Marston Hefner was 18 when he used to visit his dad, Playboy founder Hugh Hefner, at the legendary mansion for backgammon night on Thursdays.
Growing up, Marston, who turns 35 next month, admired the “really ambitious” Playmates he witnessed. “They were not using Playboy as a way into Hollywood. For the most part, they were using it to pay for vet school or to get them further in their career,” he explains in an exclusive interview with Us Weekly. “One [Kelly Wearstler] became a really successful interior designer from doing that. Those were the Playmates that I gravitated to and had the most interesting conversations with.” Fans of E!’s The Girls Next Door know that Hugh was also quite charmed by many of the women he featured in his magazine, and he married Marston’s mom after she was named Playboy’s Playmate of the Month in January 1988, just before she became Playmate of the Year in 1989.
Marston is one four children fathered by the late Playboy icon who died in 2017 at the age of 91. Hugh shared Marston and brother Cooper, 32, with ex-wife Kimberley Conrad. Hugh also shared David, 69, and Christie, 72, his first wife, Mildred Williams. In his many years of post-mansion life, Marston has spent time exploring his own sexuality.
“I don’t think they’ve changed too much,” he says of his views on sexuality as a whole, “except I’m just more open with who I am, and more accepting of my sexuality.” While he thinks his feelings on sexuality have been there all along, he credits “a lot of therapy sessions of talking about how I feel” for discovering exactly what he believes in and opening his mind. “It’s constantly evolving, especially with gender, and those conversations,” he says. “I’m always trying to get closer to just loving myself.”
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Marston himself married Anna Lambropoulos in August 2022, before they welcomed their first son, Forrest, the following summer. While this might come across like a traditional move, Marston says he appreciates “going beyond the labels” and embracing the complexity of individuals and their experience. He has used the bios of his social media platforms to describe himself as “bisexual AF,” but currently considers himself “sexually fluid.”
“I use bisexual just because I think most people understand what bisexual means,” he says. “I realize I read as straight, so being with straight men and saying, ‘oh yeah, I’m sexually fluid,’ was something I started doing when I made an OnlyFans account. It takes courage, and people act like we’re already there, but I feel like there are a lot of “straight looking” men who are on a spectrum of sexuality, and it would be nice to reach a point where it’s just normal. Nobody gets to say who I am but me at the end of the day.”
For Marston, unlocking that has been freeing and empowering, and if he continues to be misunderstood, he’s OK with that. “I like being an outsider,” he says.
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In 2023, Marston joined the flock of people participating in OnlyFans as creators. Uploading his own content and building a fanbase on that network helped lead him to a few revelations. One of those was that existing platforms that connected creators of adult content with their fans lacked intimacy. “If you’re on Only Fans, you’re going to get a mass spam message, you’re not going to be talking to the person,” he says. And in February, Marston became the Chief Strategy Officer for ROOM 11, a “creator-first adult content platform” that’s not only intent on shortening the bridge between creator and client, but one that gives creators a 90 percent cut of what they earn.
Though Marston believes his dad’s delineation of tasteful versus pornographic was “hypocritical” and a “misstep,” it does little to abate Marston’s interest in continuing the Hefner legacy that he feels a responsibility to extend. “It’s also something that I feel I’m really good at,” he says. And the landscape of sex work and creating adult content has dramatically transformed in the years since Hugh was alive. There’s an abundance of creators, and a seemingly endless variety of people making content, from those who might have historically been hired as Playmates to the literal girl next door. “It’s everyday people, and they’re killing it,” Marston says. “It’s unconventional, they can have ‘not the typical look’ and do great. I think it’s really good that everyone’s getting involved in it,” because “we all consume porn.”
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Marston has big plans for ROOM 11, as he hopes to drive the platform into the future and deliver on intimacy in a way other platforms can’t. “We’re implementing a phone call system, so you can talk to your favorite creator and have a safe space for creators to talk to their fans,” he says. While this is reminiscent of adult phone chat lines that were popular in the ’80s and ’90s, Marston wants the company to take it even further. He references the futuristic connection showcased in the film, Her, and describes a tiered system of monthly pricing that gives clients closer access to creators. Whether it’s a sensory bracelet that allows a client to send pulses to a creator, an ability for a client to change the lights and music in the creator’s environment, or, as one of the most expensive offerings, paying the creator to control a sex toy connected to the client. “I think it offers a niche that isn’t being filled by OnlyFans” or other platforms, he explains. “The goal is for high-paying clients to have a closer, one-on-one relationship with their favorite Creator.”
And for a creator like Marston, it’s important that he vibes with the client, beyond the transaction. “I can think of one [client], and there’s a genuine relationship there,” he says. “I don’t track how much he purchases my content or how much he’s spending. I just like talking to him. And I noticed that with the best creators, they just care about the deep relationships. ‘How were the video games you played today? Or did you watch the NFL game?’ is more interactive for everyone than it is trying to hustle someone.”
