She may not have been in love with her ex-Playboy founder husband, but Crystal Hefner is more than in love with her new man, whom she met online just weeks after enjoying a brief romance with budding tennis champion Alex Kotzen.
DailyMail.com can reveal that Hugh Hefner’s widow, 37, is dating award-winning filmmaker Andrew D. Corkin, who has worked with some of Hollywood’s leading ladies, from Naomi Watts to Olivia Wilde.
Crystal, who was married to Hugh from 2012 until his death in 2017 aged 91, met the 38-year-old on an online dating website last year and was “immediately smitten”, according to a close friend.
“When Crystal met Andrew, she fell in love immediately,” they revealed. ‘Her chemistry was undeniable and they have been together ever since.
“They constantly make each other laugh and smile, which is really important.”
Crystal Hefner, 37, has found love again, with Hollywood producer Andrew D. Corkin
Crystal and Andrew met on an online dating site in the fall and are now exclusive.
They added: “Alex makes Crystal feel special and has been incredibly supportive of her during the recent release of her memoir.”
Crystal teased the new romance during an exclusive interview with DailyMail.com last month to promote her New York Times. Best seller, Only say good things: survive Playboy.
‘I have met someone who is “Wonderful, kind, thoughtful and normal,” he gushed. ‘That’s all. “It’s a beautiful relationship.”
And he added: “And he makes movies about tough women.”
Andrew, who has a son from a previous marriage, has worked on projects including Pepsi, Where’s My Jet (2022), A Vigilante (2018) starring Olivia and Lakewood (2017) starring Naomi.
Crystal revealed that she would like to have children of her own in the future, having previously frozen her eggs during her marriage to Hugh.
“I would love to have children,” she said. “I have frozen eggs.”
Her new romance came on the heels of her brief fling with Alex, a Columbia University graduate who was 14 years her junior. They were photographed together in October, a month after she quietly split from her boyfriend of two years, actor Ryan Malaty, 34.
The beloved duo (pictured during a recent boat trip) “constantly make each other laugh and smile, which is really important,” said a friend.
In January, Crystal gushed to DailyMail.com about her new romance, saying: “I’ve met someone who is wonderful, kind, loving and normal.”
Crystal did not date anyone in the immediate months after the death of her late husband, Hugh Hefner, who died at age 91 in 2017 (pictured together in 2014).
“Crystal ended her relationship with Ryan last month,” a source told DailyMail.com at the time. ‘Ryan just wasn’t like that and he was very friendly. They had simply grown in different directions and he wasn’t the one.
‘Alex is more of his sexy toy at the moment. She is not next to him. Crystal hasn’t been single since she met Hugh and is just having fun. Nobody hates her for that either. Go get it girl!’
Crystal also dated Nathan Levi in 2020, three years after Hugh’s death at the Playboy mansion in Holmby Hills, California. The couple had been married for five years and met in January 2009, when she was 23 and Hugh was 83.
Crystal wrote in her newly released memoir that she never believed Hugh was “the one” and admitted she was “never in love” with him.
When asked if she thought Hugh was in love with her, she told DailyMail.com: “I think he loved me in the best way he knew how.” I think he loved sex and he loved himself.
The blonde beauty divulged details about her sex life in the book, stating that it was never something that happened just between the two of them.
“I was afraid,” he wrote. He was used to a kind of spectacle, a kind of circus up there. So just me? That’s not enough.
‘There was nothing sexy about it. It was about power, control and influence. It was a performance. She was auditioning for a role.
Last year, Playboy’s stunning centerfold was having “fun” with budding tennis player Alex Kotzen, 23 (pictured together in Central Park).
For the previous two years, from September 2021 to September 2023, Crystal was in a relationship with actor Ryan Malaty, 32 (pictured here in 2021).
In September 2020, three years after Hef’s death, Crystal began dating space engineer Nathan Levi (pictured on a romantic vacation in Mexico).
Elsewhere in the book he claimed that Hugh enjoyed orgies with “at least five girls” at a time.
On a recent episode of her podcast Beneath The Surface With Crystal Hefner, she revealed that she felt “very restricted” during the decade she lived in the Playboy Mansion.
“My relationship and marriage to Hugh Hefner was very complicated,” she said. ‘Since his passing, I have had to do a lot of self-discovery. I have had to discover who I am without having it dictated to me. Not only did I have to find my voice, but I also had to learn how to use it.
“My book is a testament to the power of time, processing everything I’ve been through and embracing my truth.”