WITH their model looks and stunning figures the young women giggling around the swimming pool and partying with champagne looked like they were having the time of their lives.
But this reality TV hit was no .
The gloss and glamour of Cathouse, which aired from 2005 to 2014, hid a dark reality and the pink-painted paradise in the sunshine was actually a legalised brothel in called
For girls like Dolly Hart, who grew up watching Cathouse, the intoxicating picture seved as a recruitment ad.
“Around the time that I caught a glimpse of the show, I was probably 11, 12,”; she says. “The girls looked like they were having fun.
“There was a camaraderie amongst them. It seemed like you could make friends there. I was thinking, when I grow up I’m going to go there.”;
In the six-part , Secrets of Bunny Ranch, former employees reveal the truth behind glossy image promoted by publicity hungry owner, in the show, claiming bullying, humiliation and sexual assault were the norm and that they felt trapped.
“I saw the velvet couch, the pink on TV and thought it was so cute,”; says Dolly.
“I was having trouble making friends as a first generation little Mexican girl, getting bullied and being labelled the ugly duckling.
“I didn’t come from a privileged background and I saw these girls making on the show and thought, ‘Let’s go for it.’
“The Cathouse made it seem like it was the mansion with bunny playmates playfully jumping on each other and tickle fighting. But it was nothing like that.
who knew who he could coerce and manipulate. The last time he propositioned me for sex was at his birthday party.
“He expected me to have a threesome with him and this other girl. I asked if I would be paid and he said no, it’s my birthday. I refused.”;
Hof, born in Phoenix, Arizona in 1946, made good money selling time-shares before turning that knowledge to buying and transforming The Bunny Ranch, taking prostitution out of the shadows and into the mainstream with his flair for publicity.
TV and radio interviews led to the reality series Cathouse where everything at the brothel appeared to be professional and fun with the women treated fairly and respectfully by Hof, who the girls called ‘Daddy.’
“I’m a businessman who supplies a place and an opportunity for ladies to work and we share the proceeds,”; Hof liked to claim. “The last thing I am is a pimp.”;
Easy prey
Shelly Dushell, who began working there at the age of 30 after her house was destroyed by a tornado and she had divorced her husband, has a very different view.
“I saw the ugly side of Dennis but the world on Cathouse only saw the fun side of him because they didn’t know the real Dennis. He was all about being violent.”;
After hearing Hof and one of his favourite girls at the ranch – known as Air Force Amy – talking about the Shelly decided to apply.
“I sent an email with a picture of myself to the ranch and himself called me back within two hours and said, ‘I want you out here.’
“I flew out and he picked me up at the airport and he told me that HBO was doing a show and he wanted me to be part of it.
“He walked me in and there were cameramen filming there. Dennis took me out to the bungalow behind the building and wanted sex.
He didn’t want to wear a condom. I was absolutely horrified.
Shelly Dushell
“That was my first day at the ranch. I was afraid to tell Dennis no. No one cares if a prostitute gets raped.
“Dennis preyed upon the women that were the most easily victimised. I was afraid to not go along with what he wanted.
“It was hard for me to resist Dennis in the first couple of years that I was there.
“He liked that power and control over the girls and he was very violent when he had sex. He liked to slap and choke. It was hard to get him to stop.”;
Former Bunny Ranch cashier, Shonda, says: “Dennis had a very active with the working girls.
“There were girls who would offer themselves to him and there were girls who didn’t want to sleep with him but felt they had to.
“He had a great presence on TV but behind closed doors, Dennis was a rattlesnake.”;
‘Recruitment’ ad for young girls
A regular feature of the show saw the women happily running into the parlour whenever the bell rang, signifying a customer had arrived.
There they would line up while he chose who he wanted. But their smiles hid their humiliation. This ‘unscripted’ was very much not that.
“It wasn’t a documentary. We were told what to do,”; says Shelly, who claims she was paid $300 dollars for onscreen sex scenes and nothin for non sex scenes.
“The Cathouse show was set up. In the first scene I did they wanted the women to sit down with a bunch of clients, teaching them about good sex.
“But one of the men was not a client. I recognised him as Jesse Fillmer, a driver and bartender at the Ranch.”;
Jesse confirms: “Everyone in the scene who was supposed to be a customer were actually friends of Dennis or people who worked at the Ranch.
“The Cathouse was just basically a promotional video for the Bunny Ranch.”;
Shelly regrets being part of the fake image that encouraged young girls to be a part of the
“HBO definitely wanted it to look like it was a fun place to be and so I can see where it can be tempting for a young girl to watch the Cathouse show and think it would be something fun,”; she says.
