Original subtitles

The Pam and Tommy sex tape is the most famous,

the most important in the history of sex tapes.

A tape was stolen from Tommy Lee and myself.

We were told, "Put all your valuables In your safe."

And the safe was stolen.

So, somebody you trusted stole it from you?

-Well... -Of course.

"They're looking for you." It's all my fault.

If you have to be tough, if you have to fight, you do.

- Notorious video... - Infamous sex videotape.

We were told to just don't ask her about it.

I don't think you could be alive and conscious

without being familiar with that tape.

The media narrative was that she wanted to be doing this.

She's not a pornography star.

Well, it's stolen property, and everyone's making money off it.

Strangers deserved to see her naked body

because they had already seen her in "Playboy."

That looks like that would be awful hot.

Pamela Anderson was ripped to shreds

on late night talk shows.

You could have felt comfortable to dress more provocatively.

That sex tape became a financial revolution.

Became the best-selling porn ever.

I just feel apologetic for being involved in it.

They didn't believe that the internet was gonna be anything.

I'm probably the only person that hasn't seen the tape.

She had been this object of desire.

She had been this woman who was really celebrated

for the way she looked.

And then she was a joke.

In the '90s, the freedom of the self-expression

and, you know, just having a good time

and connecting with people, you know, listening

to good music and, yeah, that's what it was about.

The '90s, people just didn't give a [bleep].

Like, it was definitely a different kind of brashness

that was, like, taking over America.

People felt definitely more free to discuss sex.

[bleep] safe sex. Just do it.

Hell, Salt-N-Pepa made a song about it--

"Let's Talk About Sex," right?

♪ Let's talk about sex, baby

♪ Let's talk about you and me

♪ Let's talk about all the good things ♪

♪ And the bad things that may be ♪

Growing up as a kid in the '90s, America felt sex-obsessed.

You know?

Like, there was this fascination with sex,

but there was still a lot of shame around it.

So, you wanted to talk about people having sex,

and you wanted to know about people's sex lives,

but you also wanted to shame them for it,

and there were a lot of sex scandals.

I mean, even the President of the United States

was embroiled in a sex scandal.

I did not have sexual relations with that woman.

Hi. I'm Traci Bingham, the original "Baywatch" babe.

Boy, did I learn quickly.

I figured, sex sells in Hollywood,

so why not go for it?

In the '90s, "Baywatch"-- it was everything, huge.

♪ Some people stand in the darkness ♪

There was nothing bigger than "Baywatch"--

big boobs, big hair, you know?

You know, you had all these beautiful people

who had these gorgeous bodies who were saving lives.

Let's not forget this.

They're saving lives, people, every week.

I'm Nicole Eggert, and you probably know me

from "Baywatch," uh, 1992 to 1994.

"Baywatch," you know, for me, when I got involved with it,

I thought it was gonna be a lot more action-oriented.

- Thank you. Thank you. - You're welcome. You're welcome.

Stop it.

And so, like, I had really long blonde hair,

and I cut it off because I was like, you know,

at the beach, it would be so much easier to have short hair.

I didn't wear makeup.

And then out steps Pamela from the trailer,

and I was like... how's she gonna keep up that look?

When I auditioned to get this role on "Baywatch,"

I said, I'm gonna go there and give 'em

the Black Pamela Anderson.

Pamela Anderson in the '90s

represented sex appeal, energy.

When you look at Pamela,

you can't take your eyes off of her.

Pamela Anderson was the star of "Baywatch" for sure.

Sorry, David Hasselhoff.

Pamela Anderson was one

of the most iconic celebrities of the 1990s.

She's beautiful and also, like, funny and charming.

Like, she was everywhere, like, huge.

Pamela posed for "Playboy."

She's had over, what, 14, 15 covers?

-Pamela! -Pamela!

She was a cultural icon.

That's why when Tommy Lee and Pam Anderson got together,

it was like two humongous planets colliding.

Tommy Lee was a very successful rock star.

He was the drummer in the band Motley Crue.

You know, he sold, like,

20 million records before he was 30, 32.

