Vanessa Grigoriadis
Appearances
Infamous
From Conned to Cupid I Part 1
If it sounds fast, that's because it was. But to Cammie, it didn't feel reckless. It felt like everything was finally falling into place.
Infamous
From Conned to Cupid I Part 1
Her career was over, in part because of Josh. Here's her father, Barry.
Infamous
From Conned to Cupid I Part 1
Cami and Josh were hitting the fast-forward button on life, skipping ahead from one big milestone to the next.
Infamous
From Conned to Cupid I Part 1
And a few months after that, Kami was pregnant with her first daughter, Alexa.
Infamous
From Conned to Cupid I Part 1
Two beautiful, healthy daughters, a marriage full of love. But no marriage is perfect. And this one is heading towards its first big test.
Infamous
From Conned to Cupid I Part 1
And she's got them right in the scrapbook. She's tucked these printed out emails into a little envelope that's made from folded construction paper.
Infamous
From Conned to Cupid I Part 1
So from the beginning, Cami and Josh's families were really different.
Infamous
From Conned to Cupid I Part 1
Josh came from a family of big personalities, big partiers, and their house was emblematic of their selves. They had a sculptural thing that spelled out the letters B.M.E. That stood for biggest man in the East. which referred to Josh's father. They had a room that they called the palm court that had workout equipment and fake trees.
Infamous
From Conned to Cupid I Part 1
They had Bentleys, Ferraris, Lamborghinis, many of them black, just pitch black car. They had a 12 foot long slinky. Cammie describes this house as Scarface meets Weekend at Bernie's.
Infamous
From Conned to Cupid I Part 1
That's where the money came from. It was a family furniture business that used to be called Chuck's Bargain House when it was started in 1962. Now it's Homeline Furniture.
Infamous
From Conned to Cupid I Part 1
So Josh's grandfather had started Homeline, which was pretty cheap furniture that you could also rent to own, not a glamorous business, not by a long shot. And he passed it down to Josh's father, who then passed it down to Josh. They had tons of employees, offices overseas, enough swagger to have a really interesting painting of themselves. It's quite something.
Infamous
From Conned to Cupid I Part 1
It's the family gathered around a poker table, and they're playing poker with the cast of The Sopranos. I just want to say that one more time, The Sopranos. But they were a lovable family, and no member more than Josh.
Infamous
From Conned to Cupid I Part 1
Cami and Josh saw theater. They threw great parties. They went on big and elaborate family vacations. I mean, these are people with some serious money.
Infamous
From Conned to Cupid I Part 1
Here's Josh Verney. We didn't interview him, but this is him talking on a publicly available podcast.
Infamous
From Conned to Cupid I Part 1
He's working late, making money hand over fist. He's got this devoted wife who loves him more than anything. She's even left her successful law career to be a stay-at-home mom. And she takes that job super seriously.
Infamous
From Conned to Cupid I Part 1
And he's able to give her whatever she wants. Clothes, vacations, private school for the girls.
Infamous
From Conned to Cupid I Part 1
A huge shore house. Bedrooms for their two beautiful daughters, their daughter's friends, maybe later their daughter's kids. And Cami and Josh would be right there, the adoring grandparents.
Infamous
From Conned to Cupid I Part 1
And it was killing him. Josh Verney was struggling to keep things together. And suddenly, they're falling behind on bills.
Infamous
From Conned to Cupid I Part 1
In 2011, Homeline Furniture went under. That stable, solid family business that had been around for decades was now gone. And they had two little kids, a huge house, little income. But this isn't a total riches-to-rag story, because Cammie's parents stepped in.
Infamous
From Conned to Cupid I Part 1
The girls stayed in private school, and Josh and Cami didn't lose the house like so many others did at that time. And Josh seemed like he took his role as provider very seriously. Almost immediately after Homeline shuttered its doors, he started a new business. It was called WorkPays.me.
Infamous
From Conned to Cupid I Part 1
Cami's reading a letter that she wrote Josh in thick red pen. It's in this scrapbook.
Infamous
From Conned to Cupid I Part 1
A startup, an internet-based startup. He was a visionary founder who had an idea of an online marketplace where employees could buy things like furniture and then pay for them over time with the money coming straight out of their paychecks. And he dove headfirst into trying to build it. He worked long hours, nights, weekends. took business trips.
Infamous
From Conned to Cupid I Part 1
Kami felt like she had done everything right. She left her career so she could be a perfect wife, followed her parents' advice, built him up even when things were difficult, tucked love letters to him into a scrapbook. And somehow, none of it was enough.
Infamous
From Conned to Cupid I Part 1
There are even more letters like this, a bunch of them, and they're all pretty similar. They're heartfelt, intimate, adoring. Even when Josh started having problems, Cami stayed strong.
Infamous
From Conned to Cupid I Part 1
Kami thought she'd rebuilt what they had lost, that the worst was behind them. That's what she chose to believe. And in a lot of ways, things did go back to normal. In 2014, Josh sold WorkPays.me and they were back on top. They resumed their fairytale lifestyle. Josh was raking in millions. Cami was keeping the perfect home.
Infamous
From Conned to Cupid I Part 1
But on some level, even if she said she trusted Josh, Kami could feel that something was off.
Infamous
From Conned to Cupid I Part 1
From Campside Media and Sony Music Entertainment, this is Infamous, from Con to Cupid, Episode 1. I'm Vanessa Grigoriadis.
Infamous
From Conned to Cupid I Part 1
Let me introduce you to Cammie Verney. She's the kind of woman who's always very put together. Red fingernails, fond of wearing kitten heels. She runs a great home. She's warm. She's inviting.
Infamous
From Conned to Cupid I Part 1
So let's fill you in on Cammie's life. And so you know, Josh Verney did not participate in this podcast. Cammie and I were actually born in the same year, in the 1970s. We probably watched a lot of the same movies growing up. Ferris Bueller, Sixteen Candles, and, of course, The Breakfast Club.
Infamous
From Conned to Cupid I Part 1
Kami's mom stayed at home and her dad was an attorney. The family had dinner every night at 6.30. Kami wore guest jeans, went to summer camp, had a bat mitzvah. She was the kind of girl who, when everybody got Cabbage Patch dolls, she got a lot of them, not just one. But all was not as great as it seemed.
Infamous
From Conned to Cupid I Part 1
And all that anxiety about her body only got worse when Cammie left for Syracuse. She'd eat scooped bagels in the morning, a large fat free yogurt in the afternoon, but she was still gaining weight.
Infamous
From Conned to Cupid I Part 1
Cammy sailed into a job at a law firm, one that her father, Barry, had helped her get.
Infamous
From Conned to Cupid I Part 1
And Kami was definitely cute. What she wasn't was aggressive, like most lawyers. That's why she listened to metal in her car.
Infamous
From Conned to Cupid I Part 1
By all accounts, Kami made it. She had a good professional life. She was charming judges. She was proving that she could live up to all the privilege that she'd been bestowed. She just hadn't decided yet if the life she was living was the one she really wanted.
Infamous
From Conned to Cupid I Part 1
I don't think you'll be surprised to hear that Cami's also an amazing mom. You know, the first one to volunteer to chaperone the school field trip, the one who never complains about waiting in the car pickup armada at school, and when you finally get in the car, she probably has snacks ready. Like, good snacks. She's just super into being a mom. And super into being a wife, too.
Infamous
From Conned to Cupid I Part 1
So all these people you've been hearing about live on the main line in Pennsylvania. That's a very she-she set of suburban towns. And one night, when Cammy was 27 years old, she and her parents went into Philadelphia. They were having dinner at Brasserie Perrier. That's a French restaurant in the heart of Philadelphia. It has dim lighting and white tablecloths.
Infamous
From Conned to Cupid I Part 1
Kemi's accustomed to these kinds of fancy dinners with her father, the attorney.
Infamous
From Conned to Cupid I Part 1
Now that's what I'd call a bold move. But Kami wasn't sold, at least not at first.
Infamous
From Conned to Cupid I Part 1
That was all going to change. Now, 2001 is coming to a close. It's New Year's Eve, and Cami, who's cute with money to burn, is about to head to a party. There's going to be champagne, confetti, dancing. It's looking to be the perfect night, except for one thing.
Infamous
From Conned to Cupid I Part 1
Yes, you heard that right. Cami's mom is so disappointed that Cami is still single that she can't bring herself to celebrate the new year. But it's not just Cami's mom. Cami is also feeling pretty down, and not just about her weight this time. She's down about the thing that most women were down about decades ago when they were in their late 20s and single. Not being married.
Infamous
From Conned to Cupid I Part 1
Cami's holding a scrapbook in her hands. A very neat and very polished scrapbook. I'd expect nothing less. This book documents her life with her husband, Josh Verney. In the pages, she's saved all sorts of things. Pictures, notes, birthday cards, playbills. There's even emails.
Infamous
From Conned to Cupid I Part 1
Unlike her mother, Cami still goes out that night. And who was at that party but Josh Verney, the guy who's had his eye on Cami for almost two years. And you know what they say, good things come to those who wait.
Infamous
Infamous Recommends: The Hypnotist Conman
Hey, everyone. It's Vanessa. Hope you're having a good week. This week, we're going to bring you a story from a different host. His name is Sam Mullins, and he's going to be talking to you about Ronald Dante, also known as Dr. Dante, who is a con man from the past, a legend who did a lot of hypnosis and had his own university and even dated Lana Turner. Sam is a great host.
Infamous
Infamous Recommends: The Hypnotist Conman
And if you want to hear the entire series, you can look up Dr. Dante and take a listen. So please enjoy.
Infamous
The Ethics of Kid Rock
He's smart enough to know that the magazine has like a liberal leaning. He's also, we will talk about, a pretty thin-skinned guy. So if he felt like it wasn't going to be straight applause, he's not there for it.
Infamous
The Ethics of Kid Rock
If you've been to a concert recently, you know how completely absurd the tickets are and all the ridiculous fees.
Infamous
The Ethics of Kid Rock
Right. Or he was going to get press out of it. But it's interesting that you don't think that there was a third option, which is he thought he was going to charm you.
Infamous
The Ethics of Kid Rock
He basically says to you that he felt like his life became a gotcha moment, right? Like, and people were coming for him. And he's not wrong about that. In the first kind of Trump iteration, people really came for him in a way that is sort of shocking now when you see that the conservatives are now on top.
Infamous
The Ethics of Kid Rock
And he then retreated to his spread where he lives, which sounds like it's even a thousand times nicer than where he grew up. 214 acres, this beautiful deep green valley right in front of him, like a pickleball court, a pool, this and that. And he said to you, look around. I live in my own world and it's great. So what happened when you drove up to like the gates of the mansion?
Infamous
The Ethics of Kid Rock
Can you describe exactly what it looked like and how you felt going in there?
Infamous
The Ethics of Kid Rock
So when you first look at him, are you like, wow, this guy looks real old? Or are you like, huh, this guy's good looking and charismatic. And like, you know, how did you feel in those first few moments? Yeah.
Infamous
The Ethics of Kid Rock
But it's very nice that he gave you some cheese and salamis. He didn't serve you like nails. you know, but wait, so he, is he welcoming? Is he like, yeah, let me show you around. Like, yeah. Okay.
Infamous
The Ethics of Kid Rock
So, yeah, I don't think you can argue with that. But some of the other stuff that Kid Rock has done has been quite performative and very weird, like denouncing Oprah for endorsing John Fetterman for Senate because he wanted Dr. Oz to win, just being really vociferous about that. He's also said that ugly women, particularly liberal women, are the reason that birth rates are so low in our country.
Infamous
The Ethics of Kid Rock
So you guys start getting into it about politics, even though you don't really want to talk to him about politics. You start to fight, basically, because you're very liberal and he's not.
Infamous
The Ethics of Kid Rock
Wait, wait, wait. So the van set up like a little like control room or it's set up where it looks like a fake living room and he's sitting in front of it.
Infamous
The Ethics of Kid Rock
And he got slapped by Dolly Parton's sister for that. Or he shot a bunch of Bud Light cans to protest Bud Light using a transgender woman in an ad. And he shot them with a machine gun. He's just turned into a constant provocateur, almost like a troll. which does make sense for our era of ultra sensibilities, but can also be exhausting.
Infamous
The Ethics of Kid Rock
He's so mad that he's like, let me tell you how much money I got. I got $370 million.
Infamous
The Ethics of Kid Rock
Yeah. And he's been to jail, right, for beating people up. I mean, he's sort of known to get into brawls.
Infamous
The Ethics of Kid Rock
I don't know about you, but I like my artists without the political rigmarole.
Infamous
The Ethics of Kid Rock
Yeah. I mean, really, it's a fascinating portrait of a person, right, in America today. And the way that you wrote it is just so artful. So everybody should check out this story, which was in Rolling Stone, and we'll have a link to it in the show notes. And I would just say, in the end, he comes off as this really
Infamous
The Ethics of Kid Rock
bizarre melange right of a guy who used to say things like tipper gore is my whore right went back when he called bill clinton a pimp and he has always played with these political people and is into like politics as entertainment and this moment is just a moment where a person like that can totally shine and this really sad angry human being who you really get to the heart of
Infamous
The Ethics of Kid Rock
It's a really complicated, really interesting portrait. So yeah, I think everybody should check it out. Thanks so much for coming on to Infamous.
Infamous
The Ethics of Kid Rock
So we wanted to discuss Kid Rock now because he's in the news constantly. Like just a couple of weeks ago, even though he's super anti-immigration, his bar in Nashville, his like honky tonk shut down because ICE was in town and they were worried. And basically the whole kitchen sounds like it was full of people who would not have been OK if ICE came in.
Infamous
The Ethics of Kid Rock
So I happen to know a writer who had an experience that, let's say, was interesting with Kid Rock. And I thought we would invite him on to talk about it. Is Kid Rock an American badass with a heart of gold? Or is he something far more complicated? Let's get the interview rolling and we will figure out what there is to say about Kid Rock. Thanks so much for listening.
Infamous
The Ethics of Kid Rock
So this week on Infamous, we have David Peisner, who is an amazing writer. He wrote a book about in-living color that you should definitely check out, Homie Don't Play That. And he also wrote an incredibly iconic story about Kid Rock for Rolling Stone. That's what we're going to discuss today. So at Rolling Stone, which I worked for for many years, Kid Rock was sort of like a staple.
Infamous
The Ethics of Kid Rock
He was one of the guys who got covered all the time from 2000 on until, I don't know, maybe whatever, five years ago or so. I mean, he was never going to be Dylan. He was never going to be Hendrix, somebody that the magazine could publish about over and over. But early on, Kid Rock seemed like a relatively fun person. Tell me a little bit about how he grew up.
Infamous
The Ethics of Kid Rock
He went to Michigan State and was a business major. And his mom was a freshman there. They got married. She was a cheerleader. She immediately drops out of school to bring up the family. And they would have like barn parties, right, where they would play music on the boombox. And they would play like bad, bad Leroy Brown. And he would lip sync to it.
Infamous
The Ethics of Kid Rock
And it's bad, bad Leroy Brown. The baddest man in the whole damn town.
Infamous
The Ethics of Kid Rock
And formatively and sadly, his brother fell off of his dad's tractor and lost his leg when he was nine years old. And Kid Rock has said that that made him almost try to get more attention because even though he felt compassion for his brother, his brother ended up becoming, like, central to the family.
Infamous
The Ethics of Kid Rock
I also love that his crew, when he started doing music, was called the Furious Funkers, were his little, like, rap group in high school that got sponsored by the local Burger King.
Infamous
The Ethics of Kid Rock
So you write in your piece, whether he was performing with Run-DMC, briefly marrying Pamela Anderson, or getting into a fight at a Waffle House at 5 a.m., Kid Rock's very existence felt like a hundred decibel reminder that rock and roll was supposed to be fun.
Infamous
The Ethics of Kid Rock
Rolling Stone itself was all in on this version of Kid Rock, twice putting him on the magazine's cover solo and declaring him the king of old school partying and take no prisoners boasting. So what happened? Rolling Stone assigned you a story. This was 2024.
Infamous
The Ethics of Kid Rock
Welcome back to Infamous. And yes, that was Kid Rock. You may remember him as one of the biggest stars of the 2000s with that long, dirty blonde hair, the big sunglasses, pimp swagger. He fused all kinds of music together, hip hop, metal and country. He was signed to a label at 17 years old. Just a really talented guy. Very funny. Great stage presence. That was Bob Ritchie then.
Infamous
The Ethics of Kid Rock
I mean, it goes along with Pamela Anderson. I mean, I don't even remember if they were married, but Pamela Anderson, sort of Jessica Simpson saying, like, chicken of the sea is that chicken? Jenna Jameson. Like, it's just Paris Hilton. It's sort of that 2000 raunch era post-grunge, as we're watching right now in our culture, metronomes back and forth and goes way too far in one direction.
Infamous
The Ethics of Kid Rock
And this went in the beers and boobs direction, and that's when he was at his height. is my understanding.
Infamous
The Ethics of Kid Rock
And it was he was also funny ish. You know, he was funny where it's like ran an escort service for all the wrong reasons. What are the right reasons to run an escort service? They're just ridiculous, whether wittingly or unwittingly. And there was a sense that this guy was in on the joke and possibly because he was also from Detroit.
Infamous
The Ethics of Kid Rock
I'm not sure about the racial politics, but I had a feeling like, and this could have been my own projection, that this guy understood that he was playing the role of a white, trash, Southern character, but he wasn't actually that person. And it was OK he was doing it. Because he was sort of poking fun at it.
Infamous
The Ethics of Kid Rock
And there was definitely an undercurrent of assholery in what he was doing. He called women bitches all the time and stuff like that. But the music was pretty good. In recent years, though, he's become very political, very controversial. Some of what he's up to, I support, like his campaign to try to get Ticketmaster broken up.
Infamous
The Ethics of Kid Rock
So you get this call from Rolling Stone and you're thinking it over. You're saying, maybe I'm a little too busy. Then you start to think, I have some theories that I might want to foist upon the world, which is usually the way it goes. And then you call the editor back and say, OK.
Infamous
The Ethics of Kid Rock
But I mean, why is he so pissed at Rolling Stone? Whether he's MAGA or not, Rolling Stone is the ultimate music magazine.
Infamous
Martha Stewart Called Her Dead
But then she wasn't so back. That was what was really fascinating. She got out of prison. It actually wasn't. So easy for her.
Infamous
Martha Stewart Called Her Dead
Not that getting out of prison is ever easy. But in terms of being in the public eye, her company was in a lot of confusion. Right. What is this company without Martha? And will people accept her afterwards? And it's a hard time to be a media business, too, at that point. point, by the way. It's hard time to be a media business. But she makes this deal with Mark Burnett to do like a variety show.
Infamous
Martha Stewart Called Her Dead
And it just doesn't at all play to her strengths. It's really cheesy. And it doesn't let, as they say, Martha be Martha, right? It doesn't let her get back in the embrace. So it doesn't seem like she's gonna get back on top.
Infamous
Martha Stewart Called Her Dead
Right. Remember, she's also still saying she's innocent. Like she never would say, like, I did this. She famously once said, I didn't hurt a lot of people. The situation hurt a lot of people. She didn't do that American thing where you have to say, I have sinned. But yes, the person who's coming for her, of course, is Gwyneth Paltrow. Yes, our favorite.
Infamous
Martha Stewart Called Her Dead
Let's just review Martha Stewart and her epic life because it really is sort of epic for those who might not remember all the details.
Infamous
Martha Stewart Called Her Dead
And so you have Martha Stewart saying she just needs to be quiet about Gwyneth. If she was confident in her acting, she wouldn't be trying to be Martha Stewart.
Infamous
Martha Stewart Called Her Dead
That is correct. Bieber, who is also in his destructive period where he is, as one person said to me, he's got a house in California that's like Caligula. He's got all these girls around. He's getting into all this trouble with the law.
Infamous
Martha Stewart Called Her Dead
He is going to have this roast because, you know, roast on Comedy Central brings you back in the public eye, lets everybody collectively laugh at you and maybe resets the table with your image a little bit. And they invite Martha Stewart. And so Martha Stewart is sitting up there with like Kevin Hart and Snoop.
Infamous
Martha Stewart Called Her Dead
She's sitting next to Snoop and she roasts Bieber and she's really dirty and filthy about it.
Infamous
Martha Stewart Called Her Dead
She makes a huge splash and people are clapping for her. And they're like, oh, my God, I had no idea that Martha Stewart was so funny. Right.
Infamous
Martha Stewart Called Her Dead
And she's sitting next to Snoop, like he's smoking a million blunts. She says she's getting high off the secondhand smoke. She actually says she doesn't smoke pot despite her long friendship when they did a TV show also with Snoop. But Snoop actually at one point wrote on his Instagram of like when the Tekashi 6ix9ine trial was going on that he was a snitch.
Infamous
Martha Stewart Called Her Dead
And I invite you all to remember Martha Stewart snitched on not one soul during her trial. Baby girl kept it 10 toes down and ate that prison sentence by herself like the true baddie she is. Solid as a rock. So, I mean, kind of an unbelievable image recreation, right? And she puts out a CBD line. She's current. She's got an electric car. She has a Tesla.
Infamous
Martha Stewart Called Her Dead
She's like trying to be avant-garde and current with it. She's got her chows and her Frenchies around. She's up to $100. cookbooks. She's been riding sort of high.
Infamous
Martha Stewart Called Her Dead
OK, so Martha is super mad about it. I think it's a great documentary. It's on Netflix called Martha. And she's mad about the director, RJ Cutler. She says she didn't have enough control over it. Obviously, Martha is a control freak. And then people noticed that Martha said that she was glad someone was dead in it.
Infamous
Martha Stewart Called Her Dead
This woman, Andrea Pizer, who's a New York Post columnist. Andrea Pizer is actually the one who's called her the domestic dominatrix. That was like, you know how the New York Post likes to have their little nicknames. That was their nickname. She and Martha had locked horns. And so in the documentary, Martha says that during her trial, that New York Post lady was there just looking so smug.
Infamous
Martha Stewart Called Her Dead
She had written horrible things during the entire trial, but she is dead now. Thank goodness. And nobody has to put up with the crap that she was writing all the time. And so, you know, when Andrea hears about this, she's like, well, I am alive and news of my passing has come as a shock. You know, so she writes this column that says, like, I'm alive, bitch.
Infamous
Martha Stewart Called Her Dead
And this whole thing blows up hugely because it's very funny, obviously. And it even gets on Saturday Night Live where Charlie XCX talks about it being so bratty.
