Meet Cooper Hefner, Hugh Hefner's Youngest Son

During his 91 years on Earth, Hugh Hefner established a media empire and lived a life of luxury, frivolity, and controversy at the infamous Playboy Mansion. Now, Hugh's youngest son, Cooper Hefner, has been trying to reestablish his family's legacy and attempting to bring Playboy, the groundbreaking and envelope-pushing adult magazine his father created and championed in 1953, back into the family's control. In October 2024, Cooper publicly formally offered a $100 million bid on behalf of his investment firm, Hefner Capital, to buy Playboy Enterprises from PLBY Group, a publicly traded media company that now belongs to an acquisition company, Mountain Crest Acquisition Corp.

While Cooper's bid for PLBY Group was rejected by a unanimous vote held by the company's board of directors just days later, the surprising takeover attempt did bring Cooper back into the spotlight as the scion of the Hefner family. Born in 1991, Cooper is Hugh's second son with ex-wife Kimberly Conrad, after they welcomed son Marston in 1990. Hugh also shared two children with his first wife, Mildred, including daughter Christie, born in 1952, and son David, born in 1955, marking a four-decade age gap between the late media mogul's kids.

Cooper began working for Playboy Enterprises while attending Chapman University, where he graduated in 2015. His time at the media company was tumultuous, and he briefly left in 2016 over disagreements with the then-CEO. However, later that year, he returned to the board and was named Chief Creative Officer, where he attempted to guide the magazine back to its roots as a sophisticated gentleman's publication. However, fate and the machinery of capitalism had other plans.

Speaking with The Hundreds in June 2018, Cooper Hefner opened up about following in his father's footsteps and carrying on the legacy of Playboy. "For me, it was learning about the past and learning about what made Playboy iconic and matter to generations before mine," Cooper shared. "I became really interested in helping guide the company back to that." While Cooper was able to help the publication bounce back, he wound up leaving to start his own company, the Hefner Media Corporation, along with a website he planned to call HefPost.

As Cooper revealed on Instagram in July 2019, "We ran into issues with HefPost due to HuffPost... We have finally landed on a new name. We look forward to introducing Stag Daily in the months ahead." Although, the months ahead actually saw Cooper move in a very different direction. In November 2019, Cooper tied the knot with his longtime love, "Harry Potter" actress Scarlett Byrne. The following month, Cooper announced he was enlisting in the United States Air Force. "I informed leadership and financiers of Stag and Hefner Media Corporation I would be stepping back from focusing on launching a new company and stepping towards greater service to community and country," Cooper shared on X (formerly Twitter).

In 2020, Cooper changed tracks yet again and announced he was running for a seat in the California Senate, for the state's 30th district. "I really don't understand how you can wake up every day and see the challenges that we're facing in the world and not ask yourself what more you can do," Hefner told CNN at the time. However, four months later, Cooper had to suspend his campaign due to his commitment to the USAF reserves.