He was kind of a bad boy.

You know, he was kind of like our stereotypical image

of a rock star in the '80s and '90s.

Sorry, Baywatchers, Pamela Anderson just became

Mrs. Tommy Lee.

Didn't you, uh, I thought you got married in a--in a--

in a--was it a white bikini? - In a white bikini.

Pam and Tommy getting together, it's like,

here you have your ultimate bad boy rocker

dating your "Playboy" Playmate of the Year,

"Baywatch" babe.

You know, they look like rocker Barbie and Ken.

So, Pam and Tommy bought this house in the hills in Malibu

and wanted to renovate it into their dream house.

Guerin Swing was a good friend of theirs,

and I know, uh, played a-- a big role in--

in a lot of the design on the house.

Um...

Hi. My name is Guerin Swing,

and I'm an artist/designer.

I've worked for Tommy and Pam

since the early '90s to currently,

and, uh, Tommy refers to me as his ninja.

If you need anything, just call Guerin.

How I got hired to work on the house is that--

- Yeah. -Excuse me, would you mind

pausing for a second 'cause-- - Oh, it's the gardener.

What day is it? It's Friday. They don't come

till the weekends. - Yeah.

You know, I'll tell him to go kick rocks, man.

Hey! Tell your guy

he's supposed to be on the weekends.

Huh?

He's supposed to be on the weekends. We're filming.

Anyways, he was over my-- my, uh, studio one night.

He's like, "Bro! Dude!"

He's like, "I got this new house,

and I want you to do, like, do, like, art in it,

and we're gonna make it so amazing," and I'm like, yeah!

And so, you know, and pretty much that was, like,

the basis of, like, Tommy and Pam and I.

We would go to my studio. Any ideas and fantasies,

we would just, like, talk about all night long.

"Baby, I wanna put a swing above the piano."

And he goes, "Awesome. Okay." Let's, like,

you know, we got Guerin to make a swing

with all this fabric and everything on it.

And then we wanna do a bed,

and this big bed, and it's got a mirror on top with fabric.

So, I had this whole wall of, like, craziness,

and this whole junk, um, drum that his friend Guerin made.

That's what I was hired for.

At the same time, Pam had brought her team in.

We were remodeling the house.

We were told by our construction company,

"Put all your valuables in your safe" in a big--

It's about the size of a refrigerator.

During the work, Pam and Tommy felt like

workers were taking advantage of them.

And then Tommy pretty much would vent,

you know, as a friend, and he'd be like,

"Man, these guys--I feel like I'm getting ripped off."

And I was like, "Tommy."

I'm like, "Just fire 'em. Just get rid of these guys.

My mom and dad are famous interior designers.

Why don't you come meet my mom and dad?

And if--if it's a good fit, we'll just fire everyone

and have them do--it's-- it's called a takeover."

I brought Tommy and Pam to my parents' house.

After the introduction, and we watched this video,

"Priscilla, Princess of the Desert."

This was really wild, and, like, we were probably

on Ecstasy at the time or something.

I'd like to return to the classics.

Like, me, Tommy, and Pam were, like, all high,

like, watching this video, and there's, like,

this guy, like, on a bus, and it just--

It was just everything. It was-- it was a really great time.

So, it was-- it was a good connection.

And so with that, you know,

I think he went back, and he just fired everyone.

Allegedly, Tommy Lee refused to pay them

the rest of the money they were owed

and waved a gun in their face.

The people that were working on the house

wanted to get revenge, and so they stole Pam and Tommy's safe.

And initially, I don't think they were

even aware of what the contents of the safe were.

Honestly, it is a really bizarre coincidence of history

that someone who stole their safe...

...actually had no idea

that there was a sex tape

with two of the most famous people in the world on it.

It's all my fault!

I spent nine months of my life

researching and writing about what happened.

I wrote the definitive account

of the Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee sex tape,

and I tracked down the guy who stole the tape.

Amanda is like the investigating reporter

who tricked Rand into telling her what he did.

So Rand Gauthier grew up in Los Angeles.

His parents were divorced.

He sort of, by coincidence, started dating

a woman who worked in porn.