Infamous
Martha Stewart Called Her Dead
So this has just been a big cultural moment that just feels so infamous. So we called up Andrea to see how she feels about being one of the many people who has been in Martha's crosshairs over the years. I just also want to clarify that Martha later came out and said, oh, maybe it wasn't Andrea who died.
Infamous
Martha Stewart Called Her Dead
It was actually a different journalist who had tragically died of breast cancer who wrote the mean things about me during the trial. But that's neither here nor there. And you'll hear that Andrea's actually in pretty good spirits because this is a big pop culture moment. And yeah, let's check in with her. So tell me where you were when you heard that she had said this about you.
Infamous
Martha Stewart Called Her Dead
Right, right, right. Related to what some would call insider trading. So, I mean, she is 83 years old now, right? So she grew up in Nutley, New Jersey, and her parents had like a million kids. They were Polish. She was the eldest daughter. They were poor. She ate like mustard sandwiches for lunch. She washed her hair in the kitchen sink.
Infamous
Martha Stewart Called Her Dead
Yeah. So who wrote the lines? Hey, Martha Stewart, you gloated about the death of a post columnist, but I'm alive, bitch.
Infamous
Martha Stewart Called Her Dead
It's just so incredibly odd because this is a person who really lives in her own world, right? And so other people are just props.
Infamous
Martha Stewart Called Her Dead
When you think about going back to that trial, when you were in the courthouse, how do you think about seeing her there and what she was like up close?
Infamous
Martha Stewart Called Her Dead
What was the big twist? Was it Doug Fanuel or the stockbrokers? Isn't it nice to have brokers that tell you these things? What were the big twists?
Infamous
Martha Stewart Called Her Dead
And why did she turn on her? Because she felt it was her responsibility or was there some other reason?
Infamous
Martha Stewart Called Her Dead
And so what did you think about Peter? What did you think about him and his culpability in the end?
Infamous
Martha Stewart Called Her Dead
And her father encouraged having an enormous garden so that they could eat from it cheaply, which is what they did. Right. And then she was very, very smart. She actually got a scholarship to go to Bernard, which is right over the George Washington Bridge from New Jersey. And.
Infamous
Martha Stewart Called Her Dead
Yeah, I mean, the one thing you have to say is her comeback was impressive. She went to prison and she built this thing back, right?
Infamous
Martha Stewart Called Her Dead
Yeah. What I think is amazing is also that she kind of convinced everybody that she was mellow. She was smoking pot with Snoop Dogg, blah, blah, blah. And then she does this documentary and you're like, oh, you haven't changed at all.
Infamous
Martha Stewart Called Her Dead
Yeah. Do you think she had a final cut or some approval or no?
Infamous
Martha Stewart Called Her Dead
Unbelievably enough, 1963 class of Barnard included not only Erica Jong, who wrote Fear of Flying, who's a famous author, Twyla Tharp, the mother of modern dance, Martha Stewart, but also my mother. Amazing. Who was part of this class, which you can just imagine was so interesting. interesting to be in uptown Manhattan in the early 60s when, you know, sort of Mad Men era, right?
Infamous
Martha Stewart Called Her Dead
What about Saturday Night Live? Were you watching Saturday Night Live and heard Charlie Axiak say this or you were asleep and then you heard about it the next day?
Infamous
Martha Stewart Called Her Dead
So brat. It's so brat. I still don't even really understand what brat is, but you're brat, apparently.
Infamous
Martha Stewart Called Her Dead
Well, then she came out and said, oh, wait a second. It's not her. It's actually this other New York Times writer who tragically died at 44. I was like, that's horrible.
Infamous
Martha Stewart Called Her Dead
Is this her 15 minutes are up and we're not going to be talking about her anymore? Is this the end of Martha?
Infamous
Martha Stewart Called Her Dead
Did you ever make her recipes or read her magazine or anything? Was there anything you liked about her or not so much?
Infamous
Martha Stewart Called Her Dead
So let me ask you one question. You really think she's enjoying all of this and trying to get mileage out of it? Or does she have a touch of dementia? Has that crossed your mind a little bit?
Infamous
Martha Stewart Called Her Dead
So are you going to write about this again? What's the next column?
Infamous
Martha Stewart Called Her Dead
Hopefully she'll come out at some point and say, actually, I'm happy that this woman is still alive. I do not wish her to die, but I don't know if you get that.
Infamous
Martha Stewart Called Her Dead
Where women were still supposed to be one thing, but they're starting to become something else. Did your mom ever meet Martha? My mom not only met Martha, my mom, who was a day student, who was not allowed to sleep over there or live in the dorms, and neither was Martha. Used to take the bus from New Jersey, like the sad bus to go to college with Martha Stewart.
Infamous
Martha Stewart Called Her Dead
Exactly. And then Martha was really pretty. She claims in this documentary that she was one of the coolest girls in Barnard.
Infamous
Martha Stewart Called Her Dead
I know, which is like, there's no question that the girls from the Upper East Side who are coming there in their Bentleys or like the Twyla Tharps who were pioneering a new way of dance, they did not look at Martha Stewart and think she was cool. But she did meet somebody very young. At 19 years old, she got married. And, you know, wasn't a great marriage, right? But he was very wealthy.
Infamous
Martha Stewart Called Her Dead
And apparently his family encouraged her to become a stockbroker. So she was a successful stockbroker in her 20s in New York City, which is something I completely forgot.
Infamous
Martha Stewart Called Her Dead
Yeah, I mean, she sort of said all the men would touch you. It was just assumed, right? Right. But then there was like some sort of downturn in the market and she was a little bored of it anyway. And they move to Connecticut and they buy this home, this beautiful home that needs to be fixed up. And she really finds her calling, right? Yeah.
Infamous
Martha Stewart Called Her Dead
Quite, quite ambivalent about having a child. Yeah, about motherhood. Yeah, I mean, she says something that I think a lot of mothers more than would admit it feel, which is I'm not sure I'm cut out to be a mother. I'm not sure I want to really do this. I've got this one kid, but I'm not having more.
Infamous
Martha Stewart Called Her Dead
And- Her husband is in publishing, so they do like a catering event and she hits up some of these book publishers and she's like, hey, what about me to do a book?
Infamous
Martha Stewart Called Her Dead
So the book is called Entertaining, which I grew up with this book.
Infamous
Martha Stewart Called Her Dead
My house. Yeah. It's Martha on the cover in her kitchen, which is very opulent. Right. And she's got this sort of personality. cursed look, you know, that little blonde, pursed lips, this very benign, enthusiastic Connecticut homewaker, you know. And to her credit, this part of her story is very true, which is that she obviously loves to cook, to clean, to figure out the best way to clean.
Infamous
Martha Stewart Called Her Dead
She's very DIY. She really will wash her own floor. Very unlike the Kardashians, where people are like, okay, the nannies are just out of the frame. She really doesn't did do her home care herself and probably continues to.
Infamous
Martha Stewart Called Her Dead
And then she says, well, where's good to go for a single woman? Like, where's a good social life? And somebody's like, you should buy a home in East Hampton. So she goes to the Hamptons and she's like, wow, now I'm fabulous. I'm friends with Ralph Lauren and all these different fabulous people and Hollywood people and rich people.
Infamous
Martha Stewart Called Her Dead
And she sort of builds her empire and the company is going gangbusters. And one of her friends, who she would socialize with out there, is a guy who just happens to own a, I guess it's biotech company named Sam Waxell. And he's got this startup-y biotech company and everybody's buying into it and Martha buys into it.
Infamous
Martha Stewart Called Her Dead
And then one day, things aren't going so well with Imclone Systems, Sam Waxell's company. And this is the beginning of Martha's downfall.
Infamous
Martha Stewart Called Her Dead
So what happens is she's got this Merrill Lynch broker. He's a very handsome man. He also has a very handsome assistant. And the assistant calls up Martha and says, yo, people are dumping this stock. What do you want to do? And she says, dump it. I mean, I don't know exactly what she says, but that's basically what she says. And she happens to be with a friend at this time.
Infamous
Martha Stewart Called Her Dead
turns to her friend and says, isn't it nice to have brokers who tell you these things? According to the friend, we should say. According to the friend. To this day, well, we'll get into this, but Martha does still say she's innocent. But this was the plot line that was put together by the prosecution.
Infamous
Martha Stewart Called Her Dead
Right. It was basically an obstruction of justice trial. So it wasn't as like she was totally up there for insider trading, but it was all just a big mishmash mess. And she famously went on TV and was, you know, making a salad at the same time that she was answering somebody's questions about like, well, what did you really do? And she got more and more frustrated.
Infamous
Martha Stewart Called Her Dead
Until she finally just said, I just want to focus on my salad.
Infamous
Martha Stewart Called Her Dead
There was this sense that this woman was holier than thou. She always thought she was better than everybody. She's Martha Stewart and you're not. And everybody forgot she was a poor girl at this point, right? She had a very bad reputation, we should say, for the way she treated underlings, portrayed very greedy, social climber, etc.,
Infamous
Martha Stewart Called Her Dead
Ooh, yes. She tends to come back like every five or ten years. Suddenly, it's all about Martha Stewart. She's really good at staying current.
Infamous
Martha Stewart Called Her Dead
Yeah. So she's like an ego monster. I mean, it's the idea that she has such anger management difficulties that she would have a hard time like running a deli, let alone like at that point, it was like a billion dollar public company.
Infamous
Martha Stewart Called Her Dead
Right, right, right, right. Which is what everybody thought she did. And I mean, look, in the end, she was convicted.
Infamous
Martha Stewart Called Her Dead
It wasn't a walk in the park. By the way, at this point, Martha is as big as Beyonce at this point, right? Like, this is a colossal story. She was already a huge icon. And so there's so much information leaking out of prison. She had this roommate named Peanut, but they didn't get along. And then... She's sleeping in the bottom bunk and she actually is sleeping.
Infamous
Martha Stewart Called Her Dead
Yeah, and one of the biggest moments that's coming out of that documentary that R.J. Cutler made is this longstanding feud that Martha Stewart had with a New York Post writer named Andrea Pizer, who's like a very famous OG New York Post lady. And you actually talked to Andrea Pizer, right? I talked to Andrea, and we are going to get to that. But first...
Infamous
Martha Stewart Called Her Dead
She reports that she's sleeping well. She famously got up at four o'clock in the morning her whole life, which is something very successful. People always say, I don't have time to sleep. From prison, she's still writing out all her Christmas cards to everybody because people still did paper Christmas cards and back then.
Infamous
Martha Stewart Called Her Dead
And she would go and like gather stray dandelions from the concrete cracks of the prison grounds. She would hide condiments in her bra to make little microwaved concoctions out of them. She learned how to crochet. She was showing people how to clean the prison administrator's office. The best way to clean a floor waxer is with turpentine.
Infamous
Martha Stewart Called Her Dead
So the press is like constantly talking about what's happening at Camp Cupcake, which is what they dubbed the prison.
Infamous
Martha Stewart Called Her Dead
Oh, my God. Also, when she leaves the prison. She's going as she's on the tarmac. She's going to a private plane. And she's wearing this unbelievable poncho that either she or one of the other prisoners had knitted for her. And it's like very nubby and handmade looking, but also sort of nice and chic. And you just think to yourself, oh, my God, you know, she's back. Right.
Infamous
A Bitcoin Mystery and the Crypto Bros
Because, I mean, you are, like, good at computers? Not even.
Infamous
A Bitcoin Mystery and the Crypto Bros
That's really funny. I mean, I think I've lost a couple of hard drives along the way. I'd like to look in there for two. So, okay. So basically we now understand what Bitcoin is. An NFT I know is a digital piece of art that people buy and trade. Now there's this new thing called the meme coin. And the meme coin is just like, you're a person who has fame and you tell your followers like, hey,
Infamous
A Bitcoin Mystery and the Crypto Bros
Trump is even talking about making a national mint now for Bitcoin, right? The idea that like the United States would put in a couple billion dollars into Bitcoin and make the prices go up really high. And I'm sure he owns some of it.
Infamous
A Bitcoin Mystery and the Crypto Bros
That's what my friend did. But then she got bored of it because she said in order to get on the exchange, you have to get a bunch of people from different IP addresses to buy into it. And she, I think, realized that was a bit harder.
Infamous
A Bitcoin Mystery and the Crypto Bros
Caitlyn Jenner had one. Basically, anybody who has like a little bit of clout can sort of do it.
Infamous
A Bitcoin Mystery and the Crypto Bros
Right. And I mean, the scandal that happened was with the Hawk Tua girl, right? The girl who went viral for her dumb joke. And people put millions of dollars into trading this meme coin. And then, you know, the original people who bought it pulled out and everybody was left with nothing in the end.
Infamous
A Bitcoin Mystery and the Crypto Bros
There's just something about all of this that feels like it's washing money. It's irresponsible gambling. It's like the world's worst people, the gang leaders or whoever who need to move money from place to place. Like, do you think that's fair? Or do you think that digital currency is just the world's new currency? We all have to get used to it.
Infamous
A Bitcoin Mystery and the Crypto Bros
I mean, we've always had speculation bubbles, right? Like the tulip bubble, you know, in Holland and the 1600s and ancient Rome and all these places are always had speculative bubbles. But there's something here that it feels so anti-internet to be so shadowy about it. You know, like every single person has a footprint on the internet. Nobody is anonymous.
Infamous
A Bitcoin Mystery and the Crypto Bros
And suddenly now where money's involved, you can be like sort of anonymous with this.
Infamous
A Bitcoin Mystery and the Crypto Bros
The other question is if America is just becoming a place where people do a lot of gambling, right? Like their online gambling, which is something that used to not be legal, is all over the place now. People also do quite a bit of Bitcoin trading. People do sports betting in a way that they didn't before.
Infamous
A Bitcoin Mystery and the Crypto Bros
Meme stock trading. And if we're just like an addicted country, are we like addicted to gambling? And is this part of it?
Infamous
A Bitcoin Mystery and the Crypto Bros
I mean, there's this sort of influencer culture that's very much about raising up the people who manage to get all of those clicks. And kids think, oh, OK, I can do that, too. But in fact, we're going to become like a nation of drop shippers. Yeah. There's just not a lot of ways, particularly with encroaching AI, to really live out that American dream. I mean, I don't know.
Infamous
A Bitcoin Mystery and the Crypto Bros
I'm sure I speak for a lot of people when I say that right now, there's a lot of fear of AI coursing through my veins. There's a lot of fear of the tech bros taking over. And these guys will control not only the government, but they'll control our currency. I mean, do you feel that way?
Infamous
A Bitcoin Mystery and the Crypto Bros
I do have a friend who said, I'm going to start this meme coin. We're all going to get rich. And she did have me also buy $100 of it, but then she got bored of it. But that's like as far as I go with crypto. What is crypto exactly? I assume it's a synonym for Bitcoin. They're both the same thing.
Infamous
A Bitcoin Mystery and the Crypto Bros
Yeah, and we already have our phones for that. So thank you so much for coming on to tell us not necessarily how to get rich quick, although if you can buy some Bitcoin and sell it at the right moment, that might be a plan. Ben Wallace wrote this book that is called The Mysterious Mr. Nakamoto about his search for the inventor of Bitcoin. Thanks so much for being on with us, Ben.
Infamous
A Bitcoin Mystery and the Crypto Bros
All right. Thanks, everybody. We will be back next week with a new story. And thanks so much for listening.
Infamous
A Bitcoin Mystery and the Crypto Bros
But it doesn't, it's not tethered to anything. It's not tethered to like the US dollar. It has no real value. But I guess you could say nothing has value.
Infamous
A Bitcoin Mystery and the Crypto Bros
Oh, my God. So wait, there's no way for you to get that back?
Infamous
A Bitcoin Mystery and the Crypto Bros
So, okay. So you then decide that you're going to be on the hunt for the guy who started all of this. Why do we need to know who this guy is? Is there a reason we need to know?
Infamous
A Bitcoin Mystery and the Crypto Bros
Hello, infamous listeners. Thanks so much for being back this week and listening to our show, the Campsite and Sony Music production. We are here this week without Natalie, but we do have Ben Wallace, an old colleague of mine from New York Magazine. He did a story about Terry Richardson that was pretty famous, the guy from the American apparel photographer Sleazebag.
Infamous
A Bitcoin Mystery and the Crypto Bros
Right. And so what are like the first steps that you do to try to find this guy?
Infamous
A Bitcoin Mystery and the Crypto Bros
And wait, explain what he looks like because he's just like some middle-aged nerd.
Infamous
A Bitcoin Mystery and the Crypto Bros
He also wrote a book called The Billionaire's Vinegar, which is a great rare wine mystery tale. And he is out now with something that is extremely of the moment, which is a book about... the guy or guys or girls, we don't actually know, who invented Bitcoin, the mysterious Mr. Nakamoto. So thank you for being here, Ben Wallace.
Infamous
A Bitcoin Mystery and the Crypto Bros
From there, you say that the drive to decipher... Satoshi brought this car chase, right? This is the car chase.
Infamous
A Bitcoin Mystery and the Crypto Bros
A bounty, a $75 billion fortune. I assume that's what he actually or they or she has from Bitcoin themselves. But there's been extortion attempts to try to find him. Death threats. A SWAT team was called in. A fugitive arms dealer got involved.
Infamous
A Bitcoin Mystery and the Crypto Bros
A forger got involved. Like it's just basically this huge group of people. people worldwide who are like, who is this guy?
Infamous
A Bitcoin Mystery and the Crypto Bros
I do not think of you as a tech guy, but you have this book out now, which is about the invention of Bitcoin and who actually did it. And it's an anonymous person. It's like Guy Fawkes. Nobody knows who this person is, which is insane.
Infamous
A Bitcoin Mystery and the Crypto Bros
I mean, he is, you know, intent on world domination and having your own currency is part of doing that.
Infamous
A Bitcoin Mystery and the Crypto Bros
Right. You need to buy things on Mars. So tell me the case for that.
Infamous
Murder at Lululemon I Part 2
Now, he says that he and Brittany did eventually get together, just not right around the time of the attack.
Infamous
Murder at Lululemon I Part 2
It didn't seem like he had much of a motivation to attack Brittany, let alone Brittany and Jana.
Infamous
Murder at Lululemon I Part 2
From Sony Music Entertainment and Campside Media, this is Infamous. I'm Vanessa Grigoriadis. And I'm Natalie Robomet. So last episode, we went into the way Lululemon works, some of it, and what happened in the aftermath of this brutal attack on two employees, educators, in the boutique in Bethesda, Maryland. Afterward, Brittany was still alive.
Infamous
Murder at Lululemon I Part 2
She was taken to the hospital, where she began filling in investigators on the events of the night.
Infamous
Murder at Lululemon I Part 2
Now, crimes against women are often committed by intimate partners. I mean, boyfriends, spouses, husbands. And so detectives bring in a guy that they heard was dating Brittany.
Infamous
Murder at Lululemon I Part 2
So while police are questioning Keith, they're also interviewing other people, collecting evidence and following all sorts of other leads. As they examine the crime scene further, it seems more and more like whoever did this really left a trail. For example, there was one extremely odd detail that had to do with a pair of shoes.
Infamous
Murder at Lululemon I Part 2
So what he's saying is, in the store, you know, there would have been shoes for fittings, right, at Lululemon. That was something that they did. In this case, the detective, according to Dan Morse's book, you know, looks at the actual shoes, and when he turns over the shoes, Dan Morse says that the detective's eyebrows rose nearly all the way to his bald head.
Infamous
Murder at Lululemon I Part 2
The shoe prints that were on the floor matched exactly the wavy waffle patterns on this shoe. So these were the shoes that were worn by the attacker.
Infamous
Murder at Lululemon I Part 2
Remember the Apple store right next to Lululemon, the one with the CCTV?
Infamous
Murder at Lululemon I Part 2
That's right. You could hear what was happening in Lululemon from inside the Apple Store. This was late at night. It was past 10 p.m., so it was hardly peak shopping hours. Most employees had gone home for the day. It was pretty quiet. I mean, that's part of why you could hear it.
Infamous
Murder at Lululemon I Part 2
The Apple employee who'd noticed the sounds said that she heard high-pitched yelps and squeals, grunting thuds, a dragging noise, like something heavy was being moved. She flagged down another manager, and they both stood there and listened. The words seemed muddled, but one of them thought they heard somebody saying, "'Talk to me. Don't do this.'" Talk to me. What's going on?
Infamous
Murder at Lululemon I Part 2
And then there was what sounded like a different voice saying, God, help me. Please help me. The Apple employees talked back and forth about calling the police. But that conversation through the wall, it just seems so personal and intimate.
Infamous
Murder at Lululemon I Part 2
Plus, there was something about the voices that possibly could have stopped them. The voices' high-pitched nature. This was not a guy fighting with a girl, which they might have perceived as leading to more violence.
Infamous
Murder at Lululemon I Part 2
So it's March 2011 in Bethesda, Maryland. At the police station, detectives are trying to solve the murder of Jana Murray and the violent attack on Brittany Norwood. One was a George Washington grad, the other was a former soccer star. They both seemed to be very type A, but they were friendly and they were outgoing. It was hard to imagine who could have had a motive to attack them.
Infamous
Infamous's 100th Episode!
From Sony Music Entertainment and Campsite Media, this is Infamous. I'm Lily Houston-Smith, and my voice might not be the one you're expecting. If you've been with us for a while, you may have heard me chime in before. I've been one of the producers on Infamous since pretty much the beginning, back when we were putting together stories like Girls Gone Wild and NXIVM.
Infamous
Infamous's 100th Episode!
Well, thank you guys for answering these questions. It's fun to walk down memory lane four seasons in and to look forward to season five.
Infamous
Infamous's 100th Episode!
I don't think people even know there have been that many episodes. We don't really divide the seasons.
Infamous
Infamous's 100th Episode!
That's it for this conversation. Thanks so much for being listeners of Infamous. We really couldn't make this show without you. So from all of us here at Campside Media and Sony Music Entertainment, have a wonderful holiday. We'll be back next week with a whole new episode. And here, as promised, is a little sneak peek at that conversation. See you next time.
Infamous
Infamous's 100th Episode!
Recently, we hit a pretty big milestone, 100 episodes. So we thought it'd be a great time to do something a little different, to look back and reflect on all the stories we've covered over the last few years.
Infamous
Infamous's 100th Episode!
So maybe because the show is so varied, it is impossible to answer this question. But do either of you have a favorite episode or a favorite arc or a favorite interview that you worked on?
Infamous
Infamous's 100th Episode!
