Gravely Ill & Isolated: Inside Hugh Hefner’s Sad Final Days Before Tragic Death
The ‘Playboy’ icon was 'deteriorating rapidly,' a source said.
Sept. 28 2017, Updated 1:18 p.m. ET
Hugh Hefner’s passing may have come as a surprise to adoring fans, but Playboy mansion insiders certainly saw it coming. Click through RadarOnline.com’s gallery to take a look inside the legend’s devastating health crisis, secluded final years and more.
Hugh Hefner’s passing may have come as a surprise to adoring fans, but Playboy mansion insiders certainly saw it coming. Click through RadarOnline.com’s gallery to take a look inside the legend’s devastating health crisis, secluded final years and more.
The iconic party boy – who is set to be buried next to Marilyn Monroe – has been on the verge of death for years. Just this past May, a source told The National ENQUIRER, “Hef is deteriorating rapidly. He’s also stopped eating, which is a sure sign the end is near.” Added the insider: “His doctors say it’s just a matter of time. The verdict is it will be a miracle if he lasts more than three weeks.”
According to the National Examiner, the mogul spent his last days stuck in a wheelchair, terrified of revealing his rapid decline to the world. Following his brother’s cancer-induced death in April, Hef was “never right” again. “It ripped him apart.”
As The National ENQUIRER reported, pals began to suspect Hef too had cancer. “We’ve heard he is sick,” said his attorney, four months before the legend’s death.
“For most of his life, he’s been strong as an ox,” said a pal of Hefner after he suffered a terrifying stroke in 1985. However, even his son began to worry about his health crisis during his last years, so much so that he decided to take over the family company! “It’s tough to watch him struggle, but I’m just happy it’s physical and not mental,” Cooper told The Hollywood Reporter just last month.
As The National ENQUIRER reported in 2016, Hef weighed a shocking 90 pounds during his final years. “He’s a shell of his former self,” said a source. “He has to be lifted in and out of his wheelchair. Most of his buddies are convinced he won’t live much longer.”
As RadarOnline.com readers know, former playmate Carla Howe revealed in 2015 that the Playboy Mansion was no longer a “place of excess with orgies and topless girls,” claiming that Hef was so frail, all he ever did was play chess and watch TV! “Hef is so frail he goes everywhere with a group of nurses,” she said. “Most of the time all he wants is to play chess with his friends and watch old films.”
The model also claimed that the mansion itself turned damp-smelling, and just plain out of date! “Hefner almost never leaves home and refuses to change anything in the mansion the whole place feels like it’s stuck in the 1980s,” she added. The food reportedly tasted horrible and their early curfew made the famous home feel like prison."
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Kendra Wilkinson, who once called Hefner her “angel” and admitted he had become part of her family, claimed she worried “every day” that she would wake up to the news of his death. “Every day I open up my social media and I pray that I don’t see what we think might happen,” she told E! News. Then, when asked about his health, the blonde beauty replied: "I can't say that… I'm not a medical person or any of that stuff… honestly he was there and we had a great talk and we were very happy to see each other. You know and there were rumors that things are happening but God he's 91 years old! He's gonna sic live longer than us!"
Of Hugh Hefner’s tragic final days, a close pal told The National ENQUIRER earlier this year: “This is not the way Hef wants to be remembered.” He did, after all, live an extraordinary Playboy life.
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