Hugh Hefner’s three ex-girlfriends all showed up to help the aging men’s magazine magnate celebrate his 83rd birthday this weekend in Las Vegas. His former number one girlfriend, Holly Madison, confirmed that she hasn’t seen Hef since their split, and also added a little detail that made it seem like obligations to her reality show also motivated her appearance. Madison said that it was her “first time filming ‘Girls Next Door’ as a single lady,” so I guess we know why she showed up. Kendra Wilkinson and Bridget Marquardt were also there with their boyfriends:

The American Country Music Awards certainly brought a lot of extra buzz to Las Vegas over the weekend, but what really had temperatures soaring was Hugh Hefner’s 83rd Birthday at the Palms Resort & Casino. The festivities kicked off Saturday afternoon with a Palms Place pool party, hosted by (wait for it) Hef’s former flame, Holly Madison.

“I haven’t seen him since I left the mansion,” Madison told Tarts before his arrival. “And it is my first time filming “Girls Next Door” as a single lady so that’s exciting.”

But Madison wasn’t the only ex girlfriend who came to celebrate the special day, surprisingly Kendra Wilkinson and Bridget Marquardt also strutted in (with their new lovers) to help Hef and his three new leading ladies Crystal Harris, Karissa Shannon & Kristina Shannon spice up Sin City and the birthday boy couldn’t have been more beside himself.

“As you can tell I am very, very happy. To celebrate my birthday with new girlfriends and former girlfriends is perfect, its wonderful,” he said. “I’ve had a life well-lived with so much satisfaction, I enjoy just looking back.”

(Speaking of which, we couldn’t help but keep a close eye on how the new and the old bonded and while chances are they probably aren’t necessarily BFFs, things appeared to be very civil and no claws came out!)

However when we asked what Madison missed most about mansion life her response was a love affair of a different kind.

“The zoo, the mansion has a fantastic zoo with birds and monkeys — I used to work in the zoo a lot and was really close to the zoo staff,” she said. “I fancied myself as an amateur zoologist.”

[From FoxNews]

Holly was the third contestant voted off “Dancing with the Stars” this season on March 31 in a double elimination. She told Fox that she’s ruled out appearing nude again and that her next career move is a reality show she’s developing “about me and my friends here in Vegas.”

There are also some quotes from Kendra, who said she won’t do another nude spread unless her fiance shoots it for her. Bridget Marquardt provided some sexy entertainment by singing happy birthday to Hef Marilyn-style. Last year Pamela Anderson came in topless to serve Hefner his birthday cake.

Interesting that the article barely mentions the new trio of bland way too-young girlfriends, 19 year-old toker twins Karissa and Kristina Shannon, and 22 year-old San Diego State coed Crystal Harris. People don’t know them yet so there’s not much interest in them, but they’re also incredibly boring compared to Hef’s last three girlfriends. In an E! interview I saw of them all in January, Crystal seemed kind of dumb while the twins just sat there giggling idiotically. No wonder the reality show will continue to feature Holly, Bridget and Kendra. There’s only so much mileage they can get out of the “creepy old dude with barely legal girlfriends” angle.

Hugh, Bridget and Kendra are shown at a party for Bridget’s show “Bridget’s sexiest beaches” on 3/11/09. Credit: Mavrixonline. He is shown with his current girlfriends on 3/21/09. Credit: WENN.com. The exes are also shown in September, 2008, Credit: PRPhotos

Hugh Hefner, 82, and his official three new girlfriends, 19 year-old twin sisters Karissa and Kristina Shannon, and 22 year-old San Diego State coed Crystal Harris, sat down for an interview with E!. Throughout the interview, the Playboy patriarch had his arms across all three of the young women’s laps, rubbing and caressing a knee on each side.

Despite the age difference, Hef and his last girlfriend triangle kind of made sense to me, probably because we had a chance to get used to Holly, Bridget and Kendra and they stuck around for years. They had strong, likable personalities and you could see they genuinely cared for Hef. These girls just seem too young and opportunistic and the creepiness factor is about ten fold considering that Hef is probably getting busy with all three of them instead of just Holly. Plus they’re kind of boring. Crystal is nice and seems like the “smarter” one, but she’s the only one who talked and she’s not that interesting. The twins just sat there smiling and laughing too loudly at points.

On why he got new girlfriends
Well, the old ones all left

On how he met the twins
They were already scheduled to be playmates and I had met them, and I heard a rumor that they were interested in being girlfriends. So I dropped them a note and said if they were serious… we would talk about it. They showed up about two weeks after I hit that speedbump and knew that I was going to be separating from Holly.

On the twins felony record
They arrived with a reputation supposedly of bad girls from Florida. If they were bad girls they wouldn’t be here. They’re very nice girls.

Crystal on how she learned she was becoming a girlfriend
Hef asked me to be a girlfriend after we were hanging out for a little over a month. I didn’t hesitate, I just got all my stuff and moved on in.