So I sat down with our co-hosts, Vanessa Grigoriadis and Natalie Robomed, and they talked about how the show got started, what some of their favorite stories were, and how they both use their backgrounds as magazine writers to bring a little print journalism magic to every episode.
Infamous
Infamous's 100th Episode!
The Hamburglar was just a mascot, but Jerome Jacobson was the real deal, a McDonald's security chief who almost pulled off the ultimate inside job. On Wondery's podcast, The Big Flop, comedians join host Misha Brown to chronicle pop culture's biggest fails and try to answer the age-old question, who thought this was a good idea? At the time, the McDonald's collab with Monopoly was a genius idea.
Infamous
Infamous's 100th Episode!
Come get a Big Mac and you could go home with a million-dollar prize piece. The only problem? When they picked their head of security, the one guy in charge of protecting those million-dollar pieces, McDonald's drew the wrong card. Comedians Ify Wadiwe and Beth Stelling join Misha to break down what really happened with the McDonald's-Monopoly scandal.
Infamous
Infamous's 100th Episode!
They'll also give you a little peek behind the curtain at how we choose stories and what goes into putting them together for you each week. Then, at the end of the conversation, we'll play you a short clip from next week's episode. If you want to get in touch with us to propose a topic, send us a tip, or just say hi, we love hearing from you. Email us at infamous at campsidemedia.com.
Infamous
Infamous's 100th Episode!
It was over 30 years ago that Clifford Olson first called me. Secret phone calls from Canada's most notorious serial killer.
Infamous
Infamous's 100th Episode!
Now it's time to unearth the tapes, because I believe there are still answers to be found. I'm Arlene Bynum, from CBC's Uncover, calls from a killer. Available now.
Infamous
Infamous's 100th Episode!
Okay, so in almost 100 episodes, we fit so much into the show. If this conversation is any indication, we get a lot in there. But we also all know, the three of us here know, that there's a lot on the chopping block also. Is there anything that hasn't made it into the show? A little peek behind the curtain. Is there anything that didn't make it into the show that you want to talk about?
Infamous
Infamous's 100th Episode!
Again, that's infamous at campsidemedia.com. Here's that conversation now. So we're coming up on 100 episodes of Infamous. Oh my God. So exciting. That's crazy. So if you can think back a couple years ago, what was it that attracted you both to working on this series in the first place?
Infamous
Infamous's 100th Episode!
What about you, Natalie? Is there anything that didn't make it into the show that you want to talk about?
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 5
According to the Las Vegas Sun, Joe said he met sex workers who said they were Steve Wynn's personal gift to you. But Wynn sued Joe for defamation.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 5
That was just the first in a string of lawsuits between the two men with a lot of high drama. Joe alleged, in a countersuit, that Wynn had emailed music producer Quincy Jones, saying Joe should be concerned for his life for dipping out on his tab. Remember, Quincy lived across the street from Joe in Bel Air.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 5
No one threw up on Joe's plane, but we all started detaching. And then we were flying around the cabin like astronauts. And straight down the center aisle, there was Joe. He was coming straight at me doing a somersault. He was weightless. He was free. He was working totally against the laws of gravity.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 5
Joe was ordered to pay Wynn $20 million. Several months later, his business filed for bankruptcy.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 5
And when Joe's house in Bel Air went up for grabs, guess who got it? Steve Wynn. More after the break.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 5
So I said a lot about the culture and how everybody was exploiting everyone. And then you heard about the ridiculous war between Steve Wynn and Joe Francis. At this point, maybe you even feel a little bad for Joe Francis, sort of like Bubba the Love Sponge did.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 5
You might think, hey, I haven't heard Joe Francis in a while in the media or on the radio, anyplace else. This sounds like an old story. But I called up someone in L.A. who said it's actually an ongoing story.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 5
She was a detective on the west side of L.A.,
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 5
And then her boss told her what the case was.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 5
Now, battery is kind of like a more serious version of assault. It's an act that inflicts real harm. So Christina reached out to one of the victims. She said she'd gone out with two of her girlfriends, who were sisters.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 5
They decided to leave the club, but they say Joe appeared again outside.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 5
To be clear, this is Christina's account of events, and Joe has denied much of this story.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 5
There's a lot of dispute about what you just heard, plus what happened from here. Joe said that one of the girls did indeed have cell phone service at his house. that other people were present and that they could have left any time. But here's what Christina alleges ultimately happened.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 5
From Campside Media and Sony Music Entertainment, I'm Vanessa Grigoriadis, and this is Infamous. We're on our final episode of our five-part series, Boy Gone Wild. Stay tuned afterward for a special episode. Okay, back to Joe. When I think about the 2000s, at least in terms of pop culture, I think about Joe doing that free fall somersault on the plane and what he said afterwards.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 5
After what happened with those women, Joe was charged with assault and false imprisonment, even though he denied the allegations. But that spring, the case went to trial in Los Angeles. And when the verdict came down, Joe lost it. A day after the conviction, he gave a video interview to The Hollywood Reporter.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 5
Lovely. Joe had been found guilty of three counts of false imprisonment, one of dissuading a witness from reporting, and one of assault. And now he was going to be sentenced.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 5
That's right. Joe ducked out of jail time and the money he owed Steve Wynn, and he went to Mexico.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 5
And Christina says it could have consequences for Joe if he comes back to the U.S.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 5
Christina is confident that that will happen eventually.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 5
Stories continue to surface about his alleged mistreatment of women. Last year, in a show about Joe on TNT, a woman named Janelle alleged that he raped her after she was filmed for Girls Gone Wild. She claims that he and his cameraman took her into a small bedroom with a double bed, purple sheets.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 5
She alleges the cabinets were filled with lube, condoms, baby oil, a DVD called How to Be a Player, and sex toys.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 5
Some of these details might sound familiar to you. Someone is finding themselves on a bed in front of a camera with a sex toy. They don't want to be there. They feel intimidated. But in this story, things are alleged to escalate even further.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 5
Although Janelle took her story public, both in this testimony and to LA Times reporter Claire Hoffman, she never took any legal action that we could find. It's not uncommon in cases of sexual assault and rape. But Joe denies the allegation. Still, it's not the only allegation against him.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 5
He's been accused of domestic violence against the mother of his children, who left Mexico for the United States. He denies this. And Joe? He's believed to still be in Mexico, where he has an amazing home, almost like a resort, called Casa Aramara. It's white sand beaches. Palm trees waving in the breeze, jacuzzis and pools.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 5
It seems like a honeypot hotel for his celeb friends has long been a favorite with the Kardashians. In 2021, the Kasa Aramara Instagram account posted a picture of Kim Kardashian enjoying the tennis court. Kourtney Kardashian once even wrote in the web guestbook, I have never been to any other place in the world that is as peaceful, private, safe, and relaxing.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 5
Except, Joe is still down there being Joe. While I was working on this story, I wrote him on Instagram to ask for an interview with a list of questions. He wrote back that he categorically denied everything I had asked. Then he said he considered just the asking of the questions harassment and in violation of Instagram's policies.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 5
He said, I mean, he yelled this, I'm so amped. I'm so amped. And back then, everyone was just so amped all the time. I did it all for the boogie, the boogie, so you can take that cookie and stick it up. The early 2000s were about big. They were about raunch. They were about the birth of reality shows.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 5
He said that if I wrote him again, he would have me banned from Instagram. I wasn't surprised Joe didn't want to talk to me. He shut a lot of doors in his life. At the end of his message, he wrote with an exclamation point, Goodbye, Vanessa. Goodbye, Joe. All right, everybody. Thank you so much for listening to the Girls Gone Wild series on Infamous.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 5
As you can probably tell, this was a really meaningful story for me. If you'd like to read more of my writing on college, I did write a book called Blurred Lines, Sex, Power, and Consent on Campus. a lot of which is about the strange social situation that exists around sex on campus. So check out a copy of that if you'd like. Again, it's called Blurred Lines, and that's a book I wrote.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 5
So that's it. And we'll be back next week with a whole new series.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 5
Here's something I didn't tell you before from Panama City Beach in 2002. Remember when I was kicked out of the Holiday Inn with Joe Francis? Joe was arrested. I was told to leave. And I schlepped my roller bag over to the shooter's condo, where they stayed up drinking all night and I crashed on a couch. The next day, Joe got sprung. We met on an airstrip in front of his idling private plane.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 5
But as crazy as this is to contemplate, there was also this really serious Puritan streak to what was going on. The Raunch era was also about how Raunch was sort of not okay. About how taking your top off for Girls Gone Wild might be the height of feeling good at that exact moment, but it was something that you should later feel pretty ashamed of. Like, listen to this clip from Jersey Shore.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 5
Angelina is mad because Mike, remember him, the situation, has brought girls back after a night out. So she insults the girls.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 5
This double standard, this mixed message, was everywhere back then. and it extended to me too. I said earlier that there was this idea back then of two classes of women. The women who were exploited, who generally had very light bank accounts, and the women who exploited them, who went to college, got a good education,
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 5
made their living producing or analyzing or having something to do with pop culture. I told myself I was an analyst of all this stuff. And in some ways, I was. But in my haste to become successful myself, to become a female Hunter Thompson who got into the seamy side of culture, I did a lot of stuff that I feel pretty weird about today.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 5
I want to say one thing about when that Rolling Stone editor took me out to lunch.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 5
Talking over spaghetti and Pinot Noir, it wasn't totally out of left field that he wanted me to cover groupies. I had already reported on groupies for the band Poison. Okay, I know that sounds insane. It's a very old band, but they were having a revival. And on another reporting stunt, I had also lived for 24 hours in the first cam dorm in Tampa. I didn't take my clothes off.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 5
The owner of the dorm let me shower in the shower that wasn't wired for video. But I still slept there. They gave me my own bedroom. I was in a bed that had cameras trained on it, with like 4,000 people watching as I tossed and turned. I was in my early 20s, and I was experimenting with everything, and I told myself I didn't really care. But wasn't I also being exploited in some way?
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 5
Wasn't I also being told that my writing was only valuable if it leveraged my status as a young woman? I could say more about that, but, you know, exploitation when you're also being paid to write articles that you choose to write is tough. And in general, this era, the Raunch era, was almost like a bat of an eyelash. It was post-9-11, running up to a few years before Obama.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 5
By then, gravity was pulling all of us back to Earth. More about that after the break.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 5
As soon as he got out of jail... He wanted his pilot to get his Gulfstream ready so we could get the hell out of Panama City. We were on our way to another spring break spot, South Padre Island, Texas. Now, I am going to spare you what happened in South Padre because it was the exact same shit as before. The shooters, the flashing, the flirting.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 5
So by about 2008, the raunch era had definitively come to a close. It was slammed back to earth by gravity. All of us who worked in the space of pop culture and sex in one capacity or another were had a problem, a big problem.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 5
Porn was suddenly available everywhere for free. And no one cared what you had to say analyzing it. I was getting pretty sick of writing about sex, so I was happy to move on. But it was an enormous problem for Joe Francis. He was still out there talking up a storm, being the big porn impresario. But the schtick was getting old. Here he is talking about a sort of weird incident.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 5
Stick with me for a second. The governor of New York at the time, Eliot Spitzer, had been caught with a sex worker, Ashley Dupree. And somehow it was alleged that Ashley had been on the Girls Gone Wild tapes when she was underage.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 5
This guy spent 11 months in jail and pled no contest to child abuse. And he's on national TV. making jokes about a woman his company had filmed when she was underage. It's sort of mind-boggling. And if you listen to other stuff from this time, he's still making the same argument about how he deserves to do what he's doing, because the rights are in the Constitution.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 5
Here's a promotional video that he made. His hair is sort of long, flopping over his ears, and he has a very serious look on his face.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 5
As he talks, it's impossible to miss the gigantic American flag hanging behind him.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 5
Now, in America, we believe in second chances. And Joe could have had one. He had a good deal of public support in the late 2000s. I mean, you just heard those TV hosts cackling about cream filling. Not everyone wholeheartedly sympathized with girls who had posed for Girls Gone Wild, at least the ones of age. Here's a take from David Angier, the reporter.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 5
So Joe had the advantage of a bit of the benefit of the doubt. Plus, at this point, he was almost like a visionary. I mean, he had changed the culture so much that the culture had basically rendered him obsolete. Women were willing to be filmed all over the place now. I mean, the internet was awash in nudes.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 5
But I am going to tell you what happened on the plane. Joe told the pilot to go straight up as far as he could go and then let the plane do a huge arc, a free fall. He wanted to do zero gravity. It's something that pilots have known about forever. By dropping your plane, you can cheat gravity, at least for a few minutes, even though there is a bit of a cost to it.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 5
Eight years after those four women sued Girls Gone Wild for filming them when they were minors, they're in court to settle a civil suit on the matter, the Chateau Motel case. I imagine Joe sitting at the bench, jiggling his knees. He's waiting for the court to start. He doesn't have a lawyer by his side, though. He's serving as his own lawyer in front of an all-female jury.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 5
It wasn't really Joe who was on trial. It was the women. At one point, Joe tried to bring up that one of these women had gone on to do porn. The judge ruled that irrelevant. At another point, Joe asked one of the plaintiffs if she was a prostitute. She'd accepted $50 from him after he allegedly forced her to masturbate him in the hotel room.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 5
This pretty much sums up how a lot of people thought about consent at the time. Like, it's the girl's fault if something bad happens to her if she put herself in a bad situation. Never mind if she's underage, too drunk to consent. She saw the cameras. She was in a seedy bar during spring break. What did she expect? The onus is on the woman to always make the right decision.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 5
It's never on men not to abuse her. And that kind of thinking, that what men do to women is always the women's fault, is a hop, skip, and a jump from thinking that a girl who wears a revealing outfit is asking for it. Maybe it's not surprising that Joe actually won this civil case, even with an all-female jury. He didn't pay those girls a dime.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 5
Who cared about them? The thing that actually got Joe in trouble, it's not with girls. So, you know, it actually matters.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 5
Billionaire Steve Wynn. I mean, gangster. But you know, I mean that colloquially. He's not a criminal, only a baller. He's the father of Las Vegas.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 5
Okay, this is very simple. Joe went to gamble at Wynn's casino. He lost $2 million and he wouldn't pay it. A normal person would pay. That's how casinos work. You lose, you settle the debt. But not Joe. Joe alleged that when he started to do well, he was plied with wine from Steve Wynn's private wine cellar to keep gambling.
Infamous
Why Do Influencers Want To Be Trad Wives?
Hello, everyone. Vanessa Grigoriadis here, and thank you so much for coming back to listen to Infamous. Over the last couple of weeks, we told you a story about a wife on the main line, and she was living in a very traditional marriage. She was a traditional wife. Now, would you actually call her a trad wife? The way we understand trad wives today is like blonde.
Infamous
Why Do Influencers Want To Be Trad Wives?
She's got those latiste lashes, beloved of baking. That is not necessarily Cammie, but her story did put us in a mood to think about trad wives and that whole phenomenon. If you're on social media, you know that trad wives have basically eaten the internet for the past year or two. So Natalie is going to talk to an expert to unpack what that's all about.
Infamous
From Panic to Peace: Ten Percent Happier’s Dan Harris
This is Infamous from Campside Media.
Infamous
From Panic to Peace: Ten Percent Happier’s Dan Harris
I'm married. You're married? How long? Just in May. Have you ever slept with anyone since you've been married? No. You sure? I'm sure. And it's not just because my wife might see this. Why are you looking at me like you don't believe me? Don't I look like a trustworthy guy? I'm a news anchor. That means she really needs to watch him. That means she really needs to watch you.
Infamous
From Panic to Peace: Ten Percent Happier’s Dan Harris
This is Infamous from Campside Media.
Infamous
Murder at Lululemon | Part 1
Das ist 28-jährige Brittany Norwood. Ihre Eltern hatten eigentlich neun Kinder und sie war die sechste dieser neun Kinder. Sie lebten früher außerhalb von Seattle. Sie hatten nicht viel Geld. Ich meine, ihr Vater machte ein Leben als Furniturer, was schwierig ist, wenn man neun Kinder hat. Aber sie waren wirklich arbeitende Arbeiter, eine tolle Familie. Ja, genau.
Infamous
Murder at Lululemon | Part 1
People thought she was beautiful and she got a soccer scholarship, full ride to play soccer.
Infamous
Murder at Lululemon | Part 1
Eine halbe Stunde nachdem sie weg waren, hat Britney Jana angerufen. Sie sagte, sie hätte ihren Metropass in der Strecke verlassen. Sie musste nach Hause. Jana kam zurück, weil sie mit der Schlüssel war. Sie ist der Supervisorin. Die beiden Mädchen haben sich in der Strecke getroffen.
Infamous
Murder at Lululemon | Part 1
Und wenn sie in der Rückseite den Metropass bekommen, ist es dann, als die Anwälte in den Laden kommen und die beiden Frauen loslassen.
Infamous
Murder at Lululemon | Part 1
The police chief would say that they had no indication at this point that this was anything but a random crime of opportunity.
Infamous
Murder at Lululemon | Part 1
Und ich bin Vanessa Grigoriadis. Das ist Infamous. Mörder bei Lululemon. Episode 1.
Infamous
Murder at Lululemon | Part 1
We're opening this story in an upscale shopping district in Bethesda, Maryland. It's March 12th, 2011. It's early morning, not too much noise out there. The streets around the boutiques are just starting to stir. The stores aren't quite open yet. Sidewalks are just coming to life. Einer der Stores ist ein Apple-Store, weil es natürlich ist. Und es ist gut designt, wie alle Apple-Stores.
Infamous
Murder at Lululemon | Part 1
Und wirklich, wirklich populär. Selbst bevor es öffnet, gibt es Kunden da, weil der iPad 2 gerade geliefert worden ist. Dieses iPad hatte eine rücksehende Kamera, die alle Tablets heute haben. Aber damals war es das erste iPad, mit dem man FaceTime machen konnte. Die Leute waren sehr aufgeregt. So viele Leute kamen am Tag vor, als sie es kaufen wollten, dass sie die Kunden wegwerfen.
Infamous
Murder at Lululemon | Part 1
Right next door to Apple, there's Lululemon, everybody's favorite athleisure store. Home to those leggings that can run a hundred dollars and just make your butt look really good.
Infamous
Murder at Lululemon | Part 1
Und dann, währenddessen, haben Sie in Lululemon den Ort, wo jeder seine Leggings bekommt, um ihre Athletik zu machen oder einfach auszuhängen, diesen gruseligen Mörder. Der Ort ist mit Blut gespattert. Das ist der Art von Mörder, den Sie auf CSI sehen, nicht in Bethesda.
Infamous
Murder at Lululemon | Part 1
Sie verkauften Kleidung in einer Boutique, die nicht nur um Kleidung ging. Es ging auch um all das, was du vorhin gehört hast, die Zielsetzung, die inspirierenden Quote. Eine davon wurde Jana Murray genannt. Sie war 30 Jahre alt.
Infamous
Usher's Confessions (feat. Diddy)
They've got a bunch of different meetings and you got to just wait. And so it's like two, three o'clock in the morning. And I was like, OK, I'm going to call a taxi and go back to the hotel. And he was like, you can stay here. You could stay in my guest house. And he very nicely put me in the guest house. And he was like, don't say any Rick James. I locked you in a closet.
Infamous
Usher's Confessions (feat. Diddy)
And I was like, don't worry, I will not. I was so tired at that point. I woke up in the morning and it's just like a fancy neighborhood. And I could not get out of his gate because I didn't know where the remote was. It was like eight in the morning. I was like, I'm not waking up ushered. Hey, I got to get out of here and fly back to New York. Can you let me out?
Infamous
Usher's Confessions (feat. Diddy)
So I just looked and looked and looked. I think eventually I scaled the gate. It was so crazy. I just remember being stuck in there for so long and not knowing what to do. But when I came back home, my editors were like, You slept over there? That was obviously planned so he can get his lover boy image. And I was like, I swear he was just being nice.
Infamous
Usher's Confessions (feat. Diddy)
He just was like, this woman is tired and she's old and I have a bed. Let me just let her sleep here. But it does bring up Usher's intrinsic kindness to others, notably Justin Bieber, who he really did take under his wing, right? So Natalie, you want to fill us in a little bit? Yeah.
Infamous
Usher's Confessions (feat. Diddy)
Usher was sent to live with Diddy in his house in New York when he was 14 or 15 years old to, as L.A. Reid, the label head, put it, learn the ways of the record industry. Yeah.
Infamous
Usher's Confessions (feat. Diddy)
There's no way. Strange, but I never busted a nut before then. I just do it until I could tell the girl was feeling good. And then I'd stop. Huh. Yes. Also, if that's true, these girls are like, that was really weird. That was really weird.
Infamous
Usher's Confessions (feat. Diddy)
Of course, of course. And everything's about how he's the biggest Lothario ever. But if he learned this, learned how to treat women at the knee of Diddy, you have to really say, that is super messed up, right? What on earth were they doing in this house? What was he privy to or the ideas of manhood that were being foisted upon him? I certainly feel for him in this situation, right? Yeah.
Infamous
Usher's Confessions (feat. Diddy)
my God, to show up in ninth or 10th grade. And you're just like, here I am. It's abusive. Like that's not okay. It's really a heart, you know, it pulls on your heartstrings to think about him there.
Infamous
Usher's Confessions (feat. Diddy)
He said, I made a very deliberate decision to bring Justin to L.A. Reid, who was the head of Def Jam at the time. And this is Usher saying this. I wanted Justin to have the best. I knew from having been through what it takes to get recognized as an artist, all the pitfalls I had, I wanted L.A. to be able to look over him and at least be aware of and be available to him.
Infamous
Usher's Confessions (feat. Diddy)
Be available to him is such an interesting way of putting it. I mentored him too, but I wanted L.A. Reid to be available to him. And this lineage of, as you say, faux father figures, one to the other. And then also having Usher say things to me when he's pretty young, sex is so hot in the industry, man. Yeah. Yeah, that's right. That's part of what you're being ushered into.
Infamous
Usher's Confessions (feat. Diddy)
That's part of this priesthood. It's sex. It's holiness. It's making tons and tons of money, flash and trash and great music. But it all goes hand in hand. And it is the industry, right? When people talk about the industry, that's sort of what they're talking about. Sex is never not...
Infamous
Usher's Confessions (feat. Diddy)
Part of that, maybe, I guess, if you're like Devendra Banhart or like a folk musician, but I think that it may be that, it may be then too. Look, it's an unstructured life and you're singing about love and sex and all these deepest desires and fears and things get blurry, but it seems like with Diddy, it was a lot more than just blurry, right?
