Down the Rabbit Hole (46 page)

As I rattled on to Kendra about my career, they cut to her interview:

“I'm pretty competitive . . .” she stated at the camera. “Ya know, I'm kind of already established, but I don't wanna lose that. I wanna gain.”

I could tell Kendra was annoyed and trying to be careful how she worded what she wanted to say. She didn't like being set up to look less successful than me, even for one scene. While that wasn't the intent—producers simply wanted to inspire her to get her ass off the couch—the comparison couldn't be helped.

The next thing I heard from her was a headline she retweeted:
Kendra reveals why she is no longer friends with Holly and Bridget!

I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Kendra had apparently given an interview to a tabloid explaining that she wasn't friends with either of us, as if she were somehow better than everyone else. “We've all found our own little roads to go and that's just the way it goes,” she said, retweeting the article to her follwers when it came out. For someone who was all of a sudden trying to act like she was better than Bridget and me, she sure wasn't above using us for publicity when she needed it. Anything for a tabloid-worthy topic!

Hurt and confused, I retweeted her post, saying:
Thanks for letting me know, Kendra!

Of course I wasn't going to stoop to her level and address this only on social media, so I decided to text her how I truly felt: that she was a coward and that she tried to act like the “real” girl on TV, but she's the fakest person I've ever met—and that if she had a problem with me, she should have confronted me like an adult instead of just going silent.

This time Kendra responded and the exchange went something like this:

Girl, I don't have a problem with you. I just don't like it when people think we are friends,
she texted.

Do you even have a clue how rude that sounds, what you just said?
I replied.

WHO ARE YOU????? I DON'T EVEN KNOW YOU! WE WERE NEVER FRIENDS. IT WAS ALL JUST WORK!
she responded in all caps.

Wow, I'm sorry I was stupid enough to think we were really friends. Have a nice life,
I finally texted.

After that, I deleted her number from my phone. Kendra and I haven't spoken since, and I have to say, I don't miss her.

F
OR ALL THE THINGS
that were going right in my life over the past few years, there was still one area that I needed to get on track. The dating scene in Las Vegas was pretty grim. During my three years as a single lady, I had the worst luck in the dating department. I swear, I could write a book on the types of douchebags that lurk around these days (maybe I will!).

All of my life, I was an over-the-top romantic, but by 32 years old I had become pretty disillusioned. I'd often wonder what I did wrong. It seemed that spending my 20s at the mansion had caused me to miss out on meeting “the one.”

I was alone because I wasn't going to settle for less in a man than what I wanted or deserved
.
For the first time in my life, I started to lay plans to become a crazy cat lady. What would my life be like without the marriage and children I had always envisioned in my future? It looked like spinsterhood was becoming a distinct possibility, so I decided to ready myself for it.

It all sounds a bit dramatic, I know, but I had pretty much given up when in 2011 I finally met the man I would marry: Pasquale Rotella. Isn't that how the universe always works?

Pasquale and I met when he brought his Electric Daisy Carnival festival to Las Vegas. He was around town a lot and we knew a few of the same people, so bumping into each other was inevitable. I thought he was good looking and he seemed like fun, but when we started talking (most of the time through Twitter—I used to be Twitter obsessed), I wasn't really expecting things to get serious. It wasn't that I didn't want them to, I had just come to a point in my life where I didn't expect anything romantic to work out anymore.

Boy, was I wrong! Not only did we completely hit it off immediately, we were instantly inseparable. He was perfect for me. He was smart, funny, and sexy, and I was always my happiest just hanging out with him. He was the total package
and
was also at a point in his life where he was ready for a serious relationship. A little later down the road, he started talking about wanting a family . . . and he actually meant it! This is an important note: a man has to already know what he wants. Don't waste your time trying to change someone's mind. It never works.

And like they say: when you know, you just know. Our relationship got very serious very quickly and within a matter of months we were practically living together. Despite our whirlwind romance, our respective careers (he owns and operates his entertainment company, Insomniac, while I was still consumed by my
Peepshow
schedule) meant that making time to see each other required significant effort.

In early 2012, I decided not to renew my
Peepshow
contract for 2013, despite the lucrative offer presented to me. That year marked my fourth year with the show, and by then, I was not only playing Bo Peep but had also adopted the singing Goldie Locks role as part of my performance. As much as I loved it, there wasn't much further for me to go with the production. And while I wasn't eager to leave behind a cast and crew that had become like family to me, somehow staying didn't feel right. I wanted to leave the show while it was still on top . . . and was it ever! The schedule was so time-consuming that as long as I stayed with the production, I wouldn't have room to add anything new to my life professionally . . . or personally.

I wanted to explore new career options, spend more time with Pasquale, and travel the world. We even talked about starting a family as soon as my contract was over. In preparation for this new life, I purchased a home in L.A.—one of the fairy-tale-style dwellings I had been in awe over the first time I visited Beachwood Canyon in Hollywood, several years ago while filming an episode of
The Girls Next Door
. Something I couldn't even dare to dream about having for my own back then was now a reality, thanks to everything I had done after I left the series.

My move on to this “new life” would get an unexpected push forward in July 2012, when I got some surprising and amazing news: I was pregnant!

Pasquale and I had discussed having kids—we even planned to start trying as soon as my run with
Peepshow
was complete, but everything happens for a reason and we received the fabulous, life-changing news many months earlier than we had even planned to start trying. I started to suspect something was off—and a trip to the doctor confirmed the news. We couldn't have been more thrilled. We wanted to shout it from the rooftops, but the doctor suggested we stay mum on our big news until our second trimester (miscarriages are common during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy).

