Did Bob Guccione & Hugh Hefner Hate Each Other? (Pam & Tommy Fact Check)

Warning! SPOILERS for Pam & Tommy episode 5 ahead.

Pam & Tommy episode 5 introduced Penthouse’s Bob Guccione by having Sebastian Stan’s Tommy Lee suggesting Guccione would have done anything to get back at Hugh Hefner — but did Guccione and Hefner genuinely hate each other in real life? The episode explored the ulterior circulation of Pamela and Tommy’s honeymoon tape, which reached Penthouse founder Bob Guccione (Maxwell Caulfield). Lee seemed particularly upset by the news that the founder of Penthouse had gotten a hold of the video, as he was sure he would have published stills from the video to get back at his rival, Playboy owner Hugh Hefner (Mike Seely).

Heavily focusing on the safe’s theft and Pamela and Tommy’s relationship, Pam & Tommy episodes 1 to 3 kickstarted the story with their simultaneous release on February 2 on Hulu and Disney +. In its second half, Pam & Tommy finally began addressing how the distribution of the private tape influenced Pamela (Lily James) and Tommy’s lives in real life. Although Pamela had initially hoped that interest in the sex tape would eventually fizzle out, Pam & Tommy episode 5 made it clear that would’ve been impossible, especially after the two celebrities sued Penthouse.

As depicted in the series, Tommy feared that Guccione’s hate for Hugh Hefner would result in Penthouse publishing stills from the sex tape. As Tommy explained in Pam & Tommy episode 5, Pamela was “Hef’s golden girl, Ms. Playboy herself.” This detail is actually true to what happened in real life: The rivalry between Hefner and Guccione was only briefly mentioned in Pam & Tommy, but according to his son Bob Guccione Jr., the two were not only rivals but also wholly hated each other.

Playboy founder Hefner hated Guccione as he saw him as the usurper (via The Daily Beast), as Guccione started Penthouse in 1965 in Britain before coming back to the US in 1969. In a letter on Penthouse’s first American issue, Bob Guccione publicly shared his plan to take on a market where he believed Playboy had no competition up until that point. Despite succeeding in entering the American marketplace, Guccione hated Hefner because Penthouse never managed to fully replace Playboy in the American collective consciousness.

Pam & Tommy framed the Penthouse lawsuit retaliation by Guccione, who ended up printing stills from the tape in Penthouse, as an issue of free speech and First Amendment rights from the publisher’s point of view. Yet, publishing those stills marked a critical change for the magazine, as with those, Penthouse turned to more sexually explicit content in a bid to survive, as the rise of adult-entertainment websites threatened its existence. Despite trying to save the readership for many years, the magazine ended up filing for bankruptcy in 2013.

Guccione’s hate for Hefner became a force of habit, according to his son Guccione Jr., towards the end of his life. Still, Guccione and Hefner’s rivalry and mutual hate characterized the industry for many years while also pushing the two publishers to strive for greatness in business. It’s unclear whether Pam & Tommy will explore the rivalry in future episodes, but, as Seely is set to come back for episodes 6 and 7, viewers have surely not seen the last of his portrayal of Hefner.

Pam & Tommy releases new episodes every Wednesday on Hulu.

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