Infamous
Usher's Confessions (feat. Diddy)
And you have somebody's personal fetishes, allegedly, right?
Infamous
Usher's Confessions (feat. Diddy)
Right? Those were hard times, man. He said to me, these were the hardest times of my motherfucking life. There I am. I'm in New York. I just got to... got a deal, right? Like I got a man up and deal by myself, by myself, 14 or 15 years old. So it may be that's how he metabolized it.
Infamous
Usher's Confessions (feat. Diddy)
And I don't know, when we were, you know, talking about doing this interview, Natalie said, there's only a few weeks before Usher gets canceled.
Infamous
Usher's Confessions (feat. Diddy)
And yet they did book him for the brought into these questions, but then also focus on what happened after he was the age of majority. But look, right now, all of this that we're talking about, it's only speculation. Usher himself has said, the day that I decide to write a book and tell my story and show the world what I've been through and the things I've seen, you're going to be blown away.
Infamous
Usher's Confessions (feat. Diddy)
So I think maybe we just have to wait to that day. My God, I think Jasmine would maybe ghostwrite this book.
Infamous
Usher's Confessions (feat. Diddy)
Amazing. Thank you so much to Jasmine Hughes, an incredible writer and thinker. Where can people find you, Jasmine?
Infamous
Usher's Confessions (feat. Diddy)
You've had an illustrious career. But I will say that Jasmine Hughes's profile is amazing. Mine is actually back in the news for something that he said about Diddy when I was talking to him. So let's talk to Jasmine and later we're going to get to the Diddy questions, which are swirling for sure around Usher, fairly or unfairly. Yeah. Yes.
Infamous
Usher's Confessions (feat. Diddy)
Yeah, he was a bit sophomoric. I mean, he was certainly younger than me. And he was also in this moment where confessions had just come out. So remember, Usher, we should say, his mom was his first manager, took him to Atlanta to hit the big time. He was on Star Search, if anybody remembers that. Gets basically a deal.
Infamous
Usher's Confessions (feat. Diddy)
He's in 1994 sent to live with Diddy to flavor camp to learn all of Diddy's various tricks of the trade. And it's then 2004 when Confessions comes out. And that's the album everybody knows. I did a lot of reporting for Rolling Stone at that time.
Infamous
Usher's Confessions (feat. Diddy)
And when you are the Rolling Stone reporter who shows up after the person has had the big break and it's their first time on the cover of Rolling Stone, and this is what I did with Taylor Swift and with Justin Bieber as well, it's weird. Yeah. Because this person is just finally getting everything that they've desired. They're on top of the world. They're on top of the charts. Everybody's calling.
Infamous
Usher's Confessions (feat. Diddy)
Everybody wants to talk to them. And they're going on the cover of Rolling Stone. And I'm now the emissary. I'm like the fleshly embodiment of what? the promise renewed. It's just like, whoa, okay, you're here. So there are these conversations, which I also had with Taylor Swift, where she's like, I never thought I was going to be on the cover of Rolling Stone.
Infamous
Usher's Confessions (feat. Diddy)
I never thought this was going to happen to me. Thank God you're here. And Justin Bieber, by the way, was just like, I'm so glad you're here, but I am being pulled in a thousand directions and I am a child and I don't know what to do with myself.
Infamous
Usher's Confessions (feat. Diddy)
He was like 16. Yeah, 16 or 17. That was actually sad because you could tell this kid was, there was too much happening for him to process. With Usher, he was like, God has ordained. Yes. That I am getting my moment in the sun. This is always the way it was going to be. I see many people. I see heaven. I see God. I see people.
Infamous
Usher's Confessions (feat. Diddy)
And they're giving me garlands and wreaths and laying hands on me and giving me grapes. And, you know, Usher loves to talk in very long monologues. Sometimes they don't go a lot of places. But they always go right back around to where they started, which is with him. That's true. He's a bit of a narcissist.
Infamous
Usher's Confessions (feat. Diddy)
And we were sitting in his, you know, he had a beautiful but small mansion in Alpharetta in Georgia. And we were sitting in his attic. We also were in his bedroom. I remember everything was color coded. Like the kid really had a little bit of OCD. Everything had to be perfect all the time.
Infamous
Usher's Confessions (feat. Diddy)
And him just telling me, you know, in one breath, it was about how everybody has finally seen that Jesus is the Lord. He's on the top and Usher is on the mountainside. And then the next breath, it was like, let me tell you about the sex. This is just so American right now.
Infamous
Usher's Confessions (feat. Diddy)
Do you guys think that he was hot at the Super Bowl? Or when he took his shirt off, were you like, not so much?
Infamous
Usher's Confessions (feat. Diddy)
That's really interesting. I think you're right. I mean, it doesn't matter that he's a little bit older, or does it?
Infamous
Usher's Confessions (feat. Diddy)
Yeah, but also, we all know how music works. Yes, of course, it works on a 20-year cycle of nostalgia, and that's why things get hot again. But the music that you cared about in your youth, it stays with you forever. It somehow imprints on your psyche where... It transports you back to being this self that you always think of yourself being. I'm that kid, that's who I am.
Infamous
Usher's Confessions (feat. Diddy)
When I saw him, he was young-ish, but he did seem almost younger. Like he was carrying around cigars and a little mini humidor. And I remember his mom, who was, again, his manager was like, oh yeah, there he goes. And everybody was sort of like, oh yeah, Usher's got this weird James Dean thing. He's trying to work right now. He's trying to be an outlaw. I never saw him smoke.
Infamous
Usher's Confessions (feat. Diddy)
He didn't smoke a cigar. He was just holding these unlit cigars. And I just remember so vividly, he was on a fast because he... believed that God was communicating through him at that time. Oh my God, which he still does. He passed every Wednesday. I asked him about it. Wait, God. What?
Infamous
Usher's Confessions (feat. Diddy)
But I think for mental clarity and to bring him closer to God. Got to be closer to God. So the additional things I remember, there were all these little plates of M&Ms all over the place because there were a lot of guests in the house. People were coming in and out, management, blah, blah, blah, blah. Every time he sat down, the M&Ms were near. He had to sort them by color.
Infamous
Usher's Confessions (feat. Diddy)
He was like, I must actually do this. I have to do this. He was very concerned about germs. He was like, can you imagine how many people I have to touch their hand? I'm just giving people pounds. I don't want to touch their hands. But one of the other incredible things that happened is it got very, very late. Because when you interview musicians, often they stay up super late.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 4
So Joe's at the Bay Point Marriott in Panama City Beach, and he's finally trying to settle the civil suit. He's sitting at a table, shorts, baseball cap, playing a handheld video game, and the lawyers come in. He announces to them that they aren't going to get a dime.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 4
But on this night, Paris is hanging out with a friend of Riley's. His name is Will Wright. Now, he'll eventually be indicted for moving what law enforcement told CBS was a cool 200 kilos of cocaine from California to New York. But tonight, he's doing something slightly less covert. He's hanging with Paris. He's leaning in close to give her a piece of gossip.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 4
Because he ordered Joe back to mediation or else. David's paper had a particular way of putting it, which made it sound pretty definitive, even if the judge didn't quite mean it that way.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 4
In other words, lawyers all across the South may have thought, huh, I could bring a case against this guy, that's for sure. But in this moment, even though the judge has said that Joe Francis should do meaningful mediation, you can guess that Joe's next attempt at mediation doesn't go much better than the first.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 4
He even tells the Associated Press, in his fury, that he's stuck in a case of judges go wild.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 4
Now, I'm sitting here with my producer, Lily Smith, and she is going to read a few of the things that Joe's lawyers wrote to a court around this time because they really capture his state of mind.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 4
That's Kim Kardashian talking to a TMZ reporter. She's just, you know, minding her business, getting into her car in a parking lot, and the TMZ reporter is filming her. That's why I'm wearing a free Joe shirt. Yes, Kim is wearing a T-shirt, which in big block letters says, Free Joe. But David Angier doesn't feel bad for him.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 4
While in jail, he allegedly tries to bribe a guard. He just wants one bottle of water, and he's willing to pay $500 for it. And that's not all. The guards claim to find sleeping pills, prescription medication, $700 in cash. And this is just the beginning. Even though Joe signs the settlement with the Chateau Motel women, he's taken into federal custody and transported to another jail.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 4
This one is on the other side of the country, Reno, Nevada.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 4
Out in the desert, hot sun burning down on him, he's imprisoned. It's an accusation of tax issues in 2002 and 2003. He has his own cell. He's in a special housing unit because of his celebrity status. And he gets to do a bunch of interviews. Here he is on a radio show. It's Bubba the Love Sponge.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 4
And for whatever reason, he is, allegedly, bringing up that robbery in Bel Air. The one involving Joe Francis. Now, Paris had heard rumors of what happened to Joe.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 4
This is a pretty welcoming audience, Bubba the Love Sponge, and they feel bad for Joe.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 4
What Riley's robbery has to do with homophobia is a bit unclear, but it is clear that Joe feels that he is being maligned, and many news organizations are willing to hear him out.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 4
Eventually, Joe comes to terms in part of the Chateau Motel case with the underage girls. He pleads no contest to one count of child abuse and two misdemeanor counts of prostitution. He also pleads no contest for violating jail rules with the sleeping pills and the cash. This is Joe on the steps of the Panama City courthouse,
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 4
But by the time Joe gets out, spring 2008, Riley is only a few years into his sentence. And he's having a very different time in jail. So what did you say when people asked you, what's your crime?
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 4
So what are you thinking when you hear that Joe is in jail trying to get a water bottle?
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 4
That's a law enforcement tape. Why Paris is on tape will become clear in a minute. And she's saying that people have been talking about it, but she didn't know any details. That is, according to Paris, until this guy Will Wright started talking. Riley Perez again.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 4
Riley, the guy who kidnapped and extorted Joe, he served nine years in prison, compared to Joe's total of 11 months. But after all this, Joe still can't stay out of trouble. How much punishment does he really deserve? We'll get to that question next time on Infamous.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 4
But it sort of doesn't matter who told Paris. It's what happened next that's critical. Because a month or so later, Paris is out again, and she sees another one of her pals, Joe Francis.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 4
It's been 10 months since Joe Francis was robbed at home. And Joe still has no idea who robbed him. But now, Joe is going to tell the authorities what he just heard from Paris. And the detectives are going to ring up Paris and ask her themselves. That's this tape. Now, for the very first time, from Paris Hilton, Joe has heard a name. Darnell, a.k.a.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 4
And answer he would when the cops came knocking. From Campside Media and Sony Music Entertainment, I'm Vanessa Grigoriadis. And this is Infamous. We're on episode four of our five-part series, Boy Gone Wild. So last episode, we got a blow-by-blow account of exactly how Riley broke in and kidnapped Joe.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 4
This episode, we're looking at the aftermath of the crime and all the legal ramifications to come for both Riley and for Joe. For now, though, we're going back to Los Angeles.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 4
It's in the afternoon and Riley is driving to his apartment in Hollywood. He turns up his street. It's called Whitley Avenue.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 4
Hey, everyone. This is episode four of Boy Gone Wild. As always, a reminder, you don't want to listen to episode four. You want to listen to episode one if you haven't heard it yet. So please scroll back in your feed. We work too hard on these to have you not enjoy the story from the beginning. So please go back to episode one.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 4
So Riley sits in the back of the van. He waits to find out what's going to happen to him. That's after the break.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 4
So now that he's been arrested, U.S. Marshals take Riley to LAPD headquarters downtown.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 4
At this point, Riley has no idea what he's being booked for. As far as he's concerned, the Joe Francis robbery is a cold case. Since the Marshals forgot to take his phone, he's got it in the interrogation room.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 4
Riley doesn't know what else the detectives have on him, but he makes a decision there and then.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 4
Overnight, Riley becomes a pariah. How do you feel now being in a case where these people are all going to say they don't know you?
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 4
In December 2005, after nine months in jail, Riley has his preliminary hearing. He walks into the courtroom, takes a seat next to his lawyer, and looks around.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 4
So now it's fall 2004. We're in Las Vegas. Grandma Hard Rock Hotel, to be exact. It's after hours for Nikki Hilton's birthday. And the usual crowd is just dancing and drinking late into the night. Around 4 a.m., Paris Hilton is playing bartender. She's at the height of her stardom. That's hot. That's hot. That's hot. That's hot. She's out every night. She's got the sex tape.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 4
Riley's lawyer, Ron Richards, is able to get one of the kidnapping charges dropped. And after the hearing, Ron started negotiating a plea bargain.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 4
It kind of sounds like haggling over something on Craigslist. You start really low, the other person counters, but then you come up a little to meet them in between. Except this isn't a bike or a used couch. It's years of a person's life.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 4
Riley shipped away to Supermax. But pretty soon, Joe's about to do some fighting of his own back in Florida. More after the break.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 4
Riley's case is winding its way through the courts. But Joe's facing problems of his own. Remember all that stuff in Panama City Beach, Florida, when he battled Mayor Lee?
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 4
Yeah, that stuff in Panama City Beach doesn't seem to be going away. Joe still needs to answer for those girls from the Chateau Motel, room 320.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 4
Two of those girls were filmed in a shower scene, and two of them alleged that Joe paid them $50 to masturbate him. They were underage. And one of them, according to a book, was feeling guilty and told her parents. And that's what brought the cops down on Joe. Now, I should make clear that the Chateau Motel situation is a bit more complex than it was initially thought by law enforcement.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 4
Joe's arguing that all of the girls said they were 18 to his cameramen because they were super excited to get on the tapes. Plus, Girls Gone Wild is adamant that it's been flying straight and doing right by girls who flash or do more and then realize afterwards they didn't want to do it.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 4
Regardless, the legal system has been trying to get Joe, and the case has been dragging on for years. Here's David Angier, a local Florida reporter. David was present many days during Joe's legal troubles. He calls Joe's case the most voluminous, most talked-about case in Bay County history.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 4
She's getting national attention for being on The Simple Life.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 4
David was covering Joe's legal fight for the Panama City News-Herald, but he also wrote a whole book about it. It's called The Madness of Joe Francis.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 4
Joe is just sort of going off on everyone.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 4
Joe's dealing with the criminal charges regarding the girls at the Chateau Motel, but they're also bringing a civil suit, meaning they want money. And when Joe gets into mediation with the Chateau Motel's girls' lawyers, things get very wild and not at all in a good way. According to David's book, it's March 21st, 2007. Yeah, the 2003 case has gone on this long.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 3
So Riley decides to continue his fear campaign. And he makes a few calls to Joe.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 3
This audio is a little fuzzy. It's from 2004, after all. And it's part of Riley's police file.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 3
He asks Joe to meet him with a bunch of money in trash bags. Joe has a kind of classic Joe response.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 3
Maybe he had a hunch that the call was being recorded and potentially tracked. And he was right. Joe had let the cops record his home phone.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 3
The case went cold. Until one particular party, where the most 2000 celebrity of this whole story gets involved. A woman who never met a camera she didn't like. That's hot. That's hot. That's hot. That's hot. That's hot. That's right. Paris Hilton. Next time on Infamous.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 3
From Campside Media and Sony Music Entertainment, I'm Vanessa Grigoriadis, and this is Infamous. We're on episode three of our five-part series, Boy Gone Wild. So last episode, Panama City officials waged war on Joe Francis and those spring break documentaries. He'd been arrested on a whole slew of charges. Pretty serious stuff. And I should say, Joe is denying those allegations.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 3
It's nighttime in the canyons of West L.A. Riley's standing on Bel Air Place.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 3
But a case this high profile takes a long time to wind its way through court. So while he's getting ready to fight the allegations, he's back in L.A., just no cares in the world. He's even at a nightclub when Riley creeps into Bel Air. And now Riley's inside Joe's house. The first thing he has to do is make sure no one else is.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 3
Remember, this is Riley's account, and Joe issued a blanket denial to all of our questions. As you know, Riley now has in his hand a pink multi-pronged device.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 3
So Riley's got the rabbit, but he places that to the side. He's still got a few other things to do. He's poking around.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 3
Riley's talking about things that could be valuable, that Joe might want back later. Girls Gone Wild master DV tapes, some types of paperwork.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 3
Riley has been in the house for a while.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 3
This is Joe's house. Quiet cul-de-sac. Just a few other homes.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 3
He says he's creeping in the house through a side door.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 3
Muhammad Hadid is a real estate developer. He's also the dad of two supermodels.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 3
Obviously, Muhammad had nothing to do with this. But anyway, Riley now brings his mouth close to Joe's ear, and he speaks quietly.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 3
And Riley repeats his demand in a whisper.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 3
It must be a familiar phrase to Joe. That's a basis of his $100 million business, right? But not like this.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 3
Riley walks right into Joe's modernist house. You know, the glass, the square angles. It's just enormous. More than 6,000 square feet, full in the back.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 3
In a sec, you're going to hear our writer Natalie talking to Riley.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 3
But what Riley is about to do is not going to be a party for Joe. Riley says he knows a big mafia figure. And this mafia figure says he has an associate whose daughter has allegedly been wronged by Joe Francis. So Joe has to pay. It won't be a severed horse head in the sheets like the Godfather, but it has to be a message that will scare the shit out of Joe.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 3
Back in Joe's big house in Bel Air, Joe's Boy Gone Wild video has been made.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 3
Riley ignores Joe. He takes him downstairs.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 3
Riley hops in the front and drives out of Joe's property through the gate, the proper way out. He's on the windy, quiet streets of Bel Air.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 3
At this point, Riley says Joe is calm, as calm as you can be lying face down in the backseat of a car.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 3
Riley's going through the Bel Air gates, crossing Sunset Boulevard.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 3
Riley heads to a late night hangout. It's called Swingers. He enjoys a bowl of chili. And Joe is left all alone, just bound in the back of his Bentley.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 3
But a crime had happened. And the way Riley would be discovered would be even crazier. More after the break.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 3
After Joe's been robbed and assaulted, he starts working with the LAPD. I mean, he wants to find the guy who did it. He may have thought the women in Panama City Beach who were starting to bring lawsuits against him, they didn't deserve justice. But he definitely thought he did. Riley, though, he wasn't too worried about being found.
Infamous
Blake Lively v. Justin Baldoni
Meanwhile, Blake is getting backlash for this now-viral 2016 interview she did when she was pregnant. First of all, congrats on your little bump. Congrats on your little bump. The reporter who was not pregnant said the experience made her want to quit her job.
Infamous
From Conned to Cupid I Part 3
In the FBI offices, Cami puts on her old criminal defense attorney hat. She needs to save herself and her daughters. Her blue sundress, dotted with white flowers, feels out of place under harsh fluorescent lights. She's going to have to answer for the life she's built. A life of high-end bat mitzvahs, country club brunches, elegant charity events. So much of it was paid with ill-gotten gains.
Infamous
From Conned to Cupid I Part 3
Cammie's father, Barry, went with her. He was family, after all. He was the lawyer she trusted.
Infamous
From Conned to Cupid I Part 3
The way Josh was acting, it just felt like more than a spiritual problem. It felt like she was with somebody losing it.
Infamous
From Conned to Cupid I Part 3
The FBI agreed that Cami wasn't in on the scam. She was not going to be charged. Josh would be brought up on criminal charges alone.
Infamous
From Conned to Cupid I Part 3
By 2024, Josh was indicted for securities fraud, wire fraud, aggravated identity theft, and something rarer in these kinds of cases, witness retaliation and intimidation. Soon he was standing in courtroom 5A in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. It was a Thursday, and he faced a federal judge in Philadelphia.
Infamous
From Conned to Cupid I Part 3
His pant leg might have been just slightly raised, and underneath it, you might be able to see an ankle monitor. Josh wants it off. He says it's interfering with his hip condition, for which he's doing water therapy or swimming to help. Which, yeah. He didn't get the ankle monitor off that day, but he did manage to get a judge to take it off later. And pretty soon, he took a plea.
Infamous
From Conned to Cupid I Part 3
The government announced that by press release, saying Verney misused business and investor funds to repay prior debts and to finance an affluent lifestyle he could not afford.
Infamous
From Conned to Cupid I Part 3
That's the movie where Adam Sandler plays a New York jeweler who has these big hip-hop star clients. And he also has a very intense sports gambling problem.
Infamous
From Conned to Cupid I Part 3
They ticked off personal expenses, renovations to his vacation property on the Jersey Shore, travel on private jets, contributions to political candidates, country club payments, and, of course, the bat mitzvahs he threw for his daughters. Things tend to get delayed in the federal system, but for now, Josh is scheduled to be sentenced on June 13th. Here's Kami's father, Barry.
Infamous
From Conned to Cupid I Part 3
Josh has been living in Florida for a while now, but soon he'll face a $17.5 million fine and a maximum possible sentence of 242 years imprisonment, with a mandatory minimum of two years imprisonment.
Infamous
From Conned to Cupid I Part 3
So why did Josh do it? I think we all understand an internet scam when somebody tries to get money claiming it's for a Nigerian or something like that. But what leads somebody to do hand-to-hand scamming like this, face-to-face, having people over to your home and luring them into deals that are fraudulent? It seems like he wanted control, that he needed control on a deep level.
Infamous
From Conned to Cupid I Part 3
On a publicly available podcast, he said that he has OCD, and maybe that led to some odd choices.
Infamous
From Conned to Cupid I Part 3
Did Cammie get involved with a bad man? The type of man that her dad used to represent and she used to represent as a criminal defense attorney? Or was Josh simply led astray about how hard it was to build a startup? Did he feel just so much pressure to right the family furniture business, Homeline, previously called Chuck's Bargain House,
Infamous
From Conned to Cupid I Part 3
After he destroyed its initial value in 2008-ish, was he just simply trying everything he could to support his family? Or on some deeper level, did he want to hurt Cammy? Did he want to bring her into his day-to-day reality of having to find the funds to support the lifestyle they shared? All of these theories feel plausible.
Infamous
From Conned to Cupid I Part 3
And this has hurt Cami, left her with nearly nothing, with everyone gossiping wherever she goes. For some on the main line, she's now a pariah. How does she show her face when everybody thinks she robbed all of them? That's Linda Summer, one of Josh's victims, who we heard from last episode.
Infamous
From Conned to Cupid I Part 3
That's another justification. Josh just thought he was always one second from turning it around.
Infamous
From Conned to Cupid I Part 3
But she actually tried to rise above the pain and the anger to help Cammy.
Infamous
From Conned to Cupid I Part 3
In fact, Kami would soon learn that it wasn't just three people that Josh got in trouble with, like we said last episode, with his investments. According to the government, it was over 100 people. That is an absolutely stunning number. It was way beyond Cammy trying to make people whole, beyond her trying to fix it. And she had been right there as all of this happened.