She kind of introduced him to the world of pornography.

But as he got older, Rand became an electrician,

was working as an electrician in Pam and Tommy's house.

Do I remember the guy? No.

I mean, no offense to electricians and whatnot,

but they don't have

a very glamorous role in construction.

After Rand was fired, he wanted the money

that he was owed or that he says he was owed.

So, I think it was like, a little bit of revenge

and a little bit of, like, "Okay, well, I'm gonna make

the money back by selling off whatever's in the safe."

Rand stealing the safe from Pam and Tommy's house,

it's probably, like, the squishiest part of the story

in the sense that, like, I've heard several versions

of the story now from Rand himself.

It's just very hard to sort of say anything with certainty.

He spent months in an unmarked truck staking out

Pam and Tommy's house.

He wanted to disguise himself on the security cameras

as Pam and Tommy's dog.

And so he put a white Tibetan yak fur on his back

and jumped over the fence and scrambled on all fours

just in case a security guard was looking at the footage.

I'm skeptical about this,

but he gets the safe onto the dolly by himself.

Apparently, it's like a gigantic safe,

probably weighed, like, 500 pounds.

And then he claims that he, like,

pushed the safe up onto the bed of his truck using his legs.

Pamela and I went to England for Christmas,

and when we came back, and the safe was gone.

The whole safe. I mean, one guy--impossible.

Who knows what actually happened other than the fact that

the safe was absolutely stolen?

Certainly by January 1996,

Pam and Tommy noticed the safe was missing.

They filed a police report.

According to the police report

that Pam and Tommy later filled out,

the safe contained a bunch of guns, jewelry, like a Rolex,

like a diamond bracelet or something,

the white bikini that Pamela had been wearing

when she got married, personal photographs,

you know, medical paperwork,

and, of course, Hi8 tape with a bunch of home videos,

including eight minutes of sex.

The tape was recorded over the course of the first,

like, nine or 10 months of 1995,

mostly in, uh, California and Nevada.

You know, wherever Pam and Tommy were,

sometimes they would, you know, take out the video camera

and record what was going on.

This was the Handycam.

Everyone owned one of these. I like it.

I know how this works.

This is Pam and Tommy filmed on one of these.

We're on a vacation doing what adults do.

There's nothing on there that adults don't do,

especially people that are married.

They're enjoying each other. They're enjoying being, like,

beautiful, charming newlyweds.

First of all, he had an enormous penis. He was very proud of it.

I think he drove the boat with it

for a little while in the tape.

They said, "I love you" to each other constantly,

like, more than you thought two people could.

And so they were filming a lot of stuff all the time.

It wasn't that they sort of filmed this one event, right?

They were filming their lives together.

It's just under an hour,

and only about eight minutes of the hour is actual sex.

We got married because there was a real chemistry

between us, and we were just-- it was--it was very quick.

- Yeah. - But we, um, we fell in love.

I mean, it was--it was wild.

She was just so in love with him, and he in love with her,

and the happiness that they portrayed,

and that real good, sexy love,

and they were so romantic and happy.

Pamela always had these, like, beautiful visions

of, like, how beautiful their lives would be

in this fairy tale kind of setting.

She was super natural

and super fresh-faced and sweet and new,

and, you know, you can tell

it's the small town girl in this big city.

You know, I'm working, and I'm making a good living,

and I'm, um, looking after myself,

and, you know, I've got-- I've got my life together.

The promise of the '90s was that

women could do anything that men could do.

But our society

didn't live up to the promise of '90s feminism.

I have been telling the truth.

He pressed me to justify my reasons for saying no to him.

Any woman, whether she actually had power

or whether she was ser-- just showing up in public,

was denigrated her and pilloried her,

no matter what.

Pam and Tommy later came to get

an anonymous envelope with the tape,

and that's how they found out.

Pam and Tommy kind of had to, like, lock their lives down

and sort of figure out, like, who do we trust, if anyone?

Rand opened the safe using a demolition saw

with a, like, diamond composite blade.

