Look, let’s all just be honest here.
When you see a star athlete, a movie star, or a beautiful heiress has made headlines because of a sex tape, you know curiosity is piqued across the masses.
Hence their popularity.
Related: Internet Reacts To Alleged A$AP Rocky Sex Tape
Leaks of brief videos of stars in flagrante delicto still spread like wildfire across the Internet. Whether genuinely sexy — or just funny or even sad — they’re nearly impossible to keep a lid on. They can ruin careers or boost them. They’re legitimately an important x factor in the world of pop culture.
Quite a few stars have done them over the years. Some of these you may have forgotten, some may really surprise you! Here are some of the biggest celeb sex tapes out there…
Paris Hilton
In 2003, a sex tape featuring Paris Hilton and then-boyfriend Rick Salomon leaked online, and it would open the floodgates for years — largely because a lot of people in the industry saw it as great publicity as it leaked right before the premiere of her upcoming reality show, The Simple Life.
Rick filmed it and subsequently distributed it under the title One Night In Paris, and it was a huge hit in adult video stores, which were a thing back then. Seriously, people bought this on DVD. People actually thought of Paris as a porn star for years — even though she fought to stop the tape’s release.
Paris sued, but believe it or not the lawsuit was actually thrown out of court! Inneresting, considering by today’s standards this would probably qualify as a violation of revenge porn laws. Ultimately Rick agreed to pay Paris $400,000 plus a cut of the profit on the back end (no pun intended), but she later claimed she “never made a dime” on it. Hmm…
Kim Kardashian West
Just a few short years after her friend’s sex tape made headlines and (probably) gave her reality show a much bigger launch than it would have gotten otherwise, Kim Kardashian ALSO had a sex tape leak right before Keeping Up With The Kardashians premiered in 2007. Darn the luck, right?
In this case it was a tape she had apparently made years earlier in 2002 with then-boyfriend Ray J. But this time it was not Ray J who leaked the video — or profited from it.
Like BFF Paris, Kim sued Vivid Entertainment over the release of Kim Kardashian, Superstar (seriously? that’s the best they could do?) but then settled for a reported $5 million — in a deal which gave her consent to the tape’s release.
That deal — plus the timing — has led people to believe for years this was a calculated move on Kim’s part. Or perhaps even on momager Kris Jenner‘s, as she is usually credited in speculation as the mastermind behind it all. If it was indeed a scheme, it worked like gangbusters. KUWTK became a huge hit for years afterward, and the Kardashians built an empire off their fame. Hell, even Kylie is a billionaire now.
Colin Farrell
A few years after Paris, Colin Farrell was put into a similar situation when a sex tape he filmed with then-girlfriend Nicole Narain was released on the Internet.
Colin sued Nicole, claiming the Playboy model had sold it out of spite, to damage his career and make a few bucks in the process.
Nicole denied being behind the tape’s release but settled out of court with Colin for an undisclosed sum. His lawsuit against the company which released the video was also settled amicably.
Colin has shown a lot of good humor in the years since, as he’s become known as less of a party boy and more of a family man. On a 2013 episode of The Graham Norton Show, he joked:
“The worst thing about making a sex tape is you can’t blame anyone for the bad dialogue.”
Ha!
Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee
In the world of celeb sex tapes, Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee‘s is actually one of the earliest.
But even back in the Internet’s early awkward teen years in the mid ’90s, there was no way a video of Baywatch‘s biggest breakout star having sex with the infamously well-hung drummer from Motley Crüe wasn’t going viral.
The tape was apparently a home movie that was physically stolen from the married couple’s home then released online by a company called the Internet Entertainment Group. Pam and Tommy sued, ultimately settling for an undisclosed sum which allowed the vid to stay on the ‘net.
Innerestingly, a decade later Pam ended up marrying Rick Salomon, the man who sold his sex tape with Paris Hilton. Small world. Or maybe it just seems that way next to Tommy Lee’s penis.
