Bridget Marquardt

Bridget Marquardt stated in the September 17, 2007 issue of ‘Star’ magazine, that she was married, but separated. She said that her husband supported her move to shift to Los Angeles to pursue a career. She also mentioned that although their divorce was in the process, they were still friends.

In late 2008, she began dating director Nicholas Carpenter, son of astronaut Scott Carpenter. In January 2009, she moved out of the Playboy Mansion to "become her own person." Marquardt and Nicholas moved into a house, which she had purchased in Sherman Oaks. They got engaged in 2015.

She had a Pekingese dog named Wednesday, or Winnie, and a black Persian cat named Gizmo.

Bridget Christina Sandmeier was born on September 25, 1973, in Tillamook, Oregon. After her birth, her family moved to California, where she was raised. Her parents divorced when she was in the fifth grade, and her mother remarried. She and her younger brother Edward then went to stay at their stepfather's ranch. Her half-sister Anastasia was born there.

For her freshman and sophomore years, she attended Galt High School. Later she was transferred to Lodi High School, from where she graduated in 1990.

She then earned an associate degree from San Joaquin Delta College. She later attended California State University, Sacramento, and graduated with a B.A degree in communications in 1998.

When her friends suggested that she pose for ‘Playboy’ magazine, Bridget Marquardt sent a letter to ‘Playboy,’ inquiring about the process to become a Playmate, a female model featured in the centerfold/gatefold of ‘Playboy’ magazine. In 1998, at the age of 25, she entered Playboy's Millennium Playmate search.

In 2001, she moved to Los Angeles, and took up some local modeling assignments and a few brief acting roles. She also appeared for Playboy tests, and after two unsuccessful ones, she was invited to the Playboy Mansion, the residence of the Playboy magazine founder Hugh Hefner. Soon she started visiting the Playboy Mansion regularly. After more than a year of visiting the Mansion, in October 2002, she was invited to become one of Hefner's girlfriends and move in the Mansion.

She also pursued a graduate level course in broadcast journalism through UCLA Extension while she was shooting for a reality TV show for Playboy. In 2001, she gained her master's degree in Communications from the University of the Pacific in Stockton, California.

In 2002, she appeared in an episode of ‘The Man Show’, an American comedy television, as one of Hefner's playmates. The following year, she was featured as Santa Fe Tart in ‘Intolerable Cruelty’, an American romantic comedy film, directed and co-written by Joel and Ethan Coen, and produced by Brian Grazer and the Coens.

In 2004, she appeared in the horror/comedy film ‘Kottentail’, in which she portrayed Scarlet Salenger, a scientist doing genetic research on rabbits.