Rand brought the Pam and Tommy sex tape to Milton Ingley,

who ran the adult film studio where Rand worked,

and it was sort of, like, playing it

and sort of, like, doing other stuff,

when all of a sudden they heard...

And, like, everyone turned to see

you know, the projection or the screen and--and kind of,

like, flipped out, and it was like, oh, my God,

"We're gonna all become rich off of this."

So, Rand brought in Milton Ingley,

who ran the adult film studio where Rand worked.

They were playing the tape

and discovered there was sex on it.

And they were just like,

"How are we gonna make money off of this?"

You know, the thing about

stealing someone's private sex tape

is that is not a legal thing to sell in stores

and distribute as you would

a traditional piece of pornography.

Anybody who works in production knows that you can't

put out anything without having a signed release from somebody.

None of the legal purveyors of pornography

wanted to distribute Pam and Tommy's sex tape.

What ultimately happened is Milton and Rand thought,

"What if we sold this to people through the internet?"

Best way I can describe the internet in the '90s is...

There were these sounds when you hear the computer

connecting to the internet.

- It was painful. - You had to stop using the phone

while the phone was on the internet.

Everything just moved really slow.

You spent a lot of time waiting for pages to load.

But it seemed so fast,

and it seemed so, you know, kind of electric.

But you look back on it now, it's like we were basically

using an abacus. That's what we were doing.

They ran off a bunch of copies of the tape.

They had to make something called the master master tape,

from which they would make other masters.

And then the master would be used to make copies,

because every time you made a copy,

the master would slightly degrade.

And of course, the master master used

to make the masters was not the original

because they destroyed the original

because it was evidence.

So, they made all these copies.

They set up a janky website. You would go to the website.

The website would instruct you to send $59.95 in a money order,

and then two months later, you would receive

a VHS in the mail of Pam and Tommy having sex.

Very slow motion.

But in this way, the tape started to spread.

I remember hearing about, um,

Pamela's and Tommy Lee's sex tape.

The producers were saying that we need

to just mind our business. Don't ask her. Don't mention it.

Just nothing. Just go on with your life.

It's her business. And that's what we did.

And then just by as a friend and from woman to woman,

I mean, can you imagine?

This is your personal, private business.

I believe someone approached Pam and Tommy

to try to buy the rights to the tape from them,

and they declined because it was not something

that they had ever intended anyone else to see.

We feel, felt, and still feel, very violated.

I mean, that's--those are some private, private moments.

I'm horrified. It's not cool.

Hey, welcome to "Loveline." I'm Adam Carolla.

That is Dr. Drew. Dr. Drew's a board-certified physician,

addiction medicine specialist.

So we had celebrities every night on "Loveline,"

and the booker booked Pamela Lee and Tommy.

The chuckles in the background are that of, uh,

Tommy Lee and Pamela Lee. -It's cool to be here.

Pam was lovely, charming, beautiful, and pissed.

They take the safe, and they--they bust the safe open,

and they keep whatever's in there,

and now they're trying to make some money off of the tape?

-Yeah. -Yeah, so it's so sick.

Now, that seems to me like the most illegal thing

in the world. -It is.

We're just waiting for someone to print it so we can sue them.

-Sue 'em. -So we can own them.

She was talking about the suit and the--and the fact

that the--that these tapes had been stolen and how--

what a violation it was for her particularly.

Tommy was angry. Tommy was just straight angry.

I don't know that he had any sense of violation.

He was just sort of outraged.

I mean, do you have-- do you hire a private eye,

or is the LAPD on this one or what?

We don't want to talk about the private eye we hired.

- We're not allowed to. - Okay, but you did talk

to somebody to go out and, uh, break some knees?

-Well... - Get an Italian guy.

Don't get a Jewish private eye. You gotta get an Italian guy.

Pam and Tommy hired a private investigator

to try and figure out what happened with the tape.

How do you stop it?

We're gonna take this on our own hands.

It's like, what are you doing?

Don't ask her about it. Don't talk about it.

I would never have recommended anybody to do that.

Uh, he threatened, um, with bombs and guns. He was muscle.

I'm Anthony Pellicano.

