The story of the man who STOLE the secret video of Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee
In 1995, Hollywood's best-known couple had to deal with the theft of a videotape containing private footage of their honeymoon.
This video would become the first of its kind, as it was the first s3xu@l viral video in history, and whoever stole it told how it happened, and why he did it:
Tommy Lee refused to pay his contractors what he owed, and this was the start of a big problem:
When Tommy Lee and Pamela Anderson moved into the drummer's Malibu mansion together, they hired several people to renovate the front room.
Among them was the electrician Rand Gauthier, who was fed up with the changes and whims that Tommy Lee demanded, and even more so due to the fact that the famous drummer did not pay him for the work.
Tommy fired Rand, furthermore refusing to pay him the $20,000 he owed:
Rand and another contractor had no choice but to leave, and though they decided to go ahead without being paid, they returned later to collect the tools they had left behind.
As the contractors entered the mansion, Tommy Lee pointed a shotgun at them and told them "Off my property," forbidding them from removing the tools they were trying to retrieve. It was at that moment that Rand got angry and decided to seek revenge.
Rand planned the robbery of Tommy Lee's safe, and he had no idea what he would find in it:
“I was never that popular with people,” he says. “But I have never been held at gunpoint before. It f*cked with my head,” Rand said, as he recounted how he planned the robbery.
Because the electrician knew all the entrances and the electrical system of the mansion, he only needed to know the couple's routine, and for this, he spent several nights a week peeping until 4 in the morning to know when to perform the heist.
Rand bought a white rug, put it on his back, and crawled out to the garage to pretend to be the couple's dog:
The man jumped the fence, crawled all over the property while the owners were sleeping (3 in the morning), thus dodging the security cameras, which he had installed himself, and reached the garage pretending to be the couple's dog.
Rand also dragged a wheelbarrow in which he would later place the safe, and although everyone disputes that it would be practically impossible for him to have done it alone, he assures that it was.
He recounted that he also loaded the heavy safe into his truck all by himself and that "it was very difficult."
The electrician claims to have spent 1 hour cutting through the safe with a demolition saw:
Rand took the box to a safe place, and spent an hour sawing off the back with a borrowed demolition saw equipped with a diamond-carbide composite blade.
Although he denies having found 3 weapons that Tommy Lee claims were there, he admits to having found 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 her wedding on the beach and a Hi8 tape, the content of which she was unaware of.
Rand had worked building sets, and even acting, at an adult film studio, so she brought the tape there:
Rand took the tape to the adult film studio "North Hollywood" where she worked (it has 75 videos), and watched it with the owner of the studio.
“We play the tape and see what it is, and of course, cha-ching. Dollar signs fly before our eyes,” he recounted, though this was nowhere close to coming true for Rand.
Because the tape was stolen, Rand and his partner began to have trouble marketing it:
Milton "Uncle Miltie" Ingley, owner of the studio, and later "partner" of Rand, destroyed the original (trying to remove evidence of the theft) and then took the copy to various studios to find a distributor.
When they realized that the tape did not have permissions, they were rejected. A wealthy foreigner, according to Rand, offered them $1 million, but Ingley declined the offer as he was sure it was worth more.
Finally, the tape was sold through the internet, at that time only 40 million people in the world had access to the network:
*Data* currently 5.160 million people have access to the Internet, which represents 64.4% of the world population.
A producer and capo of the organized mafia from NY, named Louis "Butchie", was in charge of lending them both $50,000 dollars, so that they could sell the tape over the Internet, sending copies to each buyer's home.
Louis would earn high interest on the loan, and a percentage of the sale of the stolen tape in exchange for his help.
Rand was promptly conned by his partner, and his misery and regret would soon begin:
Ingley only allocated a quarter of the borrowed money to generate thousands of copies of the video, and pay for the web pages where it was advertised, at a modest price of $59.95. The rest of the money he used to live a luxurious life in Amsterdam, where he received the money from the sales.
Rand was tipped off by another Ingley employee, who advised him to make his own copies, and sell them from his car. Steve Fasanella later recounted that he had done so, claiming that he sold more than 500 copies, at $175 each, bringing in a total of $75,000.
Rand remained loyal to his partner, and ended up worse off than he started, owing $50,000 to a mobster, and with "his video" hacked by dozens of websites offering it for free. He currently dedicates himself to planting m @ r1hu @ n @ and occasionally recounts his story before unbelievers.
The reason the video went so viral was because even people who wouldn't normally consume such content were curious to see it:
By 1996, everyone was talking about the tape, and while it wasn't the first famous couple to have this kind of video, people were drawn to seeing Baywatch star Pamela Anderson and Mötley's hard-partying drummer. Crue in privacy.
People were attracted because they would see the famous and "hot" couple, in their most intimate and "real" facet, and this seemed to catch the interest of people, even those who did not consume this type of content. The tape took 2 years to go from bootleg to viral, and generated an estimated $77 million in revenue in its first year of being "legal."
Pamela and Tommy finally divorced in 1997, after 2 children together, and a vol3ncia altercation (against Pam), which kept Lee in prison for 6 months.
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