

“You have
no
idea,” she began. I could hear her exhaling her cigarette from across the line. “There was this huge party and there were girls everywhere in that suite,” she said, drawing out the word
everywhere
. “But he only wanted me.” Pause for a drag. “He gave me sixty thousand dollars to gamble with . . . and I won.”

“Holy shit!” I shouted.

“The safe in my closet is overflowing with cash,” she added non
chalantly. Soon I would learn this was all for Hannah’s amusement, because she actually didn’t need the money. Hannah’s family had plenty of it. “Her” house was actually one of a few that belonged to her parents and wasn’t so much a house as it was a compound. This fortress consisted of two giant buildings linked by an underground tunnel, as well as a garage warehouse that held a fleet of cars. The only time I would ever see these vehicles was in Hannah’s garage, because she always chose to drive a beat-up Mercedes. She was bold, but not flashy. In some ways, she kept a surprisingly low profile, which was novel to me because I had spent most of my adult life surrounded by L.A. women whose sole mission in their existence was to become famous. Hannah’s family would probably have disowned her if she had ended up in the gossip pages or on the entertainment news sites or, God forbid, a reality show. Which was a shame, because she would have been really entertaining.

I
HAD RETURNED TO
L.A. with one thing on my mind: the Argentine tango. Of all the numbers I learned on
Dancing with the Stars
, this one was by far my favorite. Dmitry and I had a blast practicing the routine, which included an exciting new move where I basically twisted up like a pretzel and flipped out of it into a standing position.

Even though it was the one I loved the most, it was also the number that wound up getting me eliminated. When we finally performed our tango on live TV, I slipped. Literally. At the start of the performance I slid off the barstool we used as part of the dance. I froze for a few brief seconds before jumping back into the number, but that small pause cost us the precious points we needed to advance and we fell to the bottom of the leaderboard. In the end this was an invaluable lesson that every performer needs to learn—the show must go on!

Merely being able to compete on
Dancing with the Stars
at all had been a dream come true; advancing for four weeks into the season was icing on the cake! Considering the fact that I was a last-minute addition, I felt
my run on the show was a success—and it was a nice feeling to be proud of myself for a change. As I grabbed my dancing shoes and walked off the lot, I set my sights on my next challenge: lining up a project before returning for the show’s season finale. I had eight weeks to pull this off. Luckily,
Dancing
’s popularity meant a sea of press opportunities in the wake of my elimination.

Only a few hours after the show wrapped, I was put on a red-eye to New York to do talk shows and radio broadcasts to promote
DWTS
. The following week, I had a handful of magazine interviews and photo shoots lined up as well. The first was an “at home” feature in my Santa Monica loft, but nothing could have felt less homey.

Perched on a rented piano bench, I adjusted the fifties-style full skirt that covered most of my legs but was cinched tight enough at the waist to flatter my figure (which was smaller than normal due to the last few months of intensive rehearsal). The photographer was snapping away as I put on my best demure smile, trying to exude confidence in my role as a newly single woman.

“Do you really keep this stuff?” someone sneered out of nowhere, dangling a magazine article on the current romantic status of each
Girls Next Door
alum between her thumb and forefinger. I was taken a bit off guard as the woman held the clip far from her body, as if she was carrying a bag filled with dog shit. One of the assistants on the shoot had made herself a little too comfortable in my home. In my head, I wanted to tell her it wasn’t appropriate to go through someone else’s personal things, but I was taken aback and at the time didn’t have the balls to say what I was thinking to this stranger who had just insulted me in my own home.

“Um, yeah,” I responded, meekly, pretending to keep my focus on the shoot.

“Ick,” she said, with her nose scrunched up. She tossed the clipping back down on my desk. The page consisted of three photos: Kendra Wilkinson and her then-fiancé Hank Baskett; a photo of Bridget and her boyfriend Nick Carpenter; and a picture of me and Criss. The corre
sponding headlines read like this: “Engaged!” “Still Going Strong!” and “Split!” The latter of course referring to my excruciatingly public failed relationship. It did seem like a strange clipping for me to have around, but at that time, I had just started showing up in magazines and it was still a novelty for me. Even though
The Girls Next Door
had been a hit series for many years, we had been kept carefully sheltered and it wasn’t until
after
I left the mansion that anyone ever wrote about me.