Infamous
From Conned to Cupid I Part 3
Linda owns a consulting business where she developed a survey to help companies make hiring decisions. And she saw Cami's potential.
Infamous
From Conned to Cupid I Part 3
And people have helped Kami, like her private school that she sent her girls to, which helped her with the tuition when she couldn't pay.
Infamous
From Conned to Cupid I Part 3
Kami has tried to keep her weight under control, not see-saw with it the way she has through her life, especially at Syracuse. She doesn't have the meatier guy around anymore, and that's fine. Josh, Gail's husband.
Infamous
From Conned to Cupid I Part 3
One of the unexpected things that's happened is that even if Josh and Cammie's families were opposed to each other in lifestyle, like we explained a couple of episodes ago, Josh is being more coarse and party hardy and Cammie's more refined with the attorney dad, they all really loved each other. And this experience has made some of them just love each other more.
Infamous
From Conned to Cupid I Part 3
And now Kami is trying to help other women avoid what happened to her. She's actually trying to help them find true love. Yes, she's starting over as a matchmaker. Through Linda, she met Aliza Ben Shalom, the Jewish matchmaker who's had a Netflix show and a huge following.
Infamous
From Conned to Cupid I Part 3
The perfect wife who all the people who were allegedly conned just loved. Josh's brother-in-law says that too.
Infamous
From Conned to Cupid I Part 3
That's it for From Con to Cupid. Thank you so much to Cami for sharing her story. This is the first time she has talked about this publicly. Next week. We'll be talking about trad wives, which is all the controversy these days.
Infamous
From Conned to Cupid I Part 3
And now she was getting knocked off. From Campside Media and Sony Music Entertainment, this is Infamous from Con to Cupid, Episode 3. I'm Vanessa Gregoriotis. So the span of Josh's crimes, as alleged by the government, was massive. It was tons and tons of their friends and community all along the main line. It felt sometimes like it was everyone they knew.
Infamous
From Conned to Cupid I Part 3
And we're also going to hear from the matchmaker that Cami works for, Elisa Ben-Shalom, with the Netflix show, about how dating works in more traditional Jewish communities modernized for today. Like how she expects people she works with to go out on five dates before touching at all.
Infamous
From Conned to Cupid I Part 3
So before we leave, a big shout out to Lily Houston Smith, our senior producer, who did the lion's share of the reporting for this story and traveled to Pennsylvania to interview Cami in person. Thanks so much for listening to our show. Please tell a friend if you liked it. It really helps us reach more people. And see you next week to talk about Tradwives.
Infamous
From Conned to Cupid I Part 3
Their friends had losses. The community had losses. It was so many people. The government was alleging up to 110 people were defrauded. And like Kami's dad said earlier, she'd been the conduit to some of them. This trim woman who socialized all the time, the one throwing the extraordinary Shabbats to bring everybody together. She said she didn't know, but was it willful ignorance?
Infamous
From Conned to Cupid I Part 3
So Cami now knows that Josh has been defrauding some people with his companies, and she wants to help make things right.
Infamous
From Conned to Cupid I Part 3
And part of what made Josh's scam so unique was that some of the people involved were allegedly part of Josh's own family. That family with the slinky at their house and the Sopranos picture on the wall. They had maybe played gangster in the past, but now there was something worse in their midst. Even Madoff didn't intentionally defraud most of his family. Here's Gail, Josh's sister.
Infamous
From Conned to Cupid I Part 3
That was Gail's husband, who's saying that before this all came out, he suggested that the family needed to get together.
Infamous
From Conned to Cupid I Part 3
Within months, Josh would not be a bull anymore, though. He would have a breakdown.
Infamous
From Conned to Cupid I Part 3
But Josh is on the couch and he's not moving. Reminder, we did not speak with Josh for this podcast.
Infamous
From Conned to Cupid I Part 3
All in all, it seems that Josh had taken about $14 million in what was partly a Ponzi scheme. He had shown different investors different documents that made it seem like everything was okay, like a $50 million account he supposedly had at Goldman Sachs.
Infamous
From Conned to Cupid I Part 3
The Marks were the 1% Jewish elite around Philadelphia, the biggest of the biggest names, including billionaire fanatics owner and Philly VIP Michael Rubin.
Infamous
From Conned to Cupid I Part 3
Rubin is no dummy, but he still got taken. And one of these guys told a local Philly paper that Josh was really a mini Madoff because he screwed all of us out of money, including friends, family, and lots of prominent people who trusted him and knew him for years. No one saw it coming. He played off our emotions. It was not like investing with a stranger.
Infamous
From Conned to Cupid I Part 2
So Josh is becoming a bigger and bigger deal with his startup companies. And everyone loves him. He's warm, Jewish, relational. Here's Linda Sommer. She founded a successful marketing and research consultancy. And she used some of that money, actually quite a lot of it, to invest in Josh's companies.
Infamous
From Conned to Cupid I Part 2
Josh got involved with Beatbox Beverages, an alcohol distributor that took off after it raised a million dollars from Mark Cuban on Shark Tank.
Infamous
From Conned to Cupid I Part 2
In fact, Josh would raise approximately $31 million in all, for all of his startups. Most of the people who were investing with him were rich. They were people who knew how money worked. Josh told them that they would get a 10-12% return on their investments per year, and he guaranteed that they'd get their money back after one or two years too.
Infamous
From Conned to Cupid I Part 2
I mean, even if you're investing in the stock market and things are going well, you might not do that well. So it sounded pretty good to his investors. But at home, returns didn't seem so solid.
Infamous
From Conned to Cupid I Part 2
Before, Cammy said he always came back in a good mood. But now he has a temper.
Infamous
From Conned to Cupid I Part 2
Cammie was feeling like she didn't understand where the money was going. And her therapist had an idea.
Infamous
From Conned to Cupid I Part 2
But Kami isn't the only one with questions for Josh. Josh turns to Umang for some help.
Infamous
From Conned to Cupid I Part 2
From Campside Media and Sony Music Entertainment, this is Infamous from Con to Cupid, Episode 2. I'm Vanessa Gregoriotis. So Josh Verney, and a reminder, he didn't talk to us for this podcast, is living in a super she-she community. And he and Kami are pillars of that community, too.
Infamous
From Conned to Cupid I Part 2
If it was only three people, that would be OK, Cammy thought. And now she's going to fix this. Next time on From Cond to Cupid.
Infamous
From Conned to Cupid I Part 2
Josh was focused on making money, doing his startups. But Kami didn't like just the party part of the bat mitzvah. She was focused on something else entirely. She was also focused on finding faith.
Infamous
From Conned to Cupid I Part 2
If you grew up around the main line or anywhere with a lot of money and a lot of Jews, you probably know about bar mitzvah season or bat mitzvahs if you're a girl. It all starts off with a lovely service at the synagogue and then a big party. There's specialty drinks, maybe even sushi. Girls are wearing too tight short dresses and the crowd is dancing to pop hits.
Infamous
From Conned to Cupid I Part 2
Judaism became more and more part of Cami's life and also helped her gain status in a way.
Infamous
From Conned to Cupid I Part 2
It was business and pleasure and family and faith. all mixed together.
Infamous
From Conned to Cupid I Part 2
Being around someone successful can be really powerful, as we all know.
Infamous
From Conned to Cupid I Part 2
Sometimes someone throws out hoodies, pajama pants, neon sunglasses into the crowd. It's all very middle school, but also sort of Vegas.
Infamous
From Conned to Cupid I Part 2
As Kami became the Shabbat hostess with the mostest, Josh was selling all kinds of people and investing in his new companies, sometimes at those very dinners. The guys around them were major mockers, a 1% Jewish mainline elite, Like David Adelman, who was behind the Sixers' attempt to get a new arena.
Infamous
From Conned to Cupid I Part 2
Or Michael Rubin, owner of the Fanatics, the sports paraphernalia business worth around $25 billion. Josh told him he was a success, too, and had been in his last companies.
Infamous
From Conned to Cupid I Part 2
Sometimes when he was talking, Kami noticed that Josh exaggerated their wealth.
Infamous
From Conned to Cupid I Part 2
Kami didn't mind some embellishment when it came to her. She liked it when Josh told her she was beautiful, adored, essential. But sometimes the way he would go on about these qualities, it got to be a little much.
Infamous
From Conned to Cupid I Part 2
But it was part of the whole charm, the Mensch-Josh thing. He charmed everyone with flattery. They were the open-door family, everybody invited to the party. I mean, Josh even invited his co-workers' parents to the bat mitzvah.
Infamous
From Conned to Cupid I Part 2
That was Umang Shah, who was in the C-suite in another company Josh started named Flock U. It was a play on Flock U and it was an online community for college students. Umang was the CMO.
Infamous
From Conned to Cupid I Part 2
Umang says that Josh wanted to be the one managing the books, but he would be sort of cagey about how the budgets were shaking out.
Infamous
From Conned to Cupid I Part 2
That stuff was odd, but it also wasn't totally out of the ordinary. A lot of entrepreneurs splurge if that's the lifestyle they've become accustomed to, and they're just scrappy when it comes to business.
Infamous
From Conned to Cupid I Part 2
Kemi also tried to be involved in Flock U, in the sort of blog for college students.
Infamous
From Conned to Cupid I Part 2
His past successes. Well, one success, which was the successful exit from WorkPays.me. But FlockU was turning out to be not as big of a hit.
Infamous
From Conned to Cupid I Part 2
At the bat mitzvahs for Josh and Kami's daughters, it was about love too. Josh choreographed a full dance routine and he sort of sweat through his shirt. Kami even had t-shirts printed up that said Josh's sweatshirt because he sweat a lot.
Infamous
From Conned to Cupid I Part 2
The thing is, that sale would be for $1. But it didn't seem to matter because Josh was always ready with a new pitch.
Infamous
Grey’s Anatomy of Lies
I have survived racism, sexism, every ism designed to make me feel small and make me less. If I can do all of that, if I can survive all of that, then I just might survive this too.
Infamous
Murder at Lululemon | Part 4
Even Brittany herself, while the investigation was going on, said her interactions with Lululemon were positive.
Infamous
Murder at Lululemon | Part 4
So yes, Lululemon is a very intense company. One of the things the company used to do is let employees take an intense, inspirational course through a company called Landmark Worldwide. Landmark runs workshops in which people have breakthroughs about where they are stuck in their lives.
Infamous
Murder at Lululemon | Part 4
This episode, we're going to talk more about the originally Canadian company Lululemon and what the store is and represents. Now, I do want to talk for a second about my teenage daughter, who really covets their leggings and wants badly to wear them. I do not want to pay this much for teenage leggings, but I asked her recently how she feels about them.
Infamous
Murder at Lululemon | Part 4
And according to that New York Times Magazine article, quote, every employee is strongly encouraged to enroll in the Landmark Forum at Lululemon's expense. Chip Wilson also told the reporter that when he first discovered Landmark, he was struck by the idea that, quote, once I take responsibility, then I have power. And he's talking about, of course, having power in your life.
Infamous
Murder at Lululemon | Part 4
But you're supposed to like it because it's, like, awesome. Good? Yeah.
Infamous
Murder at Lululemon | Part 4
So that's the way a 13 year old perceives the brands that are all around her. You just want them because they're brands, not because they stand for something else. But of course, as adults, we know it's more than just that. Lululemon isn't just well-fitting leggings. It's a whole ethos, one about striving and goals and becoming your best self. So this episode, our producer,
Infamous
Murder at Lululemon | Part 4
Lily also spoke with Elena, the former employee on Bloor Street in Toronto, about Landmark.
Infamous
Murder at Lululemon | Part 4
Okay, that's it for the episode this week. I think we can all agree that shopping is a huge part of American lives today, for better or worse. And the cults of commercialism range far and wide, some a bit weirder than the others. It's like they say, lots of little kids can identify a zillion brand logos, but they can't tell the difference between the leaves of different trees and nature anymore.
Infamous
Murder at Lululemon | Part 4
Shopping is just the stuff of our lives. As far as Lululemon and shoplifting are concerned, there was an interesting story recently about how they fired two of their employees who tried to stop some guys from shoplifting in the store. This happened in Atlanta, but it became a huge national story because why would Lululemon do that?
Infamous
Murder at Lululemon | Part 4
Didn't they want their employees to stop people from shoplifting their ridiculously expensive pants? Well, maybe they know their history and the way that shoplifting factored into this really sad story of two women's lives derailed. That's it for this week and this four-part series.
Infamous
Murder at Lululemon | Part 4
It was a lot of work, but I hope you enjoyed this fascinating tale about a store we all know, even if we don't shop there. And we'll be back next week with a whole new story. Before we go, please applaud the team that made this Sony Music and Campside Media production. the executive producer, Natalie Robomed, the producer, Lily Houston-Smith, who also reported all of these episodes.
Infamous
Murder at Lululemon | Part 4
Also, our assistant producer, Emma Simonoff, our studio recordist, Ewen Lai-Tremuin, and Amber Devereaux, our sound designer. Many thanks again for listening.
Infamous
Murder at Lululemon | Part 4
Lily Houston Smith, is going to interview a bunch of different people who have interacted with Lululemon to unpack all of that a bit. She's starting with Kat, the educator who was way at the beginning of this series, the one who worked in the store in Soho and talked about how we all know some people who are into yoga because there's darkness lurking in them.
Infamous
Murder at Lululemon | Part 4
Lululemon has a new leader, they have new practices now, and they also did not respond to a written list of questions that we sent them about some of the material that we've been covering in this series. You know, I do think the company is quite different now. I was in the Soho store myself the other day, and I didn't even see any inspirational sayings around. I just saw a lot of athleisure wear.
Infamous
Murder at Lululemon | Part 4
Selling yoga clothes ended up being a great experience for Kat. There was no grisly murder at her store. Jaina's tragic death actually happened years before she worked there at a totally different branch of the store in Bethesda. And actually, when we told Kat about the murder, she said she'd never even heard about it. But she also said she wasn't that surprised.
Infamous
Murder at Lululemon | Part 4
Now, obviously, we can't blame Lululemon for Brittany's actions. Between her shoplifting and the restraining order that had been issued against her, she had clearly had a troubled history. We aren't saying in any way, shape, or form that Lululemon was responsible.
Infamous
Murder at Lululemon | Part 4
But the way that Lululemon created goals and ethics for the employees, and Brittany's sense that these things would set her life on the right track, and her anger over being caught shoplifting, which she likely knew was going to lead to her being fired and being knocked off that track, getting that job at Equinox, fixing her money problems, all the things she was aspiring to do.
Infamous
Murder at Lululemon | Part 4
Well, all of that does seem to me like it may have contributed to Brittany's mindset that night. Here's Lily talking to Kat about how the store sometimes felt like more than a normal retail job. And we're just going to let them talk for a while.
Infamous
Murder at Lululemon | Part 4
Just a reminder, if you haven't listened to our series on murder at Lululemon, please scroll back and go all the way to part one. Start there before you listen to this one. To be clear, a lot of what we're covering in this episode is in the past.
Infamous
Murder at Lululemon | Part 4
But to get back to our story, one thing we haven't talked about yet is how the company reacted to the murder of Jana Murray. Here's attorney John McCarthy, who you've been hearing from a lot.
Infamous
Murder at Lululemon | Part 4
One of the reasons I'm so fascinated by Lululemon is that it feels like the height of the athleisure craze, which has been so significant to American culture in the past, let's call it 10 years. We just dress differently now with a lot more leggings and sweatpants. Our speech is even much more casual and in some ways you could say coarse.
Infamous
Murder at Lululemon | Part 4
I also think that athleisure signals to other people virtue in a weird way. It signals that you care about taking care of yourself. That you're virtuous yourself and gives you the aura of that very American thing that we call self-reliance. It's all tied in with the way that women are being asked to do more and more and more today.
Infamous
Murder at Lululemon | Part 4
That we have to wear our exercise clothes to then go to our job or go to school pickup. Just the way that, you know, life is so stacked today. against us, and there's never any time to do anything or to even calm down.
Infamous
Murder at Lululemon | Part 4
Now, I could be reading too much into all of this, because Lululemon is also just about your butt looking good in pants, but to speak for a minute about Chip Wilson, the former leader, he had a lot of ideas about how he wanted his company structured. I'm going to read a bit from an article that was written about him in the New York Times Magazine in 2015.
Infamous
Murder at Lululemon | Part 4
And again, reminder that a lot of what we're talking about in this episode and the people we're interviewing were connected to the company long ago. So in this article, the author writes that Chip was determined that his employees should be sophisticated retail educators. And he resolved from the outset to pay them more than sales clerks usually make, as much as 30% over the local rate.
Infamous
Murder at Lululemon | Part 4
Higher wages, he thought, would mean less turnover, and he wanted to unlock the potential of his employees. The article also talks about the goal setting that employees were asked to do and post in the store's break rooms, and that this was an idea that Chip had borrowed from Brian Tracy, who is the author of a book called The Psychology of Achievement.
Infamous
Murder at Lululemon | Part 4
And that's one of the self-help books that Chip says he lives by. Now, this is actually pretty similar to the way that lots of millennials want to think about work. You shouldn't just be a cog in a machine or a set of hands on an assembly line.
Infamous
Murder at Lululemon | Part 4
Instead, you should seek to find some personal fulfillment in your professional life, especially since most of us spend more than half our waking hours doing it. But not everyone appreciates this idea. Lily's going to talk now to a former Lululemon employee who worked at the Bloor Street location in Toronto in the mid-2000s. She's going to talk first about meeting Chip.
Infamous
Murder at Lululemon | Part 4
This former employee's name is Elena. She was working in this boutique, selling the pants, the clothes, most of it made with a very cool technical materials that Chip Wilson had figured out.
Infamous
Encore: Dubai's Missing Princesses I Part 4
David wanted to think that something had just happened to Latifah's phone and she'd find some other way to reach out. But the days turned into weeks and weeks into months.
Infamous
Encore: Dubai's Missing Princesses I Part 4
In February 2021, clips from those videos were released to the world.
Infamous
Encore: Dubai's Missing Princesses I Part 4
Now, for the first time, world leaders began recognising Latifa's situation, like then Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
Infamous
Encore: Dubai's Missing Princesses I Part 4
A United Nations committee demanded proof that Latifa was alive. But the UAE responded with a weak statement. So in May, David and his team asked Britain to freeze Sheikh Mohammed's assets. And then the unexpected happened.
Infamous
Encore: Dubai's Missing Princesses I Part 4
Nobody had heard from Latifa in months. Yet here was this photo of her sitting at a table at the Mall of the Emirates. Just sitting there between two women. The picture appeared to be recent. Behind them, there was an ad for a movie that was released that year. The two women were smiling brightly, both leaning an arm on the table. But Latifa, wearing all black, she looked less comfortable.
Infamous
Encore: Dubai's Missing Princesses I Part 4
She kept her hands in her lap, and she seemed kind of scared, sort of like how she looked in that old photo with Mary Robinson. Since the summer of 2021, more photos of Latifa have turned up. One of her in a restaurant with a woman from the first photo. She also posted a picture with Latifa at an airport in Spain. The caption reads, Great European holiday with Latifa. Smiley face emoji.
Infamous
Encore: Dubai's Missing Princesses I Part 4
David Haig accepted all these photos cautiously.
Infamous
Encore: Dubai's Missing Princesses I Part 4
But the photos weren't nothing. The last time he talked to her, she'd been a hostage.
Infamous
Encore: Dubai's Missing Princesses I Part 4
David and Tina made a choice to end the Free Latifa campaign. Now, to me, that doesn't necessarily mean the Latifa is free. But some compromise may have been reached where she can travel outside of Dubai. There was also a picture of her in Spain. As far as Haya is concerned, it seems only rational to think that she was led astray in the Mary Robinson incident.
Infamous
Encore: Dubai's Missing Princesses I Part 4
and that she either felt that she needed to defend the Sheikh's honor because that's what a good wife does, or, connecting the dots, she may have been fearful for her own children and her own safety. Regardless, the disposition of the court case seems to mean that she did get what she wanted. She is free. And the Sheikh?
Infamous
Encore: Dubai's Missing Princesses I Part 4
He is the absolute ruler of Dubai, a descendant of the family that's been in power since it was a country of pearl divers, not real housewives. Everyone in the West benefits from his leadership. Europe, the United States, We need a force to combat Islamic fundamentalism in the Gulf region, and you could say that a capitalist, expat-friendly culture like Dubai functions as a spear.
Infamous
Encore: Dubai's Missing Princesses I Part 4
But a German contractor reaping millions building multi-star hotels in Dubai seems to live a very different life than some of Dubai's citizens, especially some of the royal family's women. It's hard to feel bad for princesses, I know. But these princesses seem as though they want more than a closet of handbags. They want justice.
Infamous
Encore: Dubai's Missing Princesses I Part 4
Thank you so much for listening to our story. We hope that the next time you hear about things like Beyonce playing a concert in Dubai for millions of dollars, you think about the power behind that money. Next week on Infamous, we'll find out what happens when a guy from South Dakota falls in love with a possible Russian spy.
Infamous
Encore: Dubai's Missing Princesses I Part 4
Infamous is created and executive produced by Gabriel Sherman and me, Vanessa Gregoriotis. This episode was co-hosted by Natalie Robomed, who wrote it with Heather Schroering. Producing by Heather Schroering, Natalia Winkleman, Lily Houston-Smith, and Grace Heerman. Princess Haya and Sheikh Mohammed did not comment for this series. Shoshi Shmulevitz is our managing producer and editor.
Infamous
Encore: Dubai's Missing Princesses I Part 4
Sound design by David Devereaux. Recording by Ewen Lai Tramuen. And fact-checking by Matt Giles. Voices by Rajiv Gola and Lily Houston-Smith. Campside Media's executive producers are Josh Dean, Adam Hoff, Matt Scher, and myself. Campside Media's operations team is Doug Slawin, Ashley Warren, and Destiny Dingle. If you're enjoying Infamous, please rate and review the show.
Infamous
Encore: Dubai's Missing Princesses I Part 4
You're listening to Dubai's Missing Princesses, the fourth and final episode. Now, last episode, we met Princess Haya and we heard about how she first spouted the party line when it came to Latifa.
Infamous
Encore: Dubai's Missing Princesses I Part 4
Now this episode, we're going to find out what happens when a third princess tries to make her escape. That's coming up after the break.
Infamous
Encore: Dubai's Missing Princesses I Part 4
So after all the provocation Haya says she received, the threats and the messages and the intimidation, she decided enough was enough. In April 2019, she chartered one of the family's private planes. I can imagine her walking up the air stair, her kids in tow, looking over her shoulder. And just like that, she left Dubai.
