A Detailed History of Celebrity Sex Tapes

Which videos are real, and which are fake? From Demi Lovato to Shakira's sex tape, here is a detailed history of celebrity sex tapes.

ByJosh Robertson

Sep 20, 2012

Image via Complex Original

The phenomenon of celebrity sex tapes isn't new—hell, just consider the name, "sex tape." You whippersnappers may not remember, but once upon a time there were these things called VHS cassettes, or tapes, where we stored movies, TV shows, and our most tender sexual moments. Like DVDs but rectangular and plastic. Oh, just Google it.

Shakira is the latest sex tape star—or rumored sex tape star—as a clip featuring her and boyfriend Gerard Pique (he plays soccer for Barcelona and the Spanish national team) is being shopped around. Sorry, did we say boyfriend Gerard Pique? Change that to soon-to-be baby daddy Gerard Pique. On Wednesday (September 19), the couple announced they are expecting. So dealing with an inconclusive 15-minute clip of hot action being peddled by bitter ex-employees might not be the couple's top priority right now.

But admit it—you'd watch it. You'd watch just about any sex tape, or extracts from it, because we all are intrigued by the sex lives of celebrities. How do the rich and famous get it on? Often the answer is: Pretty much like anyone else.

A more interesting question is why do celebrities tend to tape themselves having sex? We can't say for sure in all cases, but when you live your life on a stage, it's possible to lose the sense that there exists an offstage world. You think everything is a performance. You think everything deserves to be recorded. Or maybe, like Dustin Diamond and Tom Sizemore, you just need the dough.

Here's a history of the most famous at their most intimate and simultaneously public—sex tapes capturing moments we were never meant to see, except in the many cases when we were. Read it, learn it, and give yourself a once-over with Purell when done.

RELATED: The Complete History of Nude Celebrity Photo Leaks

Follow @ComplexPopCult

Kennedy, a sportscaster, model, actress and former Miss Ohio, is considered the first celebrity to have experienced the embarrassment of a sex tape scandal. The footage was stolen from her house and reportedly features a fairly extreme act—can we say fisting? OK, fisting. Fortunately for Jayne, there was no means of distribution of such a tape back in the day, so homemade dupes were simply passed from perv to perv.

The night before the 1998 Democratic National Convention, 24-year-old Lowe was filmed in action with two babes. One was 22, but the other was 16, which is a no-no. Lowe was able to prove he didn't know the latter girl was underage. However, another segment of the same tape, in which Lowe and friend Justin Morritt both have all kinds of sex with an American model in a hotel room in Paris, was released commercially. It was one of the first true celebrity sex tapes, and it almost wrecked Lowe's career.

In 1994, figure skater Harding was the most hated woman in America, after it had been revealed that her ex-husband, Jeff Gillooly, had hired a thug to break Nancy Kerrigan's leg a month before the Olympics. Kerrigan was the top U.S. ice vixen and, frankly, much more attractive than Harding. Amazingly, even though Harding admitted to being part of the cover-up, she was permitted to compete in the Olympics, where she finished eighth. The tape dates to 1990, and was recorded on Harding and Gillooly's wedding night.

The tape of Anderson and Bret Michaels predates the one she made with Tommy Lee; although Anderson and Michaels were able to nip this one in the bud, about four minutes of footage did get out and can be found online.

Two-time sex tape star Anderson had two run-ins with pioneering Internet porn company IEG. The first was over a tape filmed on her honeymoon with Motley Crue drummer Tommy Lee—the footage of the two having much sex in an island paradise was widely distributed and made the company a fortune, which it was later ordered to split with Anderson and Lee.

Price, then known as Jordan and sporting her famous over-the-top implants, made a tape with her boyfriend that can still be found online.