Regardless, I was embarrassed that she saw the clipping. I was still suffering from a very broken heart and a pretty bruised ego. Recently, I had told a reporter from
People
magazine that I was “never dating again.” After the relationships I had been in, I meant it!

The difference between my life and Bridget’s and Kendra’s was striking, at least in my opinion. Both of my former housemates had landed other TV shows before the fifth season of
Girls Next Door
had even wrapped. The plan for
GND
season six had been to follow Hef’s and my relationship, my work at the studio, and the women that were photographed there. That is, until I had my epiphany and finally left.

On top of snagging TV shows, both of my former castmates also seemed to find themselves in happy relationships with men who wanted them despite the stereotypes that clung to us. It would be easy to assume I was jealous of them, but nothing could have been further from the truth. Their successes gave me hope! Sure, I no longer had the support of Playboy, but I needed to follow my own path and not compare myself to anybody else. There are always consequences for going against the grain, but I was readying myself for the fight.

When the photographer and his assistants wrapped up and left, I went about the business of putting my loft back together. As much as I didn’t want to admit it, stress was getting the best of me. As I arranged some coffee-table books, I noticed my hands shaking a little. In less than six months, I had barreled through two dramatic breakups, two moves, and the exciting but rigorous
Dancing with the Stars
schedule.

I looked out my giant windows onto the cloudy “May gray” Los An
geles landscape. Being in L.A. spurred so many memories—often unwanted and not so pleasant. During dance rehearsals, I had lost myself in the work. I was diligent and determined. But at the end of the day, when I was finished, the physical exhaustion left me vulnerable to everything that I wasn’t ready to deal with. The finale of
DWTS
was quickly approaching. I knew I needed to keep myself busy until then. I felt like I had to get out of Los Angeles to make a fresh start and get my head screwed back on straight. Honestly, the only time I could remember feeling free lately was during my occasional trips to Las Vegas. I prayed that I would land
Peepshow
so that I would have an excuse to go there. Vegas was calling me home . . . and there was no place like it.

At once there came running at her from all directions a pack of great wolves. They had long legs and fierce eyes and sharp teeth.

—L. Frank Baum,
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

T
he Eiffel Tower glittered outside my massive floor-to-ceiling windows.

Okay, so it wasn’t the
actual
Eiffel Tower, but it would do just fine. The giant metal structure’s bright lights reflected across the night sky, awakening the city. Las Vegas came alive after dark, and having always been a night owl myself, I loved that about my new home. Los Angeles was always steadfastly asleep by two
A.M.
any day of the week.

Landing the part in
Peepshow
had been a dream come true. For weeks, I sat nervously waiting for the phone call. I knew I wasn’t the only person they were speaking to and they were deep into auditions with a few other women (some of whom I thought would
for sure
get the part over me), but I embraced the power of positive thinking. I tried to keep myself as visible as possible, doing as much press as I could, in hopes that I would soon get the news I so desperately wanted. And when I finally did, I was absolutely on cloud nine. I couldn’t believe that I had actually been
chosen! I knew timing had a lot to do with it. Being on
Dancing with the Stars
was such a huge publicity push, and I would be debuting in
Peep
just a month after my season of
Dancing
wrapped.

Peepshow
was still new to Las Vegas, but had already established itself as something special, winning rave reviews and the support of the community. The origins of the show go back to 1993, when the show’s creator and director, Jerry Mitchell, wanted to do something special to raise money for AIDS research. The disease had heavily affected the Broadway community he was a part of. Along with four other dancers, he put together and performed a sexy show at a New York City nightclub called
Splash
. The event was an instant hit, generating an around-the-block line to get in, a spontaneous second performance, and $8,000 for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS.

With that success, the show he dubbed
Broadway Bares
became an annual tradition, which would grow bigger, raise more money, and move to successively larger venues. The program attracted Broadway’s top talent to lend their time, year after year, both on the stage and behind the scenes.

Each year the production would adopt a new theme, and the eighth year the theme was a naughty take on nursery rhymes. They called that edition
Peep Show
. Eventually Mitchell started workshopping a full-length sexy revue tailor-made to be a permanent Las Vegas show, inspired by the concept of
Broadway Bares
’s burlesque vignettes.