Infamous
Encore: Dubai's Missing Princesses I Part 4
Haya landed in the UK, which was a risky choice. Sheikh Mo not only owned horses there, but he owned so much property and had so many ties.
Infamous
Encore: Dubai's Missing Princesses I Part 4
Haya had ties there, too. I mean, she wasn't a relatively unknown Dubai royal like Latifa or Shamsa. She was the princess from Jordan, a royal twice over, the Arab Princess Dai. She set up shop in one of the most expensive homes in the entire city, a big brick house looming behind a fence. Haya also put her political might to work.
Infamous
Encore: Dubai's Missing Princesses I Part 4
The Jordanian embassy in London gave her the title of First Secretary. That gave her diplomatic immunity, making her exempt from UK law. Which was a real smart move, because less than a month after her escape, Sheikh Mohammed launched legal action in the UK courts. He wanted his kids back. And Shakemo was very used to winning.
Infamous
Encore: Dubai's Missing Princesses I Part 4
Right after Ascot, Haya's legal team says Sheikh Mo began an all-out media war. More than a thousand articles about her were published in less than a month. One of them suggested Haya was an agent of Hamas who intended to overthrow Jordan. British papers were suddenly filled with reports of the affair she'd had with a security guard.
Infamous
Encore: Dubai's Missing Princesses I Part 4
There were later hearsay accounts that made Haya out to be the aggressor. She'd showered the bodyguard with gifts, like a $15,000 watch and a vintage shotgun that cost nearly $60,000. Plus, worried that he'd say something publicly, she supposedly paid the bodyguard roughly $1.2 million. Even diplomatic immunity couldn't save her reputation now.
Infamous
Encore: Dubai's Missing Princesses I Part 4
So she gave up her diplomatic immunity to fight back.
Infamous
Encore: Dubai's Missing Princesses I Part 4
Haya presented herself as a battered wife, just trying to protect her children.
Infamous
Encore: Dubai's Missing Princesses I Part 4
She alleged that Sheikh Mohammed wanted to marry off one of her young kids, and she filed an injunction usually reserved for victims of domestic abuse. But Haya had a trump card up her sleeve. Two, actually. Shamsa and Latifah. Now it seems like Haya was going to play them to play Muhammad. That's after the break.
Infamous
Encore: Dubai's Missing Princesses I Part 4
So far, Haya hadn't done anything publicly to support Latifa or Shamsa. In fact, she'd loudly insisted Latifa's escape was a private family matter. And she'd orchestrated that whole weird lunch with Mary Robinson to prove it. Despite being a UN messenger of peace, she'd never even mentioned Shamsa.
Infamous
Encore: Dubai's Missing Princesses I Part 4
But I imagine if Haya could prove that Sheikh Mohammed had a pattern of allegedly mistreating his children, like Shamsa and Latifa, she'd have a better chance at winning her own custody case. So that summer, reports emerged that she'd recently learned disturbing facts about Latifa.
Infamous
Encore: Dubai's Missing Princesses I Part 4
Whether she finally had learned the truth about Latifah, or whether she was using Latifah's story to bolster her own, those escapes were about to form the backbone of Haya's argument. The court's hearings and fact findings covered both Shamsa and Latifa's stories in a lot of detail. And it all leaked out. She was directly contradicting everything she'd said previously.
Infamous
Encore: Dubai's Missing Princesses I Part 4
Sheikh Mo obviously felt he had to respond to all this. He insisted that he believed Latifa was manipulated by Hervé Jobert, who he claimed had asked for money. Sheikh Mo said that he feared Jobert was holding Latifa under ransom. Here's an actor for Sheikh Mo.
Infamous
Encore: Dubai's Missing Princesses I Part 4
The allegation that Joubert asked for money is unproven. Joubert denies that he ever asked for a ransom or that he kidnapped Latifa. As for Shamsa, Sheikh Mohammed dismissed her disappearance. It was little more than a small misunderstanding. He said Shamsa felt constricted by the security measures that were in place around her.
Infamous
Encore: Dubai's Missing Princesses I Part 4
Latifah did not appear in court in London, and neither did Shamsa. Why? Here's what Sheikmo said.
Infamous
Encore: Dubai's Missing Princesses I Part 4
Haya had spent many days getting in and out of a black town car outside the courthouse. Sometimes she wore an emerald dress, sometimes a floral one, but she was always with her attorney, Baroness Fiona Shackleton. Don't let that fancy name fool you. As a lawyer, the Baroness was a shark. Finally, the judge indicated he was making his decision.
Infamous
Encore: Dubai's Missing Princesses I Part 4
He ruled in favor of Haya. He believed the extensive accounts of threats made against her.
Infamous
Encore: Dubai's Missing Princesses I Part 4
And he believed Sheikh Mohammed had orchestrated the abductions and the detentions of both Shamsa and Latifa. Finally walking out of court, out into the London day, Haya must have felt so vindicated. She would later receive a roughly $730 million settlement from her divorce with Sheikh Mo, making it one of the most expensive British divorces in history.
Infamous
Encore: Dubai's Missing Princesses I Part 4
Courts also ruled that the phones of Haya and two of her attorneys had either been compromised or hacked through the use of spy software called Pegasus. And while it's unclear which country ordered the hacking, one court found the surveillance was carried out with Muhammad's express or implied authority. Now, he denied that he was involved in any hack. But today, Haya, it seems, is free.
Infamous
Encore: Dubai's Missing Princesses I Part 4
Now, Tina felt this was a victory, too. She felt this could be just the momentum she needed for the Free Latifa campaign.
Infamous
Encore: Dubai's Missing Princesses I Part 4
By then, Tina had been in touch with Latifa for more than a year. Luckily, they hadn't lost contact yet. She was working with David Haig, the businessman turned human rights advocate. But in July, David says he was texting with Latifa on WhatsApp when suddenly his messages stopped going through.
Infamous
Encore: Plumping Profits? A Kardashian Scandal | Part 3
Really connecting with me. But did you get roses afterwards?
Infamous
Encore: Plumping Profits? A Kardashian Scandal | Part 3
Something like that. Yeah. I mean, I'm sure pictures were taken, but, you know, could you sell a picture at that point to TMZ of Kim Kardashian talking on the couch to some random woman or? No, like you could probably sell one of her talking to Tom Brady or talking to somebody where they could be like, is Kim, you know, because at this point she was she was with Kanye.
Infamous
Encore: Plumping Profits? A Kardashian Scandal | Part 3
And a lot of time spent in Marina Del Rey with these folks. Well, that's where all the, you know, the shooting, the hardcore shooting for advertisers and brands happens. So it makes
Infamous
Encore: Plumping Profits? A Kardashian Scandal | Part 3
But you never saw her actually shoot her show.
Infamous
Encore: Plumping Profits? A Kardashian Scandal | Part 3
Because I saw her shoot her show. And that was extremely weird. So one of the other things I did with Kim is I went with her. You know, we spent like this whole day together. So let me play you a little bit of this tape. Okay, please.
Infamous
Encore: Plumping Profits? A Kardashian Scandal | Part 3
You can sort of hear her being like who she really is. Right. She's a mom under stress. She's got a lot of stuff to do. And this is the way her life works. And she's just like sort of explaining to me, like, I'm going to go to this place, this place, this place and this place. And this is how we shoot.
Infamous
Encore: Plumping Profits? A Kardashian Scandal | Part 3
And essentially, like she and the rest of her family just roll around L.A., doing like their different things they need to do all day, like getting their pedicures or whatever it is, taking their meetings. And then they, you know, sort of like a group of friends, but not really, but sort of, are like, hey, you're over here filming our multimillion dollar reality show. Maybe I should stop by.
Infamous
Encore: Plumping Profits? A Kardashian Scandal | Part 3
If you're over there, like in this case, it was like looking for furniture for Kylie's new house. And everybody had gone to this place in Santa Monica, one of those huge warehouses with tons and tons and tons of furniture. I got so lost in there. And basically they were sort of like moving through the warehouse in little packs of like two or three.
Infamous
Encore: Plumping Profits? A Kardashian Scandal | Part 3
But, you know, the story was Kanye. Right. And Kim was sort of like the sub story.
Infamous
Encore: Plumping Profits? A Kardashian Scandal | Part 3
Like it would be like Chris and Kylie or Chloe and Kylie or, you know, whatever it was. They were all there. And, you know, the cameramen are just sort of following them down like aisles of people. couches while they talk to each other. And it was so amazing to me because you think of them being like, we are performing. But of course, they don't have to perform for the cameras.
Infamous
Encore: Plumping Profits? A Kardashian Scandal | Part 3
They just have to stand there and have what looks like a real conversation. So they were speaking so softly and so subtly that I could barely hear what they were saying, you know, because there's like this enormous guy with a camera in front of me most of the time. I was sort of like trailing around with my notebook trying to like keep up.
Infamous
Encore: Plumping Profits? A Kardashian Scandal | Part 3
you know yeah it was weird i mean it's so truman show which is something that kim says like my life is the truman show to a degree like she's right that's what it is i am so interested in that idea that at like the beginning of every season they have a family meeting where they go through all their schedules but you have to imagine that it's also kind of like a pitch meeting or like a storyline this season i'm thinking i want to break up with kanye yeah right i'm fascinating
Infamous
Encore: Plumping Profits? A Kardashian Scandal | Part 3
This was to get to know each other. She had never had a cover of Rolling Stone. And if I remember correctly, Kanye didn't want her to do the cover. And so it turned into this thing where Kanye and Kanye's publicist were saying, I don't know about this. Are they going to make fun of you? What exactly is going to happen?
Infamous
Encore: Plumping Profits? A Kardashian Scandal | Part 3
Oh, my God. I mean, I don't know, but if I could make something like this happen, we could have a billion dollars. I mean, I think people underestimate the amount of pleasure people get by experiencing vicariously a family that is actually functional in some ways.
Infamous
Encore: Plumping Profits? A Kardashian Scandal | Part 3
Like, wow, these people talk to each other and they work together and they see each other all the time and they're really invested in each other's lives and they get on each other's nerves. I mean... Okay, forget Caitlyn. She got cast out of the fold. And forget Rob. Rob is also not around. But, like, I think that people – I think people like that. Like, that's the aspect that I like.
Infamous
Encore: Plumping Profits? A Kardashian Scandal | Part 3
Like, you know, having a lot of my family being buried under the ground right now. Like, I enjoy watching Rob. you know, people like who, the sisters who love each other.
Infamous
Encore: Plumping Profits? A Kardashian Scandal | Part 3
Yeah. I mean, they're they're like a little pack of really sophisticated communications professionals or something like you can just see them all talking to each other. You say this and then I'll say that. And let's place this. And like there must be whiteboards in each of these houses of like the story arcs and where we're.
Infamous
Encore: Plumping Profits? A Kardashian Scandal | Part 3
We're going to leak out this piece of information and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Infamous
Encore: Plumping Profits? A Kardashian Scandal | Part 3
I mean, I think they, I don't know if they have, you know, work-life balance because we never get to see, like, does anybody actually cook in this family or do they clean their own rooms or, like, you just know there's this phalanx of service workers that trails them wherever they go, like me trailing them in the furniture store while they're walking around trying to pick couches. Yeah.
Infamous
Encore: Plumping Profits? A Kardashian Scandal | Part 3
But, yeah, there's something lovable. I mean, on the other hand, when I was reporting with Kim, I remember we went to the Barnes & Noble because she had just come out with that selfie book. And it was a book of photographs of selfies of herself. I mean, I don't know how much more narcissistic you can get than that.
Infamous
Encore: Plumping Profits? A Kardashian Scandal | Part 3
It's almost like solipsism where it's just like there's nothing that exists outside of the self. The self is the world, you know.
Infamous
Encore: Plumping Profits? A Kardashian Scandal | Part 3
I mean, the truth is they started it all. I mean, they did start it all. You know, back then, that selfie book, okay, the title was Selfish. Right. And everybody was sort of outraged by it. And now it's like, yes, everybody's so selfish. Nobody can think about anything except for themselves. Like my daughter, my tween daughter, every time we get in the car, she wants to look at herself in a mirror.
Infamous
Encore: Plumping Profits? A Kardashian Scandal | Part 3
Right. I mean, as Kim says, she would be like, you know, if you said that to her, because I did say things like that to her. And she was like, well, you know, I just don't really think about that. You know, I pretty much just do my life. But, you know, Kanye thinks about things that way because... Yeah. She's like, her creamy thighs kind of bestride a nation, right?
Infamous
Encore: Plumping Profits? A Kardashian Scandal | Part 3
Like she's got like all this interesting stuff going on with race and sex and, you know, women and power. And what does it mean for women to have both leisure and a lot of money and also be in control? You know, what about the Kardashian curse where, you know, every man
Infamous
Encore: Plumping Profits? A Kardashian Scandal | Part 3
And, you know, she really wanted to do it because, you know, her father is known as the attorney for OJ. But really, he was like a rock and roll guy. He had had a very early magazine that was almost like a type of billboard magazine. And so they had grown up going to lots of concerts. And she used to listen to like Mary J. Blige and Earth, Wind and Fire. And she was just like into music.
Infamous
Encore: Plumping Profits? A Kardashian Scandal | Part 3
who interacts with them is not only is there a divorce or a breakup, but the man sort of is left shattered on the ground and the women just march on, you know? But, you know, I mean, the things like when I saw her at Barnes & Noble for doing the selfie book, so she and I sat together while she signed book after book after book.
Infamous
Encore: Plumping Profits? A Kardashian Scandal | Part 3
And Barnes & Noble had said no photographs because it's just going to take too long. We have a huge line of people just, you know, we're trying to sell books here, not like take selfies with Kim. Right. So you had to buy a book and she signed it. But she was like, you know what? I'm not going to deny everybody who's come here to take a selfie with me. Like, that's the title of the book.
Infamous
Encore: Plumping Profits? A Kardashian Scandal | Part 3
I'm not going to look at these 14-year-old girls who are like, please, can I take a selfie? and be like, no, I'm just signing your book. That's so like 20th century. Like, what are they supposed to do with this autograph? Like, nobody will even understand what that is. She signed her book, but you don't have a picture of her. I don't believe that you actually met her.
Infamous
Encore: Plumping Profits? A Kardashian Scandal | Part 3
But we're sitting there and these people like start coming on the line. And I'm like, these people look like pretty like punk rock. And they come up to the front and they're not fans. And they're actually from PETA. And they're just like, you're disgusting. It takes 50 animals to make a fur coat and you put your child in that?
Infamous
Encore: Plumping Profits? A Kardashian Scandal | Part 3
She just like sort of had like a rictus grin and like trembled a little bit and then moved on with her life. And I always thought about that because I was just like, God, you can live in this world of Kardashian bubble where everybody's just throwing money at you and saying like, hey, could you tweet about my book? You know, but every once in a while something punctures that.
Infamous
Encore: Plumping Profits? A Kardashian Scandal | Part 3
Even if you could say like, well, I don't know about these PETA tactics going up to random celebrities like that and throwing paint on them or come on, that's one individual thing.
Infamous
Encore: Plumping Profits? A Kardashian Scandal | Part 3
you know living in a greater society that privileges wearing fur but there was something about the line of like you dress your kid in that that really got me where i was like god it's sort of true like who puts fur on their child right but that's the but in some ways that's the american dream It is, but it's like, is it like I sort of understand.
Infamous
Encore: Plumping Profits? A Kardashian Scandal | Part 3
I mean, personally, I don't wear fur, but I am a fine with other people. That's a personal choice if they want to wear it. But you know what you're doing to do that for an outfit for a child. where the child has no idea, is just going to like spit up on it and could be wearing velvet, could be wearing polyester, like kid doesn't care.
Infamous
Encore: Plumping Profits? A Kardashian Scandal | Part 3
I mean, definitely from my conversations with her, what I really realized is Rob Kardashian did not leave a lot to those kids. He didn't have a lot. He had a lot of failed businesses. And Caitlyn Jenner was like, look, I mean, she was... She was an athlete and she was famous, but she wasn't walking down streets paved with gold either.
Infamous
Encore: Plumping Profits? A Kardashian Scandal | Part 3
And so, you know, the fact is they grew up in Beverly Hills, not as wealthy as like the Hiltons. You know, they were sort of the odd family out in some ways. You know, and you could argue her mother as well, like absolutely directed her life to making as much money as possible. To her, money means she's safe.
Infamous
Encore: Plumping Profits? A Kardashian Scandal | Part 3
Means like she's protected and, you know, everything will be fine and, you know, whatever. It's the things that money emotionally means to lots of people are just amplified in her. Mm-hmm. And, you know, I asked her, like, well, why do you think people are so fascinated with you? And she said, well, it's aspirational. Like, look where I came from and now I live in this big house.
Infamous
Encore: Plumping Profits? A Kardashian Scandal | Part 3
And I just thought to myself, like, wow, you have bought into the American dream so thoroughly that you can't even see that other people might want a spiritual life or they might want to become, like, an amazing artist or a great writer. Right.
Infamous
Encore: Plumping Profits? A Kardashian Scandal | Part 3
And he was, too. You know, so much of Kim's motivation is trying to make her father, who passed away too early, happy and make him proud of her in absentia so she really wanted to do it so I think there had to be this drink where it was like okay talk to Vanessa directly and you know that's how I sold her on it I said look this is going to be an iconic story I promise you
Infamous
Encore: Plumping Profits? A Kardashian Scandal | Part 3
I think it's it's both, you know, their constant pursuit of money is both both like what's kept them in the public eye and what ultimately sort of damns them.
Infamous
Encore: Plumping Profits? A Kardashian Scandal | Part 3
All right, that's it for Infamous this week. Thanks so much for listening to our show once again. We will be back next week with a story about Usher, the R&B heartthrob that you probably have followed through the years. I interviewed him, hung out with him in Atlanta. I actually ended up sleeping over at his house when I was writing a cover story for Rolling Stone. Nothing happened.
Infamous
Encore: Plumping Profits? A Kardashian Scandal | Part 3
It was his guest house, to be fair. It was not in the same house. But when I woke up, I didn't know how to get out of the gate and couldn't find the remote. And he was still asleep. So that was a really strange experience. So hear all about that. And also, what are we thinking with Usher and his connection to Diddy on next week's Infamous? All right. Take care. Have a great week.
Infamous
Encore: Plumping Profits? A Kardashian Scandal | Part 3
I will make sure that this story is memorable and that it tells your fucking crazy ass like Kardashians rise to, you know, prominence story like in all of its full flower. And so she was like, OK, great. And then we were sort of off to the races.
Infamous
Encore: Plumping Profits? A Kardashian Scandal | Part 3
OK, so I flew to L.A. I had not watched any of Keeping Up with the Kardashians. So then I'm, you know, on the plane watching all of these reality shows, just like what is happening? It would have taken me like 30 weeks to watch all the TV that had already come out about them. So I'm just kind of haphazardly like clicking on different episodes. So I landed in L.A. So I went to an office.
Infamous
Encore: Plumping Profits? A Kardashian Scandal | Part 3
It was Whale Rock where she was making God knows what. some sort of digital media.
Infamous
Encore: Plumping Profits? A Kardashian Scandal | Part 3
Yeah. And you all had a lot of questions and a lot of thoughts. And a lot of them were actually about another Kardashian, the original Kardashian, Kim. And as luck would have it, both Natalie and I have had quite a few experiences with Kim. So we are going to take this episode to cover all of that.
Infamous
Encore: Plumping Profits? A Kardashian Scandal | Part 3
Yeah. So I roll up to this place and you never know as a journalist, is this like a real meeting or are you guys just here for my benefit? But, you know, there's like 20 people there and she comes in and it's about like other emojis that they could put out that are not just like Kim crying face that are, you know, related to her life. And she's like, oh, this is cute.
Infamous
Encore: Plumping Profits? A Kardashian Scandal | Part 3
It's like a pregnant belly or like a fur jacket or, you know, little things that relate to her. She's like, I don't want a Speedo that has like nothing to do with me. And then they had emojis of like other family members. And she was like, no, definitely no other family members. They're all going to want a piece of this.
Infamous
Encore: Plumping Profits? A Kardashian Scandal | Part 3
You know, she talked a lot about her family, obviously, like that's her primary thing and the way they sort of split up the pie and the way they all watch the show together and then decide. Like, OK, I'm all right with the way this went down on the show.
Infamous
Encore: Plumping Profits? A Kardashian Scandal | Part 3
It's not like an episode comes out and they're all like surprised about what they said or what the editors picked, which is potentially why the show is like a little boring, you know, because I'm sure they're like, I don't want that part in all the time.
Infamous
Encore: Plumping Profits? A Kardashian Scandal | Part 3
So we went there and then we got into some gigantic SUV and we went to this restaurant, which I always think of as the restaurant I love the most in Santa Monica to Hillstone Restaurant.
Infamous
Encore: Plumping Profits? A Kardashian Scandal | Part 3
she was like i this is my one day to cheat i'm gonna eat something and she ate like half a veggie burger you know like in a few fries but we had a you know a nice conversation i mean she ate so neatly and precisely and with such good manners and like You know, I just remember her sort of absentmindedly folding and unfolding her napkin on her lap as she was talking.
Infamous
Encore: Plumping Profits? A Kardashian Scandal | Part 3
You know, we had a lovely time. Like, that's the thing about Kim. And that's part of... I believe how the family has maintained power for so long is that nobody meets Kim Kardashian and doesn't enjoy spending time with her. Like she has it, whatever that thing is.
Infamous
Encore: Plumping Profits? A Kardashian Scandal | Part 3
And of course, she benefits because her public persona is so outrageous and loose and low culture that, you know, when you read somebody who's not like flashing her vagina at people, you're just like shocked. You know, she doesn't have to say anything. Right. And you're like, this is so much better than I thought she would be. Right.
Infamous
Encore: Plumping Profits? A Kardashian Scandal | Part 3
Well, I don't remember anything from the Mercer Hotel, but I do. I have a description of her. In the story, she comes into the meeting precisely on time in an outfit made up of colors found exclusively in nature. Dark green ankle-length dress, sand-colored lace-up sandals, and a tree-bark brown Celine purse.
Infamous
Encore: Plumping Profits? A Kardashian Scandal | Part 3
The effect is like a photorealistic painting, meaning that the Kardashian on the TV screen feels more real than the Kardashian in the room. Which I think is very true. I think she like everything she does to her body is for the camera, right? She's a jungle Aphrodite escaped from a forest of big booty nymphs with a mane as thick as a horse and as black as volcanic rock.