I've been called a fixer,

a sin-eater, and a problem solver.

That's what I am-- a problem solver.

I'm not afraid of death.

If you die, you die.

I don't believe in any religion. I'm an atheist.

I'll tell you what I do believe in.

Fate.

And everything is dependent on time and circumstance.

I don't forget anything.

I worked on the Kennedy assassination,

the Nixon tapes.

More than one person had compared me

to the character of "The Wolf" in "Pulp Fiction."

It gives us 40 minutes to get the [bleep] out of Dodge,

which, if you do what I say, when I say it, should be plenty.

I don't give a [bleep] who you are.

You tell me your problem. I solve you the problem.

You give me my money.

Well, I think that you folks

have the understanding that I'm not gonna talk about clients.

I-I went to prison for almost, you know, 17 years.

I mean, you've seen it in the news.

Pam and Tommy hired Anthony Pellicano

to get the tape back.

I will talk to you generally about that.

They came to me because someone stole a tape

that they had filmed, and that became a big problem.

Anthony Pellicano had some interaction with Milton Ingley,

and Milton Ingley had told him

he got the tape from Guerin Swing.

When you're dealing with celebrities, you know,

they have entourages, and sometimes the entourages

are people that they can trust, but for the most part,

they're people that they cannot trust.

My job is to determine

who could have this piece of information

that would be harmful to your client and how it got out.

So, like, Pellicano, I mean,

you know, this is all my perception of things.

I mean, I could have been pretty high at the time,

but I was in my art studio.

I remember, uh, two men came to the door.

You know, and I was like, what the [bleep]?

And this guy had walked in,

and he was, like, heated when he walked in.

He was a big guy, you know, a thug-type gangster guy.

You know what I mean?

The way I solve problems,

I bring it down to one simple equation.

If you have to be tough, you have to be aggressive,

and you have to fight, you do.

Pellicano came-- came in the front door,

and he came up to me, and I was like, "Dude, who the [bleep]--"

You know, I was like, "What are you doing, bro?

And I remember him, like, just pushing me.

Uh, okay, you're gonna name names,

and if I disclose to you that I know who you're talking about,

I'm disclosing secrets, so you really shouldn't do that.

...that he mentioned to you?

Okay. You're g--you're--you're gonna get yourself in trouble.

He kind of stood over me

and was like, "Where are the tapes at?!"

I was like, "What are you talking about?" And then,

in all honesty, I had no idea what he's talking about.

Like, what are you talking about?

You make 'em an offer they can't refuse,

and I essentially did that.

You got a choice.

You give it up, or you're gonna give it up.

My understanding is that Guerin had absolutely

no involvement in either the heist

or the distribution of the tape.

This affected my life.

This affected my relationship with Tommy and Pam.

When you have trust and friends, and then they--no one knows,

you know, and you're being accused of something,

it definitely affected me.

I don't think Pam and Tommy

ever felt 100% sure that Rand

was the person who took the tape.

In April of 1996, it becomes clear

to Rand and Milton Ingley

that if they could just sell it without any copyright,

anyone who bought one of their tapes

could similarly make copies and sell it.

So all these copycat websites started popping up,

selling the tape.

All of a sudden, they're everywhere in Hollywood.

So sometime between late October and, you know, March,

the tape found its way to "Penthouse."

I'm here today to give a deposition.

A tape was stolen from Tommy Lee and myself.

Further, we have not received one penny

or signed an agreement

permitting them to merchandise this tape.

Pam and Tommy filed a lawsuit against the magazine "Penthouse"

for $10 million.

Basically, anyone who they thought

had a copy of the tape, they put in this civil lawsuit,

essentially saying, like,

"Give it back" and, like, "Don't publish anything."

This was actually not a very good idea for them,

because all it did was draw attention to the fact

that the tape existed, uh,

and was out there.

Will you stand and raise your right hand?

Do you solemnly swear that the testimony you may give

in the cause now pending before this court...

Pamela Anderson was deposed, and she went to the courtroom,

and people were hoisting naked photos of her.

And there were all of these male lawyers.