A$AP Rocky
In a very recent sex tape leak, a video allegedly shot by A$AP Rocky showing him having sex with an unidentified woman surfaced on Pornhub in December 2019, just a month after he was name-dropped in Donald Trump impeachment testimony.
Man, he had a weird year.
We’ll have to see how it ultimately affects his career, but one would have a hard time arguing A$AP plotted for this to boost his career. For all his talk of constant sex and orgies and dating famous models, fans actually voiced a great disappointment in the footage.
Just another example of overhype hurting the reception, we guess.
Tonya Harding
Talk about the early days of celeb sex tapes!
In 1994, at the height of her ignominy, Tonya Harding released a sex tape with then-husband Jeff Gillooly. The tape was made in 1990, apparently on their wedding night. Classy.
Innerestingly, this one wasn’t stolen or leaked. No, Jeff and Tonya sold the video to Penthouse, apparently getting $200,000 each. The Olympic figure skater was already the most hated woman in America after becoming infamously embroiled in a plot with Gillooly to hire someone to bash rival Nancy Kerrigan‘s knee. We guess she figured why not?
Oh, and Margot Robbie did not portray that part of the saga in the film…
Eric Dane and Rebecca Gayheart
While the Eric Dane and Rebecca Gayheart sex tape doesn’t feature any actual sex per se — just all the naked pre- and post-coital moments in the hot tub, etc. — it is pretty McSteamy in its own way.
See, this was the tape that showed what the Grey’s Anatomy doc and the Jawbreaker star were into in the bedroom — and that was having a third person!
The video also featured Kari Ann Peniche, the former Miss United States Teen who had infamously been stripped (pun intended) of her title after appearing in Playboy.
Rumor has it the tape was leaked by country singer Mindy McCready, who had a feud with Peniche when they were both on Celebrity Rehab.
Hulk Hogan
Who would have thought the most destructive sex tape of the decade would feature the star of Suburban Commando??
In 2012, a video surfaced featuring Terry Bollea, aka Hulk Hogan, having sex with the wife of his friend, Bubba the Love Sponge, who was in the next room the whole time.
The Hulkster sued Gawker, who published the video, saying it was an in invasion of privacy and was “humiliating” — and he wasn’t wrong. He claimed Bubba filmed it without his knowledge, which totally tracks — considering the star isn’t exactly playing it up for the camera, taking a phone call and complaining about the meal he ate beforehand. Ultimately the most harmful part to his career was the fact he casually used racial epithets when he didn’t know he was being filmed — which ended up getting him fired from the WWE. Not to mention, Hogan’s public persona was forever tainted. He won his lawsuit in 2016 and was awarded a whopping $115 million by the jury, an amount which effectively bankrupted and killed one of the most popular websites of its time.
Jennifer Lopez
This one is unique in that it has not been leaked, stolen, or sold. It hasn’t even come out.
No, despite no one ever having actually seen it, the existence of the Jennifer Lopez sex tape is well-documented. And we mean that in its strictest sense — it’s in legal documents.
Apparently J.Lo and her first husband, Ojani Noa, filmed it during their honeymoon. And years later, after she went from being a promising starlet to an international superstar, it was Noa who tried to release it.
The Cuban waiter-turned-restaurateur apparently shopped it around for a bit, with TMZ reporting porn companies were in a bidding war over the rights. However, Jennifer’s legal team blocked it, arguing the release of private video of her was a violation of the confidentiality agreement he signed as part of their 1998 divorce settlement.
This fight has gone on for years, but her crack legal team have been surprisingly successful in keeping the video, which reportedly also includes plenty of non-sexual home video footage of vintage ’90s J.Lo and is even tentatively titled the incredibly unsexy How I Married Jennifer Lopez: The JLO and Ojani Noa Story, from reaching the public.
Time will tell if it ever sees the light of day.
[Image via Cousart/JFXimages/Jaime Espinoza/WENN/Avalon.]
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