Don Cornelius, the creator of the television show ‘Soul Train’ who died in 2012, has been accused of sexually assaulting two young Playboy bunnies decades ago.

The allegations were made by former ‘bunny mother’ P.J. Masten during Monday’s episode of the A&E documentary series Secrets of Playboy.

“It was probably the most horrific story I’ve ever heard at Playboy. This story is the story of a massive cleanup that never hit the press,” Masten said.

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She said that one night at a Hollywood dance bar, Cornelius spotted two new women and invited them to join him in the bar’s VIP area. He then allegedly told them that he will be throwing a party at his home and asked the two if they wanted to go back to his residence with him. The women were sisters. 

“These two young girls got in his Rolls-Royce, went up to his house and we didn’t hear from them for three days. We couldn’t figure out where they were,” Masten alleged. 

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Three days later, one of the girls called a “bunny mother” at the Playboy Mansion and said that they had been held at Cornelius’ house. Joe Piastro, Playboy’s head of security, then went to his home to pick them up and found them “bloodied, battered [and] drugged,” Masten alleged. 

“They were tied up and bound. There were wooden objects that they were sodomized with and [one sister] could hear [the] other sister being brutalized. It was horrible, horrible,” Masten alleged. 

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Who was Don Cornelius?

Born in Chicago in 1936, Don Cornelius was the creator of the popular dance and music show ‘Soul Train’, which he hosted from 1971 until 1993. The show provided a platform for Black musicians to reach mainstream audiences and helped artists like Michael Jackson gain exposure. 

He died by suicide on February 1, 2012. Authorities said he was found with a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head at his home in Los Angeles. 

His son said at the time that Cornelius was experiencing seizures for over a decade and suffering “extreme pain.”