And the sense that because she had posed in "Playboy,"

that her body was a public commodity.

Her naked body was something that belonged to everyone there.

Choosing to pose in "Playboy" is very different

than having a sex tape stolen from you.

If you're choosing to pose in "Playboy,"

you have control over the timing.

You have control over the content.

They might even pay you.

In our culture, sex symbols are praised,

but they're often dehumanized.

We take away the human aspect to the individual,

and we only magnify the sex part of them.

That was such a common assumption in the 1990s

that if you were a woman, and you were pursuing celebrity

or exposing your body, and you did it one time,

that you would do it sort of in perpetuity.

-Tommy! - Hey!

- Get the [bleep] outta here. -Hey, Tommy!

I know that Pamela was just horrified.

I mean, can you just imagine?

Where's your child this time of the morning?

Where's your baby? Where is your baby?

She was having private moments with the man that she loves.

That was not meant for anyone's eyes

but the two of them.

I think it was hell for both of them.

They were not able to stop "Penthouse."

They published a description of what was in the tape,

and they used these Polaroids

that had previously been stolen from Pam and Tommy.

Now, all of a sudden, everyone was trying to get a copy of it,

and you'd have to mail into these, like,

magazine mail services.

Again, you could not walk into a store at the time and get it.

And then all of a sudden,

someone was going to do something with it,

something really frightening.

The next thing, all you have to do is turn that on,

and you can watch them on their honeymoon?

The sex tape becomes available to stream it on the internet.

What do you mean, it's on the internet?

How does this happen so fast, and how did it get

into the internet? Like, how does this work?

I believe the Pam and Tommy footage

was circulating "around Hollywood"

before it kind of made the mainstream.

It becomes this, like, ubiquitous thing.

"Variety" ran a review of the tape.

Various, you know, Hollywood folks were, like,

standing around watching it together and talking about it.

And so in this way, a guy named Cort St. George,

you know, found himself adjacent

to various wealthy internet entrepreneurs.

Hi. My name is Cort St. George. I'm here to talk about

my involvement in the Pam and Tommy Lee video.

I was living in La Jolla at the time. It was 1997.

I was just having a lunch with a friend of mine,

and he asked me if I wanted to stay

and watch this video that was being couriered over

from another one of the studios by a friend of his.

The video came, took a look at it,

was flabbergasted by what we saw,

and I had just started working with IEG--

Internet Entertainment Group-- in Seattle.

I primarily functioned as a consultant,

and I said to my friend, I go,

"This guy would probably want this video."

The Internet Entertainment Group was one of these

early, very buzzy internet porn companies

started by Seth Warshavsky.

Seth was the kid in elementary school

who would steal your pencils and then sell them back to you.

Seth was very good at generating publicity

around his internet porn company,

but he was also known for making things up

and writing bad checks.

I had a 2-cent check that bounced from IEG.

So, I called him when I got the video,

and I said, you know, "Have you heard of it?"

And he said, yeah. I said, "Would you be interested?"

And he said yeah.

Said, "I'm gonna see if he'll give us 10 grand."

And he said, "10 grand?" He said, "Done."

I couldn't really believe that

Seth was willing to pay for it.

Now I know why he was willing to pay for it, actually.

He just wanted my signature on the dotted line

in case the [bleep] hit the fan, he had somebody to blame.

Seth Warshavsky, master of publicity,

announces in a press release

that he's going to stream the sex tape.

Video streaming was still somewhat new.

Oftentimes I've referred to the Pam and Tommy video

waking the world up to the internet

as a content delivery system,

because before that, it was still obscure.

But then all of a sudden, you had this hit,

and it was people who were in the mainstream

that commanded attention from the media.

And now people were really interested in,

"How do we actually see this?"

Warshavsky is using cutting-edge technology,

sending live images

and rebroadcasting them over the Internet.

He does not actually think he's going to be able

to stream the sex tape because he knows it's illegal,

and he doesn't have the releases.

Seth was smart. He had a really powerful legal team.

The lawyer who prepared that release

told me he just prepared the broadest release possible.