Recorded in the mid-1990s, the hour-long tape features the Motley Crue singer with porn star Janine Lindemulder and Penthouse Pet Brandy Ledford (whose face is obscured in the footage). It was released through IEG (see also: Pamela Anderson, Tommy Lee, Bret Michaels) and was available online through clublove.com

Chu was a Taipei City Councilwoman until a Taiwanese tabloid released footage of her having sex with a married man. She quit her job, left town, and left country over the incident. In exile, she launched a career as a singer, and later returned to Taiwan, where she in currently a TV newscaster.

The sex tape exists, leaked online years ago, and really the only question about it has been whether Stevie J (current number of baby-mamas: 4) gifted it to the world out of spite after their breakup. In recent years, both Stevie J and Eve have said that it was a girlfriend of Eve's who leaked it. "I didn't leak that joint," Stevie J told MTV News in July. "I gave it to her and one of her girlfriends leaked it, thank you very much. I don't want my beefcake all in the street." Who does?

Sizemore, known as much for his struggles with drug addiction as for his acting accomplishments, released his "personal archive of pure hardcore crazy fun" as a DVD and online via a site called xxxtom.com. He had suggested that either Liz Hurley or Paris Hilton would be in the footage; neither were.

Durst's naughty footage was pretty standard stuff: Oral and rear-entry sex with a woman called a "groupie." What's interesting is the manner of leakage—the digital file was discovered on his computer by a repairman, who put it on the net.

A model and MTV Brazil hostess who was engaged to soccer star Ronaldo, Cicarelli was filmed having sex on the beach with her banker boyfriend and then sued websites, including YouTube, that hosted the footage. She ultimately lost her legal crusade, with the courts ruling that she could claim no expectation of pivacy on a public beach.

In 1999, Stapp and Kid Rock recorded adult frolics with four women identified as groupies in a mobile home. Video Company Red Light District tried to bring the tape to market in 2006 but Stapp and Kid Rock successfully sued to stop it.

Farrell and girlfriend Narain, a Playboy Playmate, made a 14-minute tape which found its way into the public eye (with help from a company called Internet Commerce Group). Narain claimed she didn't leak the tape and didn't know how it got out; Farrell was sure she was trying to torpedo his career and said so with a lawsuit.

Rumors of a sex tape surfaced in 2007—well, there's a tape of a woman having sex, whether it's the White Stripes drummer is up for debate. A White Stripes publicist said, "Some people have a very twisted sense of humor and this prank is in particularly bad taste. The tape circulating on the Internet as featuring Meg White is fake. It’s definitely not Meg."

Bam Margera sex tape? Get this straight: The 2008 story about Bam Margera having a sex tape with Lynn Smigo, the wife of radio host Gregg "Opie" Hughes, was incorrect. Totally untrue. Oh, did you mean sex tape starring Margera and his onetime fiancee, actress Jenn Rivell? That one's totally real.

This piece of celebrity cinema featured the aging KISS frontman and a young blonde, reputedly Australian, who was not Gene's wife (Shannon Tweed). It was billed as "the sex tape Gene doesn't want you to see" at the website genessecret.com, although the truth is you don't really want to see it either. Everyone who did see it was hard pressed to view it as anything other than a publicity stunt by an old rock star.

The tape was made, reportedly, when Meester was 18-years-old, and the scandalous rumor about it was that she performed a sex act —can we say "foot job"? OK, a foot job—on the nameless boo.

The Carrie Prejean soap opera began with her anti-marriage equality answer during the Miss USA 2009 Pageant, continued with some racy photos (which pageant owned Donald Trump called "lovely"), and reached its climax with lawsuits flying back and forth between Prejean and K2, the company behind Miss USA. The emergence of a video of Carrie touching herself (she had made it years ago for a boyfriend) brought everything to a sudden halt, with both sides dropping their lawsuits and reaching a settlement.

In the end, the John Edwards-Rielle Hunter tape was just one more unpleasant detail in a story of an epic political and personal flame-out that included an affair, a kooky mistress, a love child, a cover-up, a wife with cancer, and misuse of campaign funds. The footage was turned in as evidence by former campaign aide Andrew Young; a judge ordered it destroyed.

