Hef Hurts Kendra Wilkinson's Feelings

Playboy legend Hugh Hefner has been caught telling a big fat fib to one of his girlfriends - by praising the author of an Elle magazine article instead of slamming her as he promised he would.

Kendra Wilkinson was furious when she read the profile of herself, Hefner and his other girlfriends, Bridget Marquardt and Holly Madison, in the June issue of Elle.

Writer Daphne Merkin focused the article on the foursome’s E! show, “The Girls Next Door.” But while the story and pictures were flattering overall, Wilkinson was hurt that she was described as “giving off a palpable air of anxiety.” Merkin also quoted Wilkinson as saying her fake breasts were “my best investment” and said the blonde referred constantly to her “slight acne.”

“I’m very insecure right now about my face,” Wilkinson told Merkin. “I get scared with Hef looking at me at the mansion and maybe thinking I’m ugly.”

Merkin also mentions Wilkinson’s “fleeting attention span,” her “dazed personality and limited vocabulary” and quotes Hefner describing Wilkinson’s “distinctly unintellectual charm” by mockingly saying, “Books? What books?”

Two weeks ago, Wilkinson went on “Larry King Live” with Hefner and the other girlfriends to discuss the E! show and said, “a magazine article that just came out . . . it hurt my feelings and it really, like, crushed my heart. And Hef being such a great guy, he said, ‘You know what, Kendra? I was going to write them a letter and say, like, how this is wrong.’ [The article] wasn’t really nice . . . People like to pick on me.”

Hefner then chimed in and said, “I think the writer really didn’t understand and didn’t really identify with [Wilkinson and Marquardt], you know?”

But that’s not what Hefner said in the letter he wrote to Merkin, Page Six has learned.

The letter said: “I just finished reading your article . . . and think it’s the best, most perceptive piece on the show to date . . . I hope you get a chance to do a longer story for the New York Times or The New Yorker.”

A rep for Hefner didn’t return e-mails.

(Via pagesix)