Infamous
Encore: Plumping Profits? A Kardashian Scandal | Part 3
Her eyelashes flutter like teeny tiny go-go dancers' fans. Her nails are small, elegant talons painted a color that manages to be both onyx and the bloodiest red. But it's Kardashian's body that is the thing, of course. And today, as always, her clothing is so tight it feels transgressive.
Infamous
Encore: Plumping Profits? A Kardashian Scandal | Part 3
Clinging in particular to that strange, glorious, but a formerly taboo body part that is now not only an inescapable part of the American erotic, but also our best and most welcome distraction from climate change, income inequality, and ISIS. Just, you know, we like to use a lot of hyperbole at Rolling Stone. Of course. Everybody's like playing Hunter Thompson at all times.
Infamous
Encore: Plumping Profits? A Kardashian Scandal | Part 3
OK, so I met Kim Kardashian at the Mercer Hotel and it's a place where all the celebrities hang out. And I met her there for a drink. I mean, it was so strange. I remember absolutely nothing about this encounter, which I think is a very usual experience of talking to Kim Kardashian because it's so pleasant speaking to her. But like nothing of that much import actually gets said there.
Infamous
Encore: Plumping Profits? A Kardashian Scandal | Part 3
So there's a little hyperbole for you. But look, she looked good. You know, she looked good. And the butt is shocking. You know, you kind of were like, is this real? Is it not real? Right. And we talked about that in the show. I think it could be real. Like, I do think people have big butts and she might just be one of them, you know?
Infamous
Encore: Plumping Profits? A Kardashian Scandal | Part 3
Anyway, whatever. So we had this nice conversation. And then, you know, she called me after that. She sent me when the piece came out. She sent me three dozen white roses. I was like, yes, Kim Kardashian, you and I are friends. But, you know, I've never spoken to her again. I have thought a couple of times.
Infamous
Encore: Plumping Profits? A Kardashian Scandal | Part 3
I mean, when I wrote a book, I thought to myself, God, should I just like ask Kim Kardashian if she could just tweet about this? I could sell so many books. But then I realized, like, that's what everybody does. Right, you know.
Infamous
Encore: Plumping Profits? A Kardashian Scandal | Part 3
I mean, basically, she's a sailor. She's a sailor with a huge rack. That's like the concept they went with. So you tell me what you think of this cover, because I could never tell if this was potentially the worst cover I'd ever seen or if it was really good. It's shot by Terry Richardson.
Infamous
Encore: Plumping Profits? A Kardashian Scandal | Part 3
Needless to say, the cover was not iconic. And I don't know if the piece was actually iconic, but it's good. It's a good piece.
Infamous
Encore: Plumping Profits? A Kardashian Scandal | Part 3
She had just had a baby and she was sort of uncomfortable in her own skin, which is something that came up a lot in our conversations. I had also just had a baby. You know, she wasn't feeling very good about the way that she looked, but she was certainly wearing something extremely forfeiting and she was certainly Kim Kardashian. And yet nobody came up to talk, which is fascinating.
Infamous
Encore: Plumping Profits? A Kardashian Scandal | Part 3
Yeah, I'm sure they did give her that. I mean, she made it, right? Like she made it happen.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 2 I Scroll Back for Part 1
He captures her on camera. It's all on tape. And all of these girls are underage. Joe Francis doesn't know it yet, but this day is about to change everything. More after the break.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 2 I Scroll Back for Part 1
Okay. So it's April 2nd, 2003. Buffy, Adam Buff, he's staked outside of Joe Francis' condo.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 2 I Scroll Back for Part 1
Buff calls it in and waits for orders from his superior.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 2 I Scroll Back for Part 1
Now, remember, Buffy is a kind of intimidating presence. He's 6'6", 6'8", whatever. And at this point, Joe's just got back from the gym. He's just wearing a T-shirt, baseball cap.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 2 I Scroll Back for Part 1
Fair enough. That seems fair enough. Mayor Lee is the kind of guy who's always sure he's right. And he really liked getting rid of things. He's very well known for his campaign against crawfish.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 2 I Scroll Back for Part 1
Remember how I said that Joe is kind of like a guy who snaps at a waiter? Joe right now is in that headspace, and he's asking questions of everyone who's arriving on the scene.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 2 I Scroll Back for Part 1
Then, that afternoon, Buff was sent to search Joe's private jet.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 2 I Scroll Back for Part 1
So you got a dog outside of a plane just sniffing around.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 2 I Scroll Back for Part 1
So not enough to get Joe for intent to distribute or anything like that.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 2 I Scroll Back for Part 1
None of it felt like enough to pin Joe down for anything serious. But they also searched Joe's condo. This is what Ryan Simkin, who used to work for Girls Gone Wild, says happened in his book. He says that when the officers went inside, they got those t-shirts that said Joe Francis for Panama City Beach Mayor. They also got 175 hours of uncut footage. And Joe had just turned 30, right?
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 2 I Scroll Back for Part 1
So they got some birthday cards. The shooters wrote things like, Joe, celebrate your 30s with a couple of 15s. Or, hey Joe, make sure she's 18 tonight, would ya? Joe was charged with a whole slew of felonies.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 2 I Scroll Back for Part 1
Here's former Mayor Lee Sullivan.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 2 I Scroll Back for Part 1
He was in jail now with the photographers, and he told one of them, give me your jacket. I'm cold. This is according to a book. And the guy said, no way, man. I don't work for you in here. Prison, the great equalizer. Except it wasn't so equal after all, since Joe bailed out and soon headed back to L.A. Plus all those charges he had, come on, man, it didn't seem like those were going to stick.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 2 I Scroll Back for Part 1
Adam Buff again.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 2 I Scroll Back for Part 1
Yeah. It was lots of charges and not a lot of Joe answering to them. Joe sort of snatched victory from defeat. And that's because he had a lot of money to pay some really great lawyers. Girls Gone Wild was flush with cash.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 2 I Scroll Back for Part 1
And it wasn't just because of everybody's appetite for soft porn. Joe had a unique business model, and that model was essentially, don't pay the talent. Here's one of the lawyers for a woman who was filmed.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 2 I Scroll Back for Part 1
As Joe was using his money to fight the felony charges in Florida, he only became more successful. Now it's 2004, and he's living like a king in LA on a huge house on a hill. Bel-Air. He may be young, but he's rich. Nightclubs, girls, money, he's just out on the Hollywood scene. He's hosting parties attended by those celebrities of the 2000s, like MTV's Carson Daly.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 2 I Scroll Back for Part 1
Actor Pauly Shore.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 2 I Scroll Back for Part 1
He's friends with the Kardashians.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 2 I Scroll Back for Part 1
Here he is on the phone with Kris Jenner. It's season one of Keeping Up with the Kardashians. Joe becomes a plot point on the show. The Kardashians fly down to Mexico to shoot a bikini campaign for him. Joe Francis has the most beautiful airplane. Point is, Joe is very much a man about town. Paparazzi at Team Z would go up to him outside clubs, just shoot the shit.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 2 I Scroll Back for Part 1
Here he is on a local TV program during his election campaign.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 2 I Scroll Back for Part 1
At nightclubs, all sorts of people mix, right? You've got A-list stars, gorgeous kids who are trying to make it as actors, rap heavies, and gangsters. And so even though Mayor Lee and Buffy had backed off Joe for the moment, someone else had his eye on him. You've actually heard from him before.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 2 I Scroll Back for Part 1
Riley Perez, who you heard from at the top of the last episode, he's at the clubs too. I'm talking about L.A. clubs where celebrities would go to see and be seen.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 2 I Scroll Back for Part 1
Let me tell you what Riley looks like. He's about five foot nine, built like a boxer. He sort of looks like The Rock. Could be Hispanic, Arab, actually a black Cuban. He's good looking. And he was a known commodity around town, kind of like Joe. Sometimes he's seeing Joe Francis at the clubs, too.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 2 I Scroll Back for Part 1
Riley says he was running books at the time. And after nights out, Joe keeps the party going at his place in Bel Air.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 2 I Scroll Back for Part 1
That's just Riley's opinion, of course. But in terms of what would happen next, it mattered a lot.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 2 I Scroll Back for Part 1
Mayor Lee wanted to blast those crawdads off the face of the earth.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 2 I Scroll Back for Part 1
Riley knew all these folks because he was good-looking, because he was in the mix, and yet he was also a criminal. And now he was going to do something very off-the-books regarding Joe Francis. That's next time on Infamous.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 2 I Scroll Back for Part 1
And now he was planning to do the same to Joe Francis. From Campside Media and Sony Music Entertainment, I'm Vanessa Grigoriadis, and this is Infamous. You're listening to episode two of our five part series, Boy Gone Wild.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 2 I Scroll Back for Part 1
So when we left off last time, 2002, I'd just seen Joe Francis get arrested. We were at the Holiday Inn in Panama City Beach. Reminder, you're sometimes hearing an actor play Joe Francis.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 2 I Scroll Back for Part 1
I met up with Joe again the next morning. He looked tired, but he was otherwise his usual arrogant self.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 2 I Scroll Back for Part 1
This time, we're going to find out what happened the following year when I wasn't there. And remember, more recently, Joe issued a blanket denial to all the questions I asked him. So we're not hearing his side of the story.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 2 I Scroll Back for Part 1
Jo not only decided to return to Panama City Beach, he returned full force. And Mayor Lee was not okay with this.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 2 I Scroll Back for Part 1
I don't think Joe has anything to do with the holiday inn this time, but pretty much everything is the same. There are shooters, there are girls, there's filming. And obviously, Mayor Lee doesn't like this filming, particularly on his roads. You weren't supposed to drink on them, and you definitely weren't supposed to have a peep show.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 2 I Scroll Back for Part 1
But as we know, Joe had a defense for that.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 2 I Scroll Back for Part 1
Hi, everyone. Vanessa here. You are about to listen to episode two of Boy Gone Wild. Reminder, please scroll back in your feed to get to episode one. All right. Thanks so much. This episode is intended for mature audiences. So while there was all this craziness with Joe Francis and Panama City Beach, there was one man watching carefully. He was a defender of the town.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 2 I Scroll Back for Part 1
I pressed Lee on whether this defense was actually a good one, because maybe this was protected under the law. You know, we've got the First Amendment. Joe even filed a lawsuit to stop anyone interfering with his efforts to film a spring break documentary.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 2 I Scroll Back for Part 1
But this lawsuit just made Mayor Lee even angrier.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 2 I Scroll Back for Part 1
I mean, the more people know Panama City Beach is the spot for Girls Gone Wild, the more they want to come there, the more they want to spend their money in town.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 2 I Scroll Back for Part 1
Okay, here's what happened. Panama City Beach began to zero in on Joe Francis. They did it publicly. I mean, Mayor Lee is not exactly a shrinking violet. In fact, Joe Francis and Mayor Lee even went on Greta Van Susteren to debate each other.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 2 I Scroll Back for Part 1
Mayor Lee responded, it was seven votes, if Joe could count that high. But Joe had some T-shirts printed up.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 2 I Scroll Back for Part 1
So during spring break 2003, many, many officers and folks in the sheriff's department were on Joe's case. They'd ride on bikes and circle Girls Gone Wild photographers when they were shooting. They even sent a helicopter to sort of hover over the Girls Gone Wild beach house. And Joe was just defiant. This is a recording of a Girls Gone Wild event at a large outdoor theater.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 2 I Scroll Back for Part 1
It's Texas, and Joe runs on stage, almost doing the Nixon thing. He's lifting his arms up as high as he can.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 2 I Scroll Back for Part 1
So who is going to be victorious in this battle of wills? Joe Francis or Mayor Lee? More after the break.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 2 I Scroll Back for Part 1
So when we left off, we were in Panama City Beach and tensions were ramping between Mayor Lee and Joe Francis, founder of Girls Gone Wild.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 2 I Scroll Back for Part 1
They finally went toe to toe on April 2nd, 2003. Adam Buff worked in a special investigations unit for the sheriff. He was looking into controlled narcotics and prostitution cases.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 2 I Scroll Back for Part 1
Mayor Lee Sullivan wasn't just a politician. He'd had a long career in law enforcement,
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 2 I Scroll Back for Part 1
Adam Buff, a.k.a. Buffy, was one of the guys on Joe Francis's case.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 2 I Scroll Back for Part 1
Right. Right. And now he's back. And he's printed up shirts like, I'm the mayor of Panama City. And he's ready to do whatever he wants.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 2 I Scroll Back for Part 1
There was. This was the beginning of Mayor Lee's moment. And it all started with a group of teenage girls. They were probably doing what teenage girls on spring break do. Blasting music, singing along, maybe some backseat dancing. And then all of a sudden, there's a van in front of them. It's the Girls Gone Wild van.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 2 I Scroll Back for Part 1
And then the cars pull into the parking lot of a gas station and everybody's talking.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 2 I Scroll Back for Part 1
Okay, that's not the actual audio, but you get the drift. And as usual, the guy from Girls Gone Wild has a suggestion. I want to make clear that the dialogue in this upcoming scene is imagined, even though the action comes from court documents and a book. Maybe he says that they should go over to the Chateau Motel and just film a little something.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 2 I Scroll Back for Part 1
So they go over there to a three-story motel, sort of sandy yellow color, and they walk up to room 320, 90 bucks a night. White sheets that you don't want to look at too closely.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 2 I Scroll Back for Part 1
So allegedly, and Joe disputes this, the friends not in the shower sit in the other room. They probably feel sort of awkward listening to softcore porn happening in a bathroom. But something even stranger is about to happen. The founder of Girls Gone Wild has entered the building.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 2 I Scroll Back for Part 1
And according to a book by a former Girls Gone Wild employee, she did. So I imagine the two remaining girls looking at each other, just feeling so weird. Maybe they should go into the other room? In fact, allegedly, Joe is leading them into the other room right now. Come on, sit down over here. He gestures to the bed next to him, and once again, he takes their hands.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 2 I Scroll Back for Part 1
Now, you can probably imagine what happens next. When Joe finishes, one woman stands up and she throws him a towel. They may be feeling weird, and perhaps to make them feel better, I guess Joe then pulls out a wad of money and he throws it.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 2 I Scroll Back for Part 1
But it doesn't end there. After driving around for a bit, they go back to the motel. One of the girls walks around the back and there's a camera crew waiting. It may have gone something like this.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 1
While he was screening footage for banned from television, there was something else that caught Joe's eye. It was footage from New Orleans, taken at Mardi Gras. And it was just woman after woman after woman flashing their boots.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 1
Joe was on the cutting edge of content, bringing the traveling circus to the masses. Almost overnight, Joe was minting money. I'm talking an enormous fortune. So when I go to meet Joe, right on the beach near the Holiday Inn, just in my one-piece bathing suit, I'm not really sure what to expect. But then I see him. He's in the center of a big group of kids.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 1
I know it's very annoying that our show goes in reverse chronological order. That's just sort of the way it happens when you put out multi-part series episodes. But always go to the first one. Otherwise, it'll be real weird. And just a heads up, when you listen to this show, we did get a lot of user mail saying that they didn't understand why we used an actor for the character of Riley Perez.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 1
It's sort of like a Boschian horror show, a melee, just people downing shots, funneling beers, and he's just observing everything. Sort of like me. He's got on a t-shirt. Khaki shorts, not unattractive. When Joe sees me, he waves. And then he helps me get out of the crowd. We walk down the beach a little ways, just getting away from all the music, and I sit across from him.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 1
Both our toes are in the sand. And Joe tells me, Girls Gone Wild is going to be bigger than Playboy. The appeal of it is so simple.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 1
I thought about this as the waves lapped at the shore. Joe Francis's big innovation was amateurs.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 1
I was like, okay, I didn't know that was a fantasy. But, I mean, this was the days before internet porn, so I hadn't yet seen every single porn fantasy in the galaxy. But judging by the success of Joe's tapes, it seemed like it was a fantasy a lot of people had. And it was clear that this fantasy had a dark side to it. It was about power and control.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 1
Making people do irrational things and not taking no for an answer. But it wasn't until much later that I would really understand what that meant. More after the break.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 1
So after talking to Joe on the beach, I went back to the Holiday Inn to change. And then that night, I met up with Joe again to hit the main strip. This was sort of like Bourbon Street or Beale Street, but we're in Panama City Beach. It's identical bar after identical bar, drunk kids spilling out on the street. Everybody's holding like bright plastic funnels or footlong beers.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 1
It's not even really college kids here, I realized. It's a ton of high schoolers who packed into their cars and drove from Tennessee or wherever. And now they're sort of prey for Girls Gone Wild, because Joe Francis is standing on the roadway checking them all out. He's got a few guys with him, shooters. They're carrying tiny little camcorders and wearing a special T-shirt.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 1
This T-shirt has Girls Gone Wild in block text across the front. The shooters are also carrying another bag of T-shirts, except these are tank tops, and they're smaller, because they're for women.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 1
On spring break, this tank top was like having a giant bottle of Jack Daniels. Everyone wanted a swig. All you have to do is flash. It was a status symbol, an ingenious trick. Because in order to put the Girls Gone Wild t-shirt on, women have to take off the shirt they're already wearing. So why not just do that for the camera? Now the shooters also hand the girls a clipboard.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 1
And pinned to that clipboard, there's a couple of pages. It's an incredibly complex legal document.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 1
I want to be clear that Riley Perez is a real person who gave us his real story for this show. So everything you're hearing in this show, as always, is true. We are real journalists. We do the best we can. Riley is not an actor. We will always tell you if there's an actor on the show. So everything you're about to hear really happened, even if it sounds like fiction at first. All right.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 1
You know, these girls are half drunk. What they're signing are documents that give Girls Gone Wild their consent to film. Sometimes they'd also be filmed holding their driver's licenses to show that they're 18. Now, were these real driver's licenses? Or were they fake IDs the girls had bought to get into bars on spring break? Who knows? Who cares?
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 1
As the night goes on, it's clear that Joe is even flirting with the girls, saying things like, Do you want to be my spring break girlfriend?
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 1
But it's not all silly and fun and games. I remember there were a couple of women who did take their shirts off. And then afterwards, they were like, Oh my God, I'm a fucking idiot.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 1
I was so heartbroken when I saw that. I wanted to talk to her and she was crying, but she just ran off in the night with her friends. I have no idea if she ever made it on the tapes or not. And if I was going to sum up what I saw, let's say I witnessed women flashing 20 times. Okay, let me be honest. Most of them seemed like they were having fun.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 1
I mean, the definition of titillation, seems to me, is crossing pleasure with danger. And my God, this definitely qualified. But I would say one or two times I saw women get upset after they had agreed to take their tops off, been filmed, signed the consent form. And then they realized they just didn't want to do it.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 1
Maybe in the sixth bar that night, I realized that a couple of the women that Joe and the shooters were talking to were now walking around with us. And Joe was flirting even harder with them. To be honest, I just didn't think that much about it. I was more thinking, I guess they're just going to keep doing the same thing all night, and I've seen it. I'm good.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 1
I went back to the Holiday Inn and promptly fell asleep. The phone was ringing. I was so groggy that I grabbed the receiver and I heard the voice. It's the front desk. They're telling me I'm being kicked out of the hotel right now. She's saying everybody connected to the Girls Gone Wild party has to leave. And first, I argue because I say I'm not part of their party.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 1
I just happen to be in their block of rooms. I mean, like, I paid for my own room. I'm a journalist. They just reserved it for me. Then, it starts to dawn on me that something pretty serious must be going on, and as a journalist, I might not want to miss that. So I shove my clothes into my bag and head out. I open the door right onto a group of people in the corridor.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 1
There's a bunch of guys standing there, and there's just a lot of commotion. I'm told Joe brought strippers up to the room, and they didn't have those paper wristbands that I got during check-in. So he had a fight with the front desk that ended up with him cursing out the clerk. So the hotel is kicking him and us out. I peek past the ruckus in Joe's room.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 1
Later, he'd tell me something about getting aggressive with lawsuits. And he also says that he delivers a classic Joe Francis line.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 1
All of a sudden, it's pitch black, and I'm standing outside the Holiday Inn with my roller bag and nowhere to go. One of the cameramen comes over to me. He says that they're staying together in a condo, and I can go there. So we all head over. In the condo, it's just a late night hang. They're smoking, drinking beer, talking about this crazy night. And then they start going through their footage.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 1
Now, earlier, the shooters had told me that part of their job is logging all the tapes that they take. It sounded like a boring accounting sort of thing. But now it seems like they're just sort of rewatching the tape for their own personal gratification. As I watch, I start to realize that those women at the Holiday Inn, they might not have been strippers.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 1
Last night didn't end with everyone else going to sleep. It looked like it kept going the way a lot of Girls Gone Wild nights keep going, which means that some of the women they met on the roadway went back to the hotel or to the condo with the shooters, and the shooters prodded them into hooking up with their female friends on camera.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 1
These are called scenes in Girls Gone Wild lingo. If you film more graphic stuff as a shooter, you get a commission. So was I watching pornography? Well, these women weren't being paid. And the official party line was that Girls Gone Wild videos are documentaries. Spring Break is a noteworthy public event. And Joe Francis is entitled to the same rights as any documentary filmmaker.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 1
This is a First Amendment issue. It's all really complicated. Most of the women I saw, it felt like they wanted to participate. But can a blackout drunk 18-year-old, or less, a 16-year-old, who thinks that spring break is where you have to have a wild and crazy experience, actually consent to hooking up with her friend on camera for Girls Gone Wild?