The show was picked up by Planet Hollywood and given an approximately $20 million budget. Broadway’s best were brought together to create the lavish costumes, sets, theater design, choreography, original music, and so on. Most of the cast was brought from New York on six-month contracts to open the show. The best of everything was required to create a modern take on the traditional French-inspired spectacles that were brought to Vegas in the 1950s, like the
Lido
,
Folies Bergère
, and
Minsky’s Follies
. It was the type of entertainment that had become synonymous with the city but had all but disappeared by 2009. The only
such extravaganza that still survived in Vegas was
Jubilee!
, which had been running for an impressive twenty-eight years. As most of the other burlesque shows in town were smaller budget productions in tiny theaters,
Peepshow
’s updated version of a Vegas tradition was welcomed by the community with open arms.

I was completely blown away the first time I saw
Peepshow
. It was such an entertaining, elaborate production. I was totally mesmerized. From the inventive routines, the talented performers, and the sheer quality of every element of the show, it was something special that I wanted to be a part of.

When I was finally offered the
Peepshow
contract, I was ecstatic to see it included a plush two-bedroom high-roller suite at Planet Hollywood to call home, complete with a view of Paris—the hotel, anyway. Before bed, I would curl up on my blue damask sofa and stare out at the dazzling, flashing lights. Whoever had occupied the suite before me had left behind a book about the history of Las Vegas. I devoured it in a single sitting, discovering that the desert city was a sort of phoenix rising from a small spring and managing to survive solely on its residents’ ingenuity and determination. Initially, the town site was established as a railroad stop between Salt Lake City and Los Angeles. When the railroad boom failed to last, the residents tried to reinvent the town as an agricultural and mining center, but struggled until the 1930s, when the city became popular during the construction of the nearby Hoover Dam. Not only did the thousands of workers brought in to build the dam flood Las Vegas, but tourists who wanted to catch a glimpse of this “eighth wonder of the world” stopped by the city as well. In anticipation of the dam’s completion (and the exodus of workers), the community was prepared. Las Vegas reinvented itself as “the last Western town,” with most of the city’s casinos hastily adopting the Old West theme. Legalized gambling was now the major draw. In the 1940s, more upscale hotels began appearing on the Strip, turning the city into a true resort destination. While Las Vegas’s economy was more secure than ever before, that didn’t stop
the community from continuing to reinvent itself in order to keep visitors coming back. Resorts began offering amenities and attractions as a means of getting a leg up on the competition, each attempting to outdo the next. Soon these hotels began boasting elaborate concerts, firework shows, and even theme parks built inside the casinos. Las Vegas didn’t play by the same set of rules as the rest of the world.

Over a hundred years, many different schemes went boom and bust. But the city never gave up. It just kept reinventing itself. That spoke to me. Las Vegas was not a city born of happenstance; its people made something out of nothing. Being in the middle of my own personal reinvention, I could relate.

I took to hotel living like a fish to water. What wasn’t to like? I had a plush suite, twenty-four-hour room service, butler and housekeeping services, and there was always an around-the-clock party happening downstairs. After getting the contract, I packed up my Santa Monica loft, put it on the rental market, and moved to Las Vegas permanently.

However, despite the energy of the casino below brimming with people, my suite felt a little lonely. I had an extra room, so I offered it to one of the few Playmates I kept in touch with, Laura Croft, who was living in Florida at the time. She had told me, just a few months earlier, that she wanted to move to Las Vegas. Before accepting, she had one request. Planet Hollywood had been so generous already, but would they let my new roommate bring her dog? Kindly, the powers that be agreed and Laura was on the next flight to Sin City—with her shih tzu, Farnell, and a suitcase full of whimsical Betsey Johnson dresses. Laura was a button-nose beauty with thick brown hair and an insatiable hunger for all things adventurous. I thought she’d be a perfect addition to this little family I was creating around myself, including Hannah, who was chronically unpredictable; Angel, with her positive spirit and warm, magnetic energy; and Nancy, who I’d stayed in touch with since my hosting gig, and who seemed to know everyone and everything in my new home.

Speaking of knowing the city, in the interest of promoting
Peepshow
,
I began familiarizing myself with the local press circuit. Being out at events all the time wasn’t just about having fun and enjoying my freedom; everything had to serve a greater purpose. Why go to a random club to have fun when I could go to an event that could bring me some exposure?