He did not think Pam and Tommy were gonna sign it.

It wasn't really rights to give out copyrights

or anything like that.

It was-- It was a limited contract,

but it was all Seth needed.

They signed off on it.

I remember talking about it with Seth,

and he looked at me and he goes,

"They have no idea what they just did."

The only reason we signed the agreement is because

it was a week before I was about to give birth,

and they were making threats to me, and I was very focused

on my--my obviously much more important things.

Seth had a lot of leverage, um, with the Pam and Tommy video

because once the court had ruled against them with "Penthouse,"

it wasn't that far of a reach for them

to rule against 'em with IEG.

They realized that if they kept fighting,

it's gonna stay in the media, and I think that they just

wanted it to go away.

So, this is, like, over two years after

Pam and Tommy's sex tape was first stolen.

You know, we're trying to have a baby,

and you want a little privacy, and...

So, if you--you kind of look at, like, where they're at,

there's a lot going on.

She had a miscarriage.

That was very stressful for me

'cause I really wanted to have a baby.

And so emotionally, I was really upset after that, too.

And you have people chasing you and--and--

and getting into your-- your space.

She just couldn't handle it.

She didn't want to subject herself

and her family, her young children,

to years and years tied up in court.

The internet was so new,

that they didn't really understand it.

A lot of people were starting to come on the Internet.

They kind of, like, underestimated the internet.

It's kind of hard to believe. Had they known, I'm sure,

what the internet was to become,

they might not have signed that paper.

Pamela Anderson Lee and Tommy Lee

won't get any money for some intimate moments

airing on the internet.

Seth Warshavsky starts streaming the tape, like, nonstop.

The sales just went crazy,

and millions of Americans got internet access

so they could watch Pam and Tommy having sex.

So, all of a sudden, it's like, "Have you seen it?

Have you seen it? Have you seen the tape?"

And it's like, oh, my God, no.

- Why would I watch that? - I've never seen the sex tape.

I don't wanna see the sex tape.

I just think I would kind of feel weird watching my friend.

So, I remember downloading the Pam and Tommy Lee tape

in my office at the time,

and it was just this choppy thing

that would just take forever to load.

It took about a day and a half for me to see anything.

It was kind of, like, brought me back

to my days as a kid trying to watch porn

on a scrambled box,

where you'd have to look through the wavy lines.

When Tommy and Pam made this video, I guarantee you

that they couldn't even conceive it going viral,

'cause it--I don't think the word "viral" was invented.

They invented it.

I remember when the Pam Anderson tape got sent around.

I don't think any of us ever questioned whether

we were, like, hurting Pamela Anderson

and Tommy Lee by watching their honeymoon video.

I think I heard some number

about Pam and Tommy video making $77 million.

I know firsthand that Pam and Tommy

made not one dime off that video.

They didn't demand any money.

I know that they turned down money.

Come on! Let's hear it!

I've seen it all with Pamela and Tommy Lee,

you know, especially in the press.

It was unfortunate the way that they were treated.

It was just sad that it came to that point.

Can you imagine what the human toll of that experience was?

Tommy and Pam were madly in love.

I mean, Pam just adored him. I even, like, wanna cry.

Like, it gets me a little worked up.

I mean, she adored him. You know what I mean?

And I know Tommy loved her.

That pressure is beyond.

Beyond.

it's like nonstop. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

That is a formula for a time bomb.

You're a [bleep]. You're a [bleep].

- Please welcome Pamela Anderson. - Please welcome Pamela Lee.

Pamela Anderson was a huge star in the 1990s.

She's poised to have this really big Hollywood takeover.

She's the "it" girl.

She's shiny and blonde and buxom.

Then this tape comes out, and she is a punchline.

Now, you guys had

the baby at home, right? - Yes, at home, again.

You didn't film the birth, did you?

- No. - Oh.

All the late night shows are joking about her.

All the comedians are joking about her.

She was sort of a running joke

in Jay Leno's monologues, his opening monologues.

Pamela Lee and Tommy Lee. Pamela Lee and Tommy.

