Hefner says children delayed divorce

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Playboy founder Hugh Hefner, second from left, poses for a photo with director Brigette Berman, second from right, and three companions ahead of the screening of the film "Hugh Hefner: Playboy, Activist and Rebel". Photo by AP.

Hugh Hefner said he waited more than ten years to complete his divorce "because of the children."

"I stayed married not because it was a marriage - the marriage ended in 1998," he said.

"I stayed because she wanted me to."

But now his twin boys are turning 18, so the 83-year-old Playboy magazine founder says, "Now is the time."

On Friday, Hefner filed for divorce from former Playmate of the Year, Kimberly Conrad Hefner. The couple married in 1989, and were legally separated in 1998. Since then, Hefner lived with three girlfriends at the Playboy Mansion. That relationship was documented on the E! Reality show The Girls Next Door.

Hefner made the comments at the premiere of his documentary, Hugh Hefner: Playboy Activist and Rebel, at the Toronto International Film Festival.

At the premiere, Hefner described himself as "a died-in-the-heart romantic who played some part in the changing social sexual values of his time."

But the film shows a different side of him. Directed by Academy Award winner Brigitte Berman, she chooses to depict the making of the man and his stance as activist and humanitarian. The film opens in North America in the spring of 2010.