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Life After Playboy
A former centerfold discovered fulfillment helping Haiti's neediest children. Now she's ready to expose the evils of pornography.
Bob Liparulo
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Susie Krabacher's body has opened a lot of doors, not all of them to places she ought to have gone. One such place: Hugh Hefner's Playboy mansion, where she lived for a year and then visited frequently after her 1984 stint as a Playboy centerfold. Her season there and her journey out of that symbolic heart of hedonism to a Christian life of tireless giving have opened yet another door—this time not for her but for those who see only the airbrushed bodies of nude models and not the pain within them.
So forget the incomprehensible numbers—that pornography is an $8 billion-a-year industry and that 70 percent of all pornographic magazines end up in the hands of minors. Never mind, at least for now, the statistics that link pornography to violent crime and aggression toward women. Krabacher is neither a statistic nor incomprehensible. She is a charming woman, now 39, whose experience resides within her as a complex jumble of mixed emotions.
"The craziness of my time as a Playboy model," she says from her home in Aspen, Colorado, "the attention, the money, the betrayals, the compromises—all of it—led me to a real relationship with Christ. So I can't say I hate having gone through it. Do I wish I could have gotten to where I am today without taking off my clothes? Absolutely."
And where she is today is indeed an admirable place. She spends much of her time in Haiti as founding director of the Foundation for Worldwide Mercy and Sharing, which funds orphanages, clinics, schools, and hospital wards for needy children. "I call them my kids," she says. "All 1,658 of them."
So dedicated is she to alleviating the staggering poverty, hunger, and illness of these Haitian children, she regularly braves blistering swamps, infectious diseases, even machine-gun-toting gangs to deliver aid and lots of TLC. Her efforts have garnered national acclaim, including an article in People magazine, which called her a hero.
"The media goes, 'Hey, there's a Playboy Bunny doing charity work in Haiti. That's a story!' " she laughs. "The attention brings in contributions and volunteers. I see that as God using my past to make something good."
Innocence uncovered
Speaking of the past causes a subtle change in Krabacher's normally cheery voice, like the faintest chill that marks the end of summer. A bit of the warmth goes away.
From age 4 to age 8 her maternal grandfather sexually molested her. In addition, her parents were so repressively strict, especially about everything sexual, that when she experienced her first menstruation, she thought she was dying. At 15, she bolted from home, lying about her age to get an apartment and a job.
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