On meeting co-ed Crystal
I met her at a Halloween party.

Crystal on sharing Hef
It works out pretty well, we all bring different aspects to the relationship… they’re the party ones, I’m the sturdier [one].

Crystal on meeting the last girlfriends
I met Bridget and Kendra, but I never met Holly… I really like Kendra, and her fiance’s really nice.

On if Holly ever had a chance to marry him
If the time frame had been different, she had a very good chance… It has to do with timing. I’ve been married twice, those were not the happiest times of my lives.

[Transcribed from Hefner's interview with E!, video above]

The most telling part of this interview comes at the end when Hef explains that he lost his last girlfriends because they started to grow and branch out in their careers. It makes sense that he’d pick much younger women because they’re more dependent on him and will presumably stick around for a while.

On the biggest difference between these women and his last set of girlfriends
Well they’re younger, and remember the other relationships… I was at 7 or 8 years, so we’d been together a long time. The girls had become celebrities. The girls had their own particular interests and career aspirations and I think the pursuit of all that kind of separated us in terms of where the relationships were to begin with.

This is the beginning again. There’s nothing more exciting than the beginning of a romantic relationship, and this is the best.

In November, a picture came out of Hefner making out with an unknown blond woman at his Halloween party. It’s either one of the twins or Crystal, it’s hard to tell. Either way, it doesn’t seem like it’s all for show and there’s definitely some kind of “romance” involved.

Overall I got the impression that the Girls Next Door 2.0 are younger, blander replacements that make Hef happy by serving as eye candy and doing their duties in the bedroom. It’s kind of what everyone assumed about the last women at first, but the public warmed up to them, partly because we weren’t confronted with the sex factor and could kind of push that to the back of our minds once we got to know them through the show. We’ll have to see if these younger women are capable of winning people over, but maybe they don’t have to and people will watch the new Girls Next Door just because it’s an 82 year-old guy doing the deed with women young enough to be his great granddaughters. That’s interesting in a trainwreck way, even if the women are not.

19 year-old ex-felon twins Karissa and Kristina Shannon were the first of Hugh Hefner’s replacement girlfriends to step in when the Girls Next Door trio fell apart. While dark-haired January 2009 Playboy cover mode Dasha Astafieva was thought to be joining Hugh Hefner’s team of post-Girls Next Door replacement girlfriends, she has yet to officially join the crew. Ukranian-born Astafieva may have hurt her chances at a spot on the reality dream team by wearing a see-through knit dress with only a pair of thong underwear to a Playboy event and proceeding to remove the thong on the red carpet. Instead of Astafieva, who seems to have pissed off the competition, Hugh has a more typical third girlfriend. 22 year-old San Diego State coed Crystal Harris has announced that she’s officially in the mansion along with the Shannon Twins. From the way Harris words her introduction, she’s in on the decision making process as to who is allowed in the mansion and Astafieva may have stripped her way out of the blond clique:

Hugh Hefner has quietly added a new girlfriend to his posse. And she’s a “good girl.”

“I’m a good girl, for the most part,” new Hef gal pal Crystal Harris writes on her MySpace page.

The 22-year-old lesser-known girlfriend has frequently been photographed by the 82-year-old Playboy founder’s side, but never got a proper public introduction after former girlfriends Holly Madison, Bridget Marquardt and Kendra Wilkinson exited the Playboy Mansion.
Instead, fellow girlfriends – and 19-year-old twins – Karissa and Kristina Shannon nabbed headlines with their arrest records and, well, twindom, in the aftermath of the shake-up.

Harris introduced herself on an E! online message board over the holidays, telling fans that “Hef gave me permission to fill people in on the new updates as a voice from the mansion.”

No other girlfriends are in the mix at this time, she says, but “there are a couple that we have interest in. … As for now, it is just us three.”

Despite her low-key status, Harris already has a fan site, but seems to focus most of her attention on her MySpace page.

“I believe in opening your heart and letting your walls down, it is better to have loved and lost, than to never have loved at all,” Harris says on her site, which is peppered with Disney characters, cute animals, inspirational quotes and plenty of pink.

[From The NY Daily News]

According to the Daily News, Harris hasn’t yet appeared in the print version of Playboy. She was an online Co-Ed of the week under the name “Crystal Carter.” It’s unknown whether the series will continue on E! but you can bet they’re trying to plan for it with this latest girlfriend. You kind of hope there is a follow-up season in the works and that these super young girls aren’t just hanging around a guy old enough to be their great grandfather for the free publicity and perks that go along with “dating” him. They should at least get a show out of it.

I can’t help but wonder if any of these women actually do some kind of, you know, service for Hefner. You would hope they draw the line at heavy petting, but it’s doubtful. Maybe he just likes the company.

Pictures via Fox News and College OTR