Handler distributed a comedy audition tape years ago with a joke in the middle —a 15-second break in the stand-up action that shows Handler and a man with a British accent engaged in simulated sex. Did Handler really accidentally record her professional comedy video over a sex tape? No, she says, that was the joke. She also claims she's been showing the tape—stand-up, sex scene and all—has been "showing it at birthday parties for years."

Was there ever a Demi Lovato sex tape? Probably not—the "reporting" on its existence is flimsy even by sex-tape-journalism standards. And even if a sex tape or something like it were to surface, we wouldn't see it. That's because Vivid Video's Steve Hirsch (of all people), a recovering addict, has vowed to buy it and either destroy it or turn it over her.

Vivid Video got a hold of a sex tape that a pre-boob-job Wilkinson made when she was 18-years-old with then boyfriend Frye. Oh no! How could they do such a dastardly thing to Kendra? Particularly when she was trying to do it to herself—she had reportedly set up her own company for the purpose of selling her own sex tapes. Vivid wasn't so much a predator as a competitor.

TMZ reported a sex tape featuring Usher and then-wife Tameka Foster was being shopped around, although there didn't seem to be terribly hard evidence that it was genuine. The question was hard to answer since Usher and Tameka had gotten divorced two years earlier and were going through a nasty public custody battle. At one point, Tameka send a vague tweet that some people interpreted as confirmation of the tape's existence. If it is out there, Usher need not worry—Vivid Video's Steve Hirsch told him in a letter that if offered the chance he would buy the tape only to prevent it from being distributed.

The tape was made in 1997 during Lopez and Noa's brief marriage. Lopez sued to stop its release in 2009, but things started to heat up when a judge dismissed her suit in 2011. It is reportedly sitting in a safe deposit box in Century City, California. If released, the public would still inevitably be supremely disappointed; there is no sex in the footage, only what has been described as "spanking and some booty."

The tape of Tequila cavorting with two porn stars was acquired by Vivid Video, which intended to release it over Tila's objections. Given the long line of bizarre stunts and scripted mishaps that somehow add up to Tequila's career, wethinks the lady doth protest too much.

Hustler claimed it had in its possession a tape of Ri-Ri doing it with singer J.Cole, who opened for her on tour. Rihanna denied the existence of the tape, tweeting, "We don't believe U, U need more people...AND of course an actual sextape! #slownewsday." And then nothing happened.

Earlier this year, the recording of Beckford spanking the monkey while in a chat room with a female model was being shopped around, but to no avail. The 45-minute footage was simply considered too boring to sell.

In the footage, Minka and an ex-boyfriend make sweet love in front of a camera mounted on a tripod while watching the action as it happens on a monitor. The tape was being shopped around by the ex-boyfriend. You stay classy, ex-boyfriend.

Girls Nudity

Channels

Stream on

Follow On

Read on

Complex Sites

Work with us

Complex Global

A Detailed History of Celebrity Sex Tapes

Jayne Kennedy

Rob Lowe

Tonya Harding

Pamela Anderson and Bret Michaels

Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee

Katie Price

Vince Neil

Chu Mei-Feng

Eve and Stevie J

Chloe Sevigny and Vincent Gallo

Paris Hilton

Joanie Laurer

Tom Sizemore

Fred Durst

Daniela Cicarelli

Carolyn Murphy

Dustin Diamond

Kid Rock and Scott Stapp

Colin Farrell

Lauren Conrad

Kim Kardashian and Ray J

Meg White

Bam Margera

Sylvester Stallone

Jimi Hendrix

Gene Simmons

Verne Troyer

Rebecca Gayheart and Eric Dane

Leighton Meester

Carrie Prejean

John Edwards

Chelsea Handler

Rex Ryan

Demi Lovato

Montana Fishburne

Kendra Wilkinson

Usher

Jennifer Lopez

Tila Tequila

Rihanna and J. Cole

Tyson Beckford

Minka Kelly

Adele

Shakira

Latest in Pop Culture