4 days Ago
A new Peacock docuseries set for release in early December will explore the troubling rise and fall of “Girls Gone Wild” with new interviews with some of the women who were filmed. “Girls Gone Wild: The Untold Story” digs into the porn franchise that objectified young women on spring break in Panama City Beach, Florida, in the late ’90s and 2000s. The three-part series debuts on Dec.
3 and expands on BuzzFeed News writer Scaachi Koul’s 2023 story , published on HuffPost after its sister site shut down, which featured an exclusive interview with Girls Gone Wild founder Joe Francis. The new series includes interviews with former employees and several women who said they were exploited in Girls Gone Wild productions. “I was too young to be taped,” one woman says in the trailer, which was released Wednesday.
Girls Gone Wild became a cultural phenomenon and made Francis millions of dollars with its mail-order DVDs and pay-per-view events of young women taking their tops off and partying. And as the franchise grew, he made enemies out of local officials, including Lee Sullivan, the former mayor of Panama City Beach, even facing off with him on Fox News in 2003. It all came crashing down in a series of lawsuits and criminal cases — and as sites like PornHub put explicit videos at people’s fingertips for free.
In 2013, Francis was sentenced to 270 days in jail in Los Angeles in a case involving three women whom he refused to allow to leave his home, one of whom he assaulted. Instead of serving the time, he moved to Mexico. During their interview at his mansion in Punta Mita, Koul asked Francis to respond to the many allegations against him, including sexual assault, harassment, intimidation, tax evasion and that he had raped his ex-partner Abbey Wilson.
“I have never raped a girl. I have never sexually assaulted a girl. And I’ve never had an unconsensual sexual experience.
I want to go on the record with that,” Francis responded. Other news outlets have retreated behind paywalls. At HuffPost, we believe journalism should be free for everyone.
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“You can’t rape your partner,” Francis added to Koul, who then told him that wasn’t true and noted that he appeared surprised. “Oh,” he said. “You can? OK.
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