Pamela and Tommy Lee. Pamela and Tommy. Pamela Lee.

Pamela Lee. Tommy and Pamela Lee.

It was like day after day, constant.

You're supposed to be my friend, and you're, like--

- I am your friend. - You know, jump on

the bandwagon. Everyone's making fun of us and--

- Making fun? - Yeah, I know.

What are you talking about?

People felt entitled to be able

to ask her all kinds of questions about her sex life.

Are you, like, a bad girl like they say on TV? Like, you--

I mean, I don't wanna sound like a horny old guy,

but you ought to just get really close

and just inhale a big whiff.

So, I think in the '90s,

there weren't really, like, limitations

put on a lot of, like, men's behavior.

Like, you had Howard Stern, who was shock jock

and gaining so much notoriety

and popularity for objectifying women

and then saying it to their face, right?

Let me just soak you in. You look kind of cute today.

Thank you.

I actually was

on his show twice, and I know

I just sat there and was like, "Heh. Yeah, ha. Funny."

-You're wearing panties? - Yeah.

- Thongs? - Yeah.

Mmm. Mmm. Mmm.

It was considered okay just because

people had seen this sex tape and they felt like,

"Oh, well, clearly, she wanted it.

So, yeah, I can disrespect her. Like, who cares?"

I felt a huge amount of empathy for her because

she had sort of lost control of her own narrative.

Tommy Lee, after the release of the sex tape,

was absolutely celebrated.

And Tommy was looked at as the stud, right?

Tommy was like, "Whoa, did you see the size of his dick?"

It was thought that sort of she was, you know,

she was a slut, and he was a stud.

I think she caught the brunt of all of it.

I think they threw everything at Pam.

They fought so hard against it,

and it did so much damage in their life, and that's again,

why I've done this interview and some other interviews,

just to make sure that the story is straight.

I feel--I feel like I'm constantly, um,

wanting to clear my conscience, even though

I actually had very little to do with the whole thing.

I just happened to be, I suppose, like I said,

in the wrong place at the right time.

And, uh, you know, I feel bad about being involved in it.

I just feel terrible. It's like, you don't wanna leave the house.

You leave, and you're covering yourself like...

- You know, it's scary. -Weirds you out.

Yeah. And paparazzi people following you everywhere and...

I think the idea of consent in the '90s was...

probably as thin as it is now.

Historically, women have not had consent.

When you look at, you know, kind of the rights

that we've had to fight for in this country,

a lot of them have revolved around the control

a woman has over her own body.

If we, as a society, had given Pamela Anderson the opportunity

to, um, have her tape back, to maintain her privacy,

if we had protected them with laws,

I could see a very different landscape today.

It's still very hard to get back the rights

to an image of yourself

put out on the Internet.

It may seem hypocritical, a sex symbol

complaining about porn addiction,

too much access, too many young people

accessing images of what they think love may look like.

Great sex is not porn.

I'm afraid that the world might forget how to make love.

All three of you beautiful people...

I am a mother. My boys are both romantics.

They have witnessed a lot of love, a lot of despair,

and despite their rock star, imperfect parents,

they are well-adjusted individuals.

I tell them to be careful.

If they disrespect women, they disrespect me.

I think the Pam and Tommy sex tape

absolutely inspired future sex tapes because

the amount of money made on it was just so astronomical.

And it was clear because of the possibility of the internet,

that you could do something like this.

The Pam and Tommy video

really paved the way for other people.

I don't need to mention the names.

We all know who they are.

Kim's really smart. Kim's in it to win it.

Vivid said, "You wanna be a superstar?

Let's call it "Kim Kardashian, Superstar."

- Make it very simple." - A couple months

after the tape was leaked, the Kardashians had a show on E!

The reality show, the clothing. She became a billionaire.

It was set up as something that was

never meant to get out there.

It always kind of seemed like

the implication was on Ray J.

Only played my part. Y'all told me what to do.

Nothing was made

without the authorization of Kris Jenner.

I assure you that.

Any movies or anything?

And what I saw on that tape

is not what was edited and put up.

What mother in their right mind sells their daughter's sex tape?