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 1
Can she consent to a commercial act of sex that millions of people may watch? Or is it a sort of thievery? Are you stealing her image and slapping it on a pornographic tape? Sitting in that condo, just watching the raw footage with the guys who just filmed it, it made me feel queasy. but it was gonna get way, way worse.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 1
This is a story about thieving, about things being taken from you, things you don't deserve to have taken. So to tell it, we're going to start with an actual robbery, a famous one. It's a robbery that took place in 2004 at a house in Bel Air. Concrete, glass, pull-out back.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 1
This house is owned by a guy who founded a company you may have heard of, but you probably haven't thought about it in a million years.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 1
Yup, this is the home of the founder of Girls Gone Wild, Joe Francis. He's about 30 years old, sort of good-looking, square jaw, but also often seems on edge, like he's gonna yell at a waiter. Tonight, he's not home, but somebody else is.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 1
That's Riley Perez, and he isn't entering properly.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 1
Riley's looking for tape recordings of Girls Gone Wild that Joe might have in his safe.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 1
But Riley has more on his mind than some cassette tapes. He has in his hand a sex aid, a dildo. A specific type of dildo.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 1
What Riley would do next with that pink rabbit would be so unbelievable, so ironic, that it would become the stuff of Hollywood lore. Because Joe Francis had been accused of exploiting women on camera, of making them do something they didn't want to do. And now Riley is going to make the same type of tape of Joe. He's come prepared with a gun. He's got a video camera.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 1
He's going to make Joe Francis lay face down in bed, and he's going to make him say these words.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 1
Hey, Infamous listeners, it's Vanessa here. So we like to give you something to listen to every Thursday because we know some of you rely on having the show ready to go that morning. You might be commuting to work. You're going to school drop off. Maybe you're even taking a walk in nature. That would be very nice.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 1
From Campside Media and Sony Music Entertainment, I'm Vanessa Gregoriatis, and this is Infamous, a rolling series of incredible stories told over several episodes. This is episode one of a five-part series, Boy Gone Wild.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 1
Now, we'll be talking a lot about what happened in that house in Bel Air later and about Riley, who did that crime. But our bigger story here is also about consent and coercion and profit and how people react when things are stolen. Now, back in the 2000s, that night at Joe's house, Girls Gone Wild wasn't about any of that.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 1
But the way we think about it now is so different from how we thought about it back then. The early 2000s were the height of what was called raunch culture. It's Paris Hilton flashing the paparazzi. It's Jessica Simpson saying that chicken of the sea tuna's chicken. It's lots of kid rock. Stop!
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 1
But right now, we're taking some time to put together some new stories to bring you soon. So we need a second, and we're going to redrop our Boy Gone Wild series. That is a series that is hosted by me, and it's about the rise and fall of something you may or may not remember from long ago, which is Girls Gone Wild. Many of us grew up seeing the ads on late night TV.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 1
There was this idea that there were like two classes of women. There were women who had to make money from the way they looked, and there were women who didn't.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 1
There were women who got exploited and women who were too smart to be exploited, who'd gotten a good education and had sort of pulled themselves out of the natural state of womanhood, which was basically, according to the culture of the time, just being a hoe. Now, I had never thought about writing about Girls Gone Wild. Didn't even cross my mind.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 1
But right around this time in the early 2000s, I got asked out to a very important lunch. At least, it was important to me. It was with an editor from Rolling Stone.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 1
Bill's impeccably dressed. He's sort of a silver fox.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 1
So yeah, Bill worked with David Foster Wallace, the guy who wore that bandana around his head and was immortalized in The End of the Tour. I want to be a well-known author, just like those guys. And today, Bill has brought along a book as inspiration for me. But it's not infinite jest.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 1
No, I wasn't going to hunt for groupies at 30 Slipknot shows. I wasn't going to stand backstage at one Slipknot show. So Bill and I just kept talking, just about what else was going on in culture.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 1
After my lunch with Bill in midtown Manhattan, I went back on the subway to my apartment, cranked up my terrible dial-up internet, and found Joe Francis' contact. Now, Joe Francis didn't talk to us for this podcast. I reached out to him with about 70 questions, and he said that he categorically denied all of them. But back then, when I gave him a call, he answered.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 1
And regardless, I think we can all agree that it's probably affected the way that boys and girls interact, the way that pornography developed. It's just like a weird blast from the past that has a lot to do with the present. And it's one of my favorite stories. So go ahead and listen to Boy Gone Wild. As always, please start with episode one.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 1
I wasn't using a tape recorder, so that is an actor. But next thing I knew, I was on a plane. I just thought it was going to be like any other reporting assignment. But what actually happened... was so totally not fun, though it was definitely wild. So it all started in Panama City Beach, Florida.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 1
My taxi pulled up to a Holiday Inn, one of those big hotels right on the beach, bunch of stories high, sort of modern architecture. I checked into the front desk, and actually, the guy gave me a wristband. Like, one of those paper wristbands that you get at concerts. My recollection was that I needed this wristband to get into the elevators, and I thought, well, it is spring break.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 1
He went to Laguna Beach High School, the setting of another TV show.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 1
Now, Joe's family was wealthy. They're actually Austrian. That's quite a regimented style of culture. But there was nothing regimented about Joe Francis. He even went to one of those hardcore remedial schools in the woods at one point. Joe was just super LA and maybe super difficult. And that combination, after he graduated college, made him perfect to work in Hollywood.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 1
But he didn't get a job in the mailroom of a big agency or something like that. What he did is come up with the idea of releasing his own VHS tapes.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 1
Banned from television. Joe's series had all sorts of random stuff in it.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 1
Stuff that seemed almost a little unethical to tape record and sell. I'm talking shark attacks, gang fights.
Infamous
The Business of Body Brokering
They offered steep discounts on cremations and gave families bogus ashes while they secretly dismembered the bodies and sold them to medical companies claiming to do research. It's a shocking story, and one I knew nothing about, but feels really important to understand, even if it's kind of difficult to think about. I'll let Vanessa take it from here.
Infamous
The Business of Body Brokering
Okay, in Colorado. So they did that, and they found, I guess, almost none of them were the real victims.
Infamous
The Business of Body Brokering
That's right. And what have they done with all the money that they got from this brokering? Did they buy? Did they have, you know, Lamborghinis in the backyard?
Infamous
The Business of Body Brokering
It's just an incredible... Ghoulish. You can't compare them, but obviously it's totally violating. What are the charges? Fraud, you said, wire fraud or something along those lines?
Infamous
The Business of Body Brokering
We have an amazing journalist with us, Ashley Fantz. She is the podcaster of a serial show that if you haven't listened to it yet, you have to listen to it. And it's called Body Brokers. If any of you have lost a loved one, I'm sure you have experienced going to a funeral home or being presented with different kinds of caskets, wondering how much money you should spend there.
Infamous
The Business of Body Brokering
They might get a reduction in sentence. Potentially. Potentially.
Infamous
The Business of Body Brokering
What I said about my dad at the beginning, what happened to me and my family is my father got very, very sick with cancer, died quickly after his diagnosis. And I'm Greek Orthodox, and in Greek Orthodoxy... You're supposed to bury the body, right?
Infamous
The Business of Body Brokering
But my father had always said, even though he didn't leave a plan for his remains really written down, he had always said he wanted to be cremated and scattered in the ocean. And so we had this under-the-radar conversation with somebody at the Greek church who said, well, listen, in these situations—
Infamous
The Business of Body Brokering
The Greek church has deemed that because in Greece, in parts of Greece, like Athens, there are so many bodies buried and there's so little room left, they're okay within the country of Greece for you to have your body cremated. So you just say you're repatriating to Greece, go to this particular funeral home with a Greek American guy, and you can get your cremation and do what you want to do.
Infamous
The Business of Body Brokering
And you can also have the funeral in the church, right? So that's what we did. But I, you know, received the ashes back and I'm sure like everybody, particularly after you've listened to this podcast, who has received a box of ashes back from a funeral home, it's hard not to hold those ashes and go, is this my father? Right.
Infamous
The Business of Body Brokering
Because we live in a society where people cut corners, where they take advantage and you don't know what is going on. And in most cases, you've just met these funeral directors like two or three days ago when they're trying to upsell you on a nice oak casket.
Infamous
The Business of Body Brokering
Even though the U.S. is, you said, the biggest exporter of body parts. And remind me, what is happening with them? I mean, I understand the idea that a medical school, you know, in Belgium wants a real skeleton to have to, you know, not a plastic one, right?
Infamous
The Business of Body Brokering
You know, in the case of my father, he was cremated. We can get into that because it's a funny and also disturbing story. But you don't know what really happens to your loved one's body. So tell us, Ashley, about how you began the reporting.
Infamous
The Business of Body Brokering
Right, because it's an abstraction almost, right? Like it's an abstraction. What was it that they were so – that they couldn't wrap their heads around it or nightmares or like just the whole.
Infamous
The Business of Body Brokering
And why? I mean, what's crazy is we're, you know, one of the richest country, if not the richest country in the world, right? If there's such a thing, if a device maker or a school wants a body that, you know, it wouldn't be the U.S. who's the biggest exporter of bodies around the world.
Infamous
The Business of Body Brokering
Wow. OK, well, we'll put whatever information you need in our show notes so people can look that up. But that's it. You're not going cremation. You're going donation, you think.
Infamous
The Business of Body Brokering
How did you find out you had that? Did you have a heart attack?
Infamous
The Business of Body Brokering
I haven't crossed this bridge. I mean, that's crazy. I do have a will, but I think I might have said that I wanted to be cremated in that will. But the more that I think about it, I think it was a hasty will that I wrote. After my father passed away, you suddenly go, oh my God, I should have a will as well, right? And so you do something in haste and I'll have to think more about it.
Infamous
The Business of Body Brokering
Or to get, right, or to be mummified like the Egyptians and given a pride of place in your children's home. That would be great as well. So is there any positive takeaway about this? I mean, obviously, a lot of people who do confront death, who think about it a lot in terms of incorporating it in their lives in a memento mori way of like, today could be the day I die. How do I want to act?
Infamous
The Business of Body Brokering
Yeah, this is the way that we have decided to deal with death here, which is like we don't want to acknowledge it. We want other people to deal with it. And it seems like fraud can intervene in a situation like that. Thank you so much, Ashley, for speaking with us. Next time we will talk about more rainbow and happiness topics.
Infamous
The Business of Body Brokering
But it's wonderful to have a chance to catch up and everybody should check out Body Brokers.
Infamous
The Business of Body Brokering
That's it for this week's episode of Infamous. We'll be back next week with a story I've been obsessed with, one that has been all over Hollywood. We're talking about the Grey's Anatomy writer who lied about having cancer, among other things, to seemingly further her career. It's a shocking tale of ambition, stolen valor, and how one woman traded trauma as currency. That's next time on Infamous.
Infamous
The Business of Body Brokering
And that's how they discovered it. Thank God. I mean, it sounds like you really snatched victory there from the jaws of defeat because it could have just put you in that casket.
Infamous
The Business of Body Brokering
What's fascinating is the component body parts, they are worth something, right? How much are they worth?
Infamous
The Business of Body Brokering
So if you're anything like me, you spend a lot of time thinking about the mind-body-soul connection. Am I spending too long on my phone? Am I too in my head and not enough in my body? Am I developing a spiritual practice that nourishes said soul? And it's one of the eternal questions that all religions deal with. What happens to our souls after death?
Infamous
The Business of Body Brokering
So as Adam said to me when we were talking about this, this is a whole other thing to be afraid of in life. You never think to yourself, wow, what would happen to my body after death if I did not keep a – I mean, it doesn't even matter if you keep a close eye on it. It's essentially an unregulated trade. It's called a red market sometimes, right? Where there's tons of agents and sellers.
Infamous
The Business of Body Brokering
And you particularly wrote about a case in Montrose, Colorado, which is sort of like the flatlands, right? Near the Rockies, very near Telluride, a big ski town. Yeah. where an incredible cast of characters, and particularly some female characters, were doing this in an unregulated way. Like, tell us about that.
Infamous
The Business of Body Brokering
And Megan is the daughter, right? And she's got big hair, seems like quite the personality. And then her mother was the one who's like, what, 70? Is in the basement of this funeral home chopping up bodies? Well, so it's...
Infamous
The Business of Body Brokering
But perhaps the question we really should be asking is what happens to our bodies? One gruesome possible answer is body dealing. Yes, you heard that right. Body dealing. This is a shady economy where body parts after death are bought and sold for money. It's a surprisingly unregulated industry, and I was shocked to discover one thing in particular.
Infamous
The Business of Body Brokering
And she would put these in dry ice containers and take them down to the FedEx store? Like, how were these getting shipped out?
Infamous
The Business of Body Brokering
Okay. And who knows, right? So interesting. And so then there's a story about one of the victims was a man who had a glass eye, right? And his daughter said, please, you know, give me this glass eye back after you're done with his body. Of course, the glass eye was gone at that point. Like, tell us about some of the victims and what happened to them and how they reacted.
Infamous
The Business of Body Brokering
The US is a massive, huge exporter of human body parts. Today, we're diving into the world of body dealing, also known as body brokering, at a funeral home in Montrose, Colorado, where one woman and her mother ran a stunning scheme.
Infamous
The Business of Body Brokering
I'm Natalie Brogamed, and welcome back to Infamous, a production of Sony Music Entertainment and Campsite Media. I just wanted to take a moment to say that this episode deals with heavy subject matter, including funerals and the processing of human bodies. It is quite disturbing, especially if you're in the process of grief. Please listen with care.
Infamous
Murder at Lululemon | Part 3
Okay, he's talking about Chris, who's Brittany's brother. Chris is waiting outside with their sister, Marisa, and he has no idea what's going on inside this room.
Infamous
Murder at Lululemon | Part 3
Brittany doesn't bite on this. She doesn't confess. But at a certain point, detectives walk out into the hall and they talk to Chris, the brother. They tell him what they believe happened. And then he comes into the interrogation room with them.
Infamous
Murder at Lululemon | Part 3
Alone. Sure. Thanks. Detectives leave Chris and Brittany alone. And right away, he starts asking her what happened.
Infamous
Murder at Lululemon | Part 3
But of course, there are recording devices picking up everything they're saying. And the conversation starts taking some telling and totally bizarre turns. I know it's a little hard to hear them because they're whispering.
Infamous
Murder at Lululemon | Part 3
So he keeps on trying to get her to calm down. And then he seems to start explaining to her what her tells are, what makes it seem like she's not telling the truth.
Infamous
Murder at Lululemon | Part 3
So during her interrogations with police, Brittany never admitted to killing Jaina. But there was so much forensic evidence, Jaina's blood all over her, the size 14 shoes, DNA, a hat that had some clues on it, that the prosecution had a pretty convincing case. It went to trial in the fall of 2011, about seven months after the initial attack.
Infamous
Murder at Lululemon | Part 3
States Attorney John McCarthy, who you've been hearing from throughout this series, prosecuted the case.
Infamous
Murder at Lululemon | Part 3
During the trial, McCarthy broke down what the prosecutors believed really happened that night. Brittany was caught stealing by Jaina during bag check. And after they left, Brittany called Jaina back to the store under the pretense of getting her forgotten wallet.
Infamous
Murder at Lululemon | Part 3
Once inside the store, McCarthy believes Brittany got Jaina to come into the stockroom, where she would be out of the view of passerby. Then he thinks Brittany attacked Jaina using items such as merch pegs and steel bars that were kept for garment displays. It appears that Jaina tried to escape through the rear exit, but she couldn't get away.
Infamous
Murder at Lululemon | Part 3
Brittany used even more weapons, a hammer from the red toolbox, that toolbox that was kept in the back of the store and used for small repairs or installing items, and a box cutter, which was used for opening merchandise deliveries. Then Brittany made it look like someone else had been there. She walked around in the size 14 shoes, cleaned them up, all of that,
Infamous
Murder at Lululemon | Part 3
And the defense argued there was simply no way this could have been premeditated. In their telling, that night, there'd been an impromptu argument between Brittany and Gina, the one that the Apple employees heard. But it had been what they called a mutual affray, a legal term used to convey two people both squaring off against each other. Most importantly, they said it had been unplanned.
Infamous
Murder at Lululemon | Part 3
And during this unplanned confrontation, Brittany just lost it.
Infamous
Murder at Lululemon | Part 3
And in the end, the defense couldn't convince the jury that she'd been overcharged, that this was just a fight gone wrong. Particularly because they never heard about Brittany shoplifting the crop pants. The judge decided that the shoplifting was hearsay, since the only evidence they had was that phone call from one of the Lulu employees who said that she talked to Jaina before the murder.
Infamous
Murder at Lululemon | Part 3
To the jury, not hearing about this, it might have seemed like Brittany didn't have a motive, that she just did this out of evil intent. So Brittany was convicted of first-degree murder. But why had she really done it?
Infamous
Murder at Lululemon | Part 3
When it came time for her sentencing, Brittany still did not admit she was guilty. Instead, she only talked about what happened that night as the crime I have been convicted of. But she was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. After the murder, Lululemon closed the store for a while, and when they reopened, they installed a stained glass window in Gina's honor.
Infamous
Murder at Lululemon | Part 3
The love window, as it was referred to, had a pretty mosaic with the word love written across several feet. It was well known to all in Bethesda while shopping. Now, Lululemon eventually closed that store. But as merchandise and displays moved out, they must have thought about what to do with a stained glass window and decided to give it to Jaina's brother.
Infamous
Murder at Lululemon | Part 3
As he told the local news when they were covering this development, it obviously means a lot to us as it represents Jaina. We definitely wanted to preserve it and have it in our home. We'll be back next week to wrap up Murder at Lululemon. See you then.
Infamous
Murder at Lululemon | Part 3
Last episode, police tracked down several leads. They were trying to figure out just what had happened to the ladies in the Lululemon store. They soon discovered that Brittany had been accused of shoplifting and that at a previous Lululemon store she'd worked at, at a different location, she'd done what's called discount abuse. That's why she'd been transferred to the Bethesda location.
Infamous
Murder at Lululemon | Part 3
But despite her big dreams of getting a job at Equinox, becoming a trainer, which is the goal she really decided she wanted, once Brittany got to Lululemon, her stealing issues continued. And that really upset the other women who were working there.
Infamous
Murder at Lululemon | Part 3
Hey everyone, this is our series on the murder at Lululemon, and we are on episode 3. So if this is the first time you're hearing about this story, you don't want to enter in the middle, please scroll back in your feed, find Murder at Lululemon Part 1, and start there. Okay, thanks so much for listening.
Infamous
Murder at Lululemon | Part 3
Now we're back in the interrogation room where Brittany is telling detectives an unbelievable story. She's saying that in the middle of the attack, the two men had made Brittany find Jana's car keys, get in her car and move it. Detectives aren't buying it, but they let her keep talking and talking. I'm gonna let some of that police station audio play out now.
Infamous
Murder at Lululemon | Part 3
So that's the way the conversation has been going. But now the detective starts to push a little harder.
Infamous
Murder at Lululemon | Part 3
By now, remember, the detectives also know this is a lie. They have witnesses from the Apple store who heard two women yelling. There weren't any male voices. So eventually, one of the detectives decides it's time to really talk to Brittany. Again, I'm just going to let this tape play out a bit.
Infamous
Encore: Dubai's Missing Princesses I Part 3
Princess Haya, Sheikh Mohammed's second official wife. She had glossy highlights and glowing skin. She was sort of like an Arab version of Princess Di. Haya was well-traveled, cultured, and a prize-winning showjumper.
Infamous
Encore: Dubai's Missing Princesses I Part 3
When Haya was 26, she became the first Arab woman equestrian in the Olympics.
Infamous
Encore: Dubai's Missing Princesses I Part 3
Infamous is created and executive produced by Gabriel Sherman and me, Vanessa Gregoriotis. This episode was co-hosted by Natalie Robomed, who wrote it with Heather Schroering. Producing by Heather Schroering, Natalia Winkleman, Lily Houston-Smith, and Grace Heerman. Princess Haya did not comment for this series. Shoshi Shmulevitz is our managing producer and editor.
Infamous
Encore: Dubai's Missing Princesses I Part 3
Sound design by David Devereaux. Recording by Ewen Lai Tramuen. And fact checking by Matt Giles. Voices by Rajiv Gola and Lily Houston-Smith. Campside Media's executive producers are Josh Dean, Adam Hoff, Matt Scher, and myself. Campside Media's operations team is Doug Slaywin, Ashley Warren, and Destiny Dingle. If you're enjoying Infamous, please rate and review the show.
Infamous
Encore: Dubai's Missing Princesses I Part 3
That's Louise Callahan, a journalist who covers the region.
Infamous
Encore: Dubai's Missing Princesses I Part 3
Unlike Sheikh Mo's other wives, Haya was famous in her own right. You see, she's the daughter of King Hussein of Jordan and the stepdaughter of Queen Noor, the progressive monarch of Jordan.
Infamous
Encore: Dubai's Missing Princesses I Part 3
Queen Noor was absolutely beloved in the West and in Jordan, too. And when Haya's own mother died in a helicopter accident, when Haya was only about three years old, Queen Noor eventually became her stepmother. Aya's world as a child was about Queen Noor and about horse riding. When she was very young, her father gave her a foal who had also lost its mother.
Infamous
Encore: Dubai's Missing Princesses I Part 3
She was the perfect symbol for Dubai's new, modernized image. Never mind that she was about 25 years younger than Sheikh Mo.
Infamous
Encore: Dubai's Missing Princesses I Part 3
Princess Haya was about to play another very important role on the world stage, a role that involved Latifah. From Campside Media and Sony Music Entertainment, I'm Vanessa Grigoriadis. I'm Natalie Robamed. And this is Infamous, Dubai's Missing Princesses, Episode 3. So last episode, Latifa escaped from Dubai, only to be hauled back soon after.
Infamous
Encore: Dubai's Missing Princesses I Part 3
So now we're going to hear more about Sheikh Mo's most public wife, Princess Haya, and what she did or didn't know. That's coming up after the break.
Infamous
Encore: Dubai's Missing Princesses I Part 3
If Sheikh Mohammed felt any pressure from the whole Sheikha Latifa ordeal, it didn't show. He was busy with, among other things, horse racing.
Infamous
Encore: Dubai's Missing Princesses I Part 3
He was also a horse owner, one of the biggest in the world. He's a fixture at Ascot and always used to sit in the royal box with the queen. He started one of the most successful horse racing teams in the world, Godolphin.
Infamous
Encore: Dubai's Missing Princesses I Part 2
In a book he wrote about his adventures, Escape from Dubai, he says for his own departure from the country, he was cunning. He dressed like an Emirati woman in a long black robe called an abaya, which covered him from head to toe. He pulled a thin black veil over his face. Using these clothes to hide wasn't unheard of. I mean, Michael Jackson did it when he visited Dubai.
Infamous
Encore: Dubai's Missing Princesses I Part 2
Someone spotted him in the women's bathroom with a headscarf on and it was a whole thing.
Infamous
Encore: Dubai's Missing Princesses I Part 2
It was like being invisible, because if you're in a veil, you're a woman. And in some of the Arab world, that means no one cares about what you have to say. From Campside Media and Sony Music Entertainment, this is Infamous.
Infamous
Encore: Dubai's Missing Princesses I Part 2
Right. That seems to have had a really big impact on Latifah. I think the fallout from Shamsa's escape was the catalyst for Latifah's own escape.
Infamous
Encore: Dubai's Missing Princesses I Part 2
August 2017. Tina Yauhiainen was standing in a hotel lobby in the Philippines. It's