Unless a VHS copy of Disclosure counts, the first celebrity sex tape most of us watched was Pam and Tommy: Hardcore and Uncensored, which featured six, count ’em six minutes of Baywatch‘s Pamela Anderson and Mötley Crüe’s Tommy Lee boning. The video’s a “where were you when…?” moment, especially when Soul Asylum’s “Misery” starts blasting — you don’t forget things like that.
Still, surprisingly little was known about the background of the tape until Rolling Stone‘s just-released profile of electrician Rand Gauthier, who stole it from their safe after Tommy refused to pay for a job and told him to “get the f*ck off my property” while brandishing a shotgun. So, exactly what you’d expect from one of Billy Corgan’s friends.
“I made his career, is what happened,” says Gauthier, now a foggy 57-year-old who still works as an electrician and grows marijuana in his garage outside Santa Rosa, California.
But Lee might not see it that way. Two years ago, Gauthier received a Facebook message from a page bearing the name Tommy Lee. All it said was: “Hey you f*cking faggot.” (Via)
The whole thing’s obviously worth a look, but here are a few highlights:
-The tape made $77 million the year it came out, “and that’s just on legitimate sales.”
-Gauthier was REALLY pissed at Anderson and Lee.
Gauthier says he spent the entire summer of 1995 preparing for the heist, driving over to the Lees’ house several nights a week to sit and stare, waiting outside until three or four in the morning. Plotting. Stewing. “I took my time,” Gauthier recalls. “I cased the joint.”
-The safe the tape was held in was a bitch to move (it was six feet tall and weighed roughly 500 pounds), but Gauthier got it done, somehow, and spent over an hour “cutting into the back with a borrowed demolition saw outfitted with a composite diamond carbide blade.” The contents:
Although he denies finding the AK-47, FNC assault rifle, .45-70 caliber rifle and Mossberg stainless steel shotgun mentioned in a later police report, he does acknowledge discovering everything else Pam and Tommy listed as missing, including family photographs, a Rolex, a gold-and-diamond Cartier watch, gold-and-emerald cufflinks, a ruby-and-diamond cross, the white bikini that Anderson wore to their beach wedding, and a Hi8 tape, the kind of cassette that could be inserted into a handheld camcorder.
-Gauthier performed in dozens of adult movies, including “Big Boob Bikini Bash (1995), Miracle on 69th Street (1992) and Willie Wankers and the Fun Factory (1994).” Meanwhile, his father, Dick, played Hymie the Robot in the Get Smart TV series.
-A biker gang intimidated Gauthier when Anderson and Lee noticed the tape went missing.
“Well,” the guy with the shotgun finally announced, “you tell that motherf*cker we’re going to come back and blow somebody’s balls off unless that tape gets puts back.”
-Did Anderson and Lee eventually profit from sales of the tape? Maybe…?
Ron Jeremy said he once asked Anderson whether she’d received any money for the tape, and she simply smiled and said, “Well, you know.” (Anderson and Lee have both publicly denied profiting off the tape; both declined to comment for this story.)
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