The Las Vegas media scene isn’t nearly as cutthroat as that in Los Angeles—or so I thought. There were just a handful of entertainment journalists in town, and if you frequented enough red carpets and photo ops, you’d quickly get to know most of them. While I was still new to the whole PR world, I knew well enough that promotion was key when it came to making a success of whatever project I was involved with. One of my first interviews with a Las Vegan was for a gossip column in one of the city’s major newspapers. I had done the interview with its columnist, Jim, while I was rehearsing for the
Dancing
season finale. My press agent had passed along my number for the purpose of doing that interview only. The piece turned out well and was a nice intro into the Vegas market. I wasn’t expecting to hear from the reporter again, so I was surprised when he called me on a random weekday afternoon.

“Uh, hi, Holly . . . it’s Jim,” said the gruff, anxious-sounding man on the phone, “from the paper. We spoke a few weeks ago.”

“Oh, hi. How are you?” I said, my voice automatically defaulting to the “polite,” man-pleasing, high-pitched tone I was determined to stop using
. I wonder why he’s calling me out of the blue?
I asked myself.

“So . . .” he began, trying to sound cheery. I imagined that he was skimming his notes as we spoke. “My friend Cyndi says you were rude to her the other day. What do you have to say about that?”

Huh?
I thought.
What the hell is he talking about?

“Could you please remind me who that is?” I asked, trying to sound as courteous as possible. I barely knew this guy, let alone his friends.

“Cyndi Johnson,” he encouraged, hoping to spark my memory. “The reporter for channel nine. She said she interviewed you at the Palms the other day and that you insulted her outfit.”

I might have been new to handling press, but this seemed like a ridiculous thing to be calling about. It was clearly asked with the intent of stirring a pot that didn’t yet exist. But at the time, I didn’t know any better, and, in this particular instance, it was a simple misunderstanding. I couldn’t see any harm in clearing it up. I always thought it best to be as straightforward as possible, and, back then, I thought that everyone deserved an answer.

“Oh, no!” I replied, hoping my smile would translate over the phone. “I actually complimented her outfit. Maybe she thought I was being sarcastic or something, but I wasn’t. I liked it!”

What was it about my delivery that made her think I was being rude?
I wondered, once again having to analyze the way I communicated. I racked my brain, trying to remember just exactly what I had said to that woman. I swore it was something along the lines of “I love your dress! It’s a way better choice for this pool party than what I’m wearing.” Unseasonably cold winds had been blowing through that day and I had regretted not wearing something warmer. I would have traded my bikini and denim skirt for Cyndi’s dress in an instant!

He didn’t say anything, so I decided to fill the silence.

“It was so cold that day . . .” I babbled. I explained the events of the Palms pool party that had taken place weeks earlier. “I wore a bikini and a denim skirt and was freezing! She was wearing a cute dress that was
way
more weather appropriate. Oh my god! I really can’t believe she thought I was being sarcastic. That’s really strange. I meant it sincerely!”

“Well, you know,” he whispered into the phone, readying himself to plant the bait, “she used to date Criss Angel.”

“Really? She doesn’t seem like his type.” I blurted out in my surprise, temporarily forgetting that I was speaking to a reporter. Criss, then in his forties, never seemed to date age-appropriate professional women. His roster typically included starlets, go-go dancers, and cocktail waitresses, most of them much younger than him.

“I know, right?” Jim oozed. I snapped back into reality and quickly
found a reason to end the call. I didn’t think about it again until the next morning when my publicist suggested I take a look at the the local paper. The topic of Jim’s weekly entertainment column was none other than my “feud” with veteran Vegas reporter Cyndi Johnson.

“Are you kidding me?” I cried out as Hannah, who had stayed over the night before, pried herself up off the couch. Out of context, my “she doesn’t really seem like his type” comment read like I was being bitchy and jealous.

“What are you talking about?” Hannah asked, helping herself to our room service tray, which had been delivered along with the morning paper just a few minutes earlier. I filled her in on my phone call and read her the snarky article as she laughed.

“Anyway, I really didn’t mean it as an insult,” I continued. “And I
never
expected it to make its way back to this Cyndi person, let alone be
printed
for the entire city to read!”

They say there’s no such thing as bad press, but I happen to disagree. This sort of lowbrow attention was muddying the reputation I was trying to build for myself. As soon as the article hit, Cyndi used her own platform as a journalist to put together what I thought was an unflattering and downright mean piece on me for her local entertainment news segment.