Though her father (Robert Kardashian/David Schwimmer) was a famous attorney, her friends were children of superstars, and her mother was selling magical candles on TV, the Kim Kardashian of the mid-2000s wasn’t catching the break that others in her friend group (Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie, specifically) were. She wore all the right tracksuits and all the right trucker hats, but major fame eluded her.
Enter (if you believe this story): Joe Francis, the legally troubled founder of Girls Gone Wild. An upcoming book by Ian Halperin (author of unauthorized tales such as Who Killed Kurt Cobain? and Unmasked: The Final Years of Michael Jackson) claims the plan to release of Kim’s sex tape, recorded in 2003 with then-boyfriend Ray “Ray J” Norwood, was hatched by Francis. Only then did momager Kris Jenner take the reins.
Writes ShowBizSpy:
Halperin quotes a “source” (ShowbizSpy found out it was in fact Girls Gone Wild founder Joe Francis) in the “adult film industry” who said, “A mutual friend of Kim Kardashian and Paris Hilton had advised her that if she wanted to achieve massive fame, a sex tape would be the way to go and that Kim had discussed the idea of producing a tape with her family beforehand after watching how successful it was with her at the time best friend Paris Hilton.”
Halperin goes on to say that the reliable source told him, “It was Kim’s mother Kris who engineered the entire deal behind the scenes and was responsible for the tape seeing the light of day.”
Before you scream, “WE KNEW IT WAS AN INTENTIONAL LEAK ORCHESTRATED BY KRIS,” because—admittedly—we did, it’s nice to give the long-standing rumors a source. Especially one as close to the Kardashians as Francis.
Image via Getty.
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