Two weeks ago today I published a guest post by Madison Graham; if you haven’t read it yet, you should do so before proceeding with this one. I’ve never published a rebuttal to a guest column before, because no one has ever asked me to; however, since the writer of this one, Christina Parreira, is a previous guest columnist herself who is knowledgeable on this subject, I saw no reason to decline her request. In the future, I will entertain submissions for rebuttals or responses as long as A) I have reason to believe the respondent knows what she’s talking about; B) the response stays cordial and mostly factual, without opinions clearly expressed as such; and C) the response is submitted in a timely manner, so that I can publish it in the same month as the original if possible.
Since I’m writing this in response to Madison’s article, I think it is important for readers to know how I came to know of Madison, aka DeAnne Holiday (this is not an outing- she uses both names on her Twitter handle). Approximately 8 months ago, she angrily messaged me on Twitter over something I had tweeted. I asked management who she was; I was told that she was a former working girl but was not able to book clients, so they gave her a job as publicist so that she could earn a living. Hence, her Twitter handle of “Angry Publicist”, and she is certainly angry; I do not claim to know why she was let go from the ranch, but I do know that her Twitter feed is a constant and vitriolic campaign against Hof and his working girls. She is constantly making fun of girls who work for Hof (including jabs at their appearance and disparaging comments about “illegal” work). She has made remarks about my own life ending soon, even going so far as to claim that I deserve to be strangled. She accuses Hof of being a rapist and pedophile. She calls one of the women at Sagebrush a “stupid lazy bitch.” These are not opinions of mine, but mere facts that can be confirmed by reading her page. (Note from Maggie: her Twitter account was suspended sometime between writing & publication of this column.)
Now, onto her article about Hof and the Odom incident. It rests on the premise that Hof was the one who called TMZ- this is in the absence of proof. Nobody actually knows who called TMZ, period. Also, I’m skeptical of the notion that a man is afforded secrecy when he himself has brought illicit drugs into a legal place of business, and then gets rolled out in an ambulance! What is a business owner supposed to say when this happens? Nothing? Madison states that Lamar will never again get an endorsement deal; this is simply mere speculation. She also slams Hof for “taking advantage” of the publicity, but it sought him. Odom almost died at his brothel; that was not a story Hof needed to call the press over! They were knocking down his door.
Next, she addresses drugs in the brothels, saying she has she’s never seen so many addicts since working in legal brothels, and claiming that women are allowed to continue working with drugs in the house. I myself have seen drugs in the house; it happens, though not as often as Madison would have you believe (although this is just from my own personal experience). I have also seen those same girls get fired once it was confirmed that they were using. She claims they are told to pack up and go to rehab. In reality, many are fired and never heard of again, while others (my guess is those that have been around a long time and are part of the family, so to speak) have been sent to rehab by Hof himself. He has told me stories of paying for rehab in hopes that some of these women would stop using. I think that’s very kind, but let’s not stray too much into opinion-land; let us get back to my observations. As far as girls too drunk to work, I have never personally seen this, but I imagine it does happen. What I have seen is girls get cut off before they begin to overdo it, and I remember one woman in particular who had an alcohol problem and was not served alcohol; she was not allowed to drink in the brothel or bring liquor in. This may seem punitive to some, but it is a place of businesses and she would become unmanageable drunk (from what I heard). I never saw her drunk behavior, but I did work with her during her drinking ban.
Most of the article is Madison giving her opinions, “he has no empathy,” etc. This is simply straying from facts; did he in fact call TMZ? The legitimacy of the piece rests on the notion that he did, but that is something we will never know. What I do know is that Odom brought the drugs himself, and that Nye county is not pressing charges. By the way, did you know that money from the brothel licenses of Hof’s houses in Nye county go towards maintaining the EMS services which showed up to help Odom? But what about publicity stunts like Hookers for Hillary? I agree that was clearly a PR stunt for attention, but remember that Nevada brothels aren’t allowed to advertise by traditional means. As Hof said to Bill Higgins in the book Nevada Rose: Inside the American Brothel, “I’m over the top, I’m a media whore. What else can you do when your business can’t advertise?”