“But they don’t understand the reality of it. They aren’t seeing what it is really like behind closed doors with Dennis.
“I didn’t know that young girls would come to work there who would never have thought of working there if they had not seen the show.
“So, looking back, I should never have agreed to do it. It’s just horrifying to think that girls so young would want to do that.”;
Deep regrets
Tom Hurwitz, Cathouse cinematographer, also came to regret his involvement.
“Over the weeks that I worked there I realised thatnever really wanted to dip further than just below the first public relations level.
“Dennis groping people was a daily occurrence, and they pretended to like it,”; he says.
“After the first season of Cathouse had been on the air, young women wanted to live in the glamorous image of it.
“And so the show began to attract younger women to the Bunny Ranch.
“It became clear to me that we were part of the recruiting system and I did not feel good about it.”;
Another of these starry-eyed ‘wannabes’ was Alice Little.
“Seeing something that was on late at night that my parents didn’t really want me to watch... as a kid that only makes you more intrigued,”; she recalls.
“They would go to bed and I would sneak out of my room, go downstairs and watch with the volume turned down low.
“I thought it was the coolest thing, being paid to be gorgeous. It sounded amazing. So I decided I was going to go the Bunny Ranch.”;
As Cathouse became a huge hit, Hof was raking the money in and bought up a string of brothels nearby, transforming them into the model of the Bunny Ranch.
But he was eager to tell interviewers that he offered women the chance to earn a good living themselves.
“This is an opportunity for you either to make a lot of money in four or five years, invest it properly and never work another day in your life or to make a good amount of money in a short period of time every month so you can be with your kids and work on your writing or acting career or your studies,”; he said.
had a 50-50 split of profits with the women but they would had little left after being forced to pay for their accommodation along with laundry bills, clothes, make-up, condoms, lube and other subsidiaries.
If they went days without being chosen by a client, their debts grew so many were constantly trying to pay off their tabs, effectively keeping them trapped there, as they couldn’t walk away.
Wheel of doom
Taina Bien-Aime was a former HBO Business Affairs Director before becoming an anti-sex trafficking activist.
“Cathouse was glamorising the ”; she says. “It was not looking at the suffering of the women who are in these brothels.
“On screen there is free-flowing alcohol, they are having fun, everybody’s laughing, there’s a pool. It’s a beautiful marketing ploy to recruit young vulnerable women to try it out.
“It’s a myth that they can become millionaires. And the moment they leave prostitution they are in abject poverty and it’s very difficult for them to rebuild their lives without extensive medical, psychological and psychiatric assistance.”;
Rape claims
Bekah Charleston, who worked at the Bunny Ranch, adds: “There are many girls there who are falling into debt. And that’s a position you don’t want ever to be in at the brothel.
“Because that means that whenever a customer finally does pick them, they have to do whatever he wants. No matter if they want to or not.
“Dennis himself was notorious for ‘partying’, which meant having sex with whoever he wanted and not giving them any money. Whenever he was around in the parlour I would try to stay away from him.”;
Bekah was there when Vince Neil, lead singer of the heavy metal band, Motley Crue, came to visit Dennis in 2003.
He was more angry than I had ever seen someone
Andrea Terry
Andrea Terry, a working girl at the Ranch, later filed a police report after an encounter with him.
In the report she says, “He tried to get me to touch his penis. I reminded him we had to pay before any sexual acts could take place.
“With such a rage in his eyes he grabbed me by the throat and pushed me against the window frame, holding me there, yelling at me, then yanked me down towards the bed. He was more angry than I had ever seen someone.”;
Bekah was upset by Hof’s reaction to the violence.
“Instead of Dennis Hof kicking Vince Neil out for assaulting one of his employees, he took him to the bar, bought him a drink and then paid for him to party with some other girl. I mean, they don’t protect you.
“In the end, the police actually charged Vince Neil and he pleaded no contest but if Dennis Hof had had his way, no one would have ever known.”;
Hof died in 2018 of a heart attack. Before his death several women who had worked at the Bunny Ranch accused him of rape, including Theresa Lowe and Jennifer O’Kane.
He denied their allegations and never faced any charges,with authorities citing a lack of evidence.
Vince Neil, The Bunny Ranch and HBO did not respond to the producer’s request for comment.
Secrets of the Bunny Ranch, can be seen on Crime+Investigation on Wednesday, 25 June