Keeping a lid on our new addition for the three months was brutal—but necessary. I knew the announcement would attract a lot of attention, so I didn't want anyone to know until I cleared my first trimester. Looking back, I'm surprised no one at
Peepshow
guessed when I suddenly stopped arriving backstage with my signature large Starbucks iced Americano clutched in my paw!

My biggest concern was how I was going to finish my commitment to
Peepshow
—it would be impossible for me to perform through the end of the year. I'd certainly be showing by then and I'm pretty sure producers didn't envision their sexy lead with a growing baby bump. When I finally was able to break the news to my employers, we decided how long I would stay in the show (through mid-October 2012, which marked the fifth month of my pregnancy), and they began their search for a new headliner who could start a few months earlier than anticipated.

(People sometimes ask me if I was worried that performing while pregnant might somehow harm the baby, and my answer is “of course not!” I was used to the physical demands of the show and my doctors approved every move I made. If anything, I think performing made me healthier than I would have been sitting on my butt doing nothing. I had an amazing pregnancy and stayed in great shape—though some of the costumes were altered to allow for a little more modesty, I didn't even have to loosen my corset throughout my run in the show. I believe that many sacrifices need to be made in order to do your best as a parent, but I also believe you don't have to abandon your whole life.)

I vowed not to cry on my last night, but that was impossible. The outpouring of love I received from the cast and crew was just too overwhelming—and I couldn't help the tears. These were tears of joy . . . the best kind. Over the four years I spent with
Peep,
I'd grown tremendously: from the insecure, unsure
Playboy
outcast to the confident, successful mommy-to-be.

But it didn't take long for the vultures to start circling.

In the wake of my departure, Angel, my understudy, was summoned back for six weeks while
Peepshow
found and trained my replacement. Before my dressing room door even fully shut behind me, I received word that a certain someone had already contacted
Peepshow
's producers, begging them to hire Kendra for the lead instead of the rumored front-runner: Ice-T's wife, Coco Austin.

“How dare you!” I yelled into my cell phone. I was
irate,
digging my nails into the palm of my hand. After I had spent months explaining to him why this idea made me so uncomfortable, I couldn't believe he had the audacity to even attempt such a betrayal. I'd been foolish enough to think we had developed a friendship over the last seven years, but obviously, I was wrong.

“And I'm pregnant right now,” I screeched, my blood boiling. “I don't need the stress of a public feud with Kendra.”

He sat silent. What could he say? Finally he came back meekly with the confession that he thought if there was a feud between Kendra and me it would be good publicity for the two of us.

“That's the kind of publicity Kendra likes, not me,” I said. “I don't want it!”

Despite his efforts,
Peepshow
chose Coco to debut as the new headliner. After a few months, the show officially closed. It was a shame to see such a wonderful show close, but as they say, all good things must come to an end.

“R
AINBOW
,” M
ARY SMILED
. “T
HAT
'
S
a wonderful name.”

Mary O'Connor and I were sitting on her front porch waiting for one of her girlfriends to pull up so we could drive to lunch together. She was one of the few people I trusted enough to reveal my chosen baby name to.

Most people think the name is an outrageous choice, but Mary knew me well enough to appreciate my whimsy. I'd first heard the name in middle school (a girl in my sister's class had the name and I thought it was the prettiest, best name ever). I never had it on my list of my future baby names, though, until I became pregnant—and when it resurfaced in my mind, it felt like the perfect name for our child. And while many people think her middle name Aurora was simply after my favorite Disney princess, it was also a name that is a little more common in Alaska, where I spent much of my childhood.

I'm so thankful I had that last visit with Mary, because it wasn't long after that I received a heartbreaking phone call.

“Mary's in the hospital,” my old friend Britney told me. “She's not doing well. Bridget and I are going to go visit her. Do you want us to tell her something for you?”

As my due date was drawing nearer and nearer, I was on doctor's orders not to travel and was stuck in Las Vegas until after my delivery.

“Yes,” I managed quietly. At age 84, Mary had recently undergone cancer treatments, but had appeared healthy and upbeat the last time I saw her. Hearing that she was now on her deathbed was a shock. “Please tell her I love and miss her and that I wish I could be there.”

The message wouldn't be passed on, however. When Britney tried to visit Mary, supposedly Crystal turned her away, saying Mary didn't want to see anyone. Strange.

To the best of my knowledge, Hef never visited Mary at the hospital. Probably because he wasn't in the best health himself and rarely left the mansion anymore, not because he didn't care about her. In fact, Mary was the only person I ever saw Hef be truly candid in front of. Everyone else in his life, including his relatives and significant others, seemed to be held at arm's distance, emotionally.

One of the few truly positive things that I took away from the mansion was my friendship with Mary. Everything else that came from that place was laced with darkness, a hefty price tag, or an eventual knife in the back. Mary was a no-nonsense, tell-it-like-it-is gem of a lady. The world needs more people like her.

A
SIDE FROM THE SAD
news of Mary's passing, I was in wonderful spirits during the final weeks of my pregnancy. I couldn't be more excited to meet my little girl. Everything was coming together and my dream of having a family was coming true!

Less than a week before my due date, I received a surprising call from E! The network wanted to order an hour-long special about our baby's birth! I jumped at the opportunity! Not only would it be such a cool thing for Rainbow to see when she got older and a wonderful family journey to document on camera, it was also a great way to celebrate as I eagerly awaited her arrival.

E! brought an in-house production crew to shoot the special, and they couldn't have been more fun, professional, and easy to work with. When I requested privacy for certain moments (no below-the-waist shots during birth, privacy during breastfeeding), the crew looked at me like I was crazy and one of the cameramen said, “We weren't planning on shooting that anyway.” I was floored, but in a good way! I had been so used to the crew being ordered to capture every instance of nudity possible in my
Girls Next Door
days that I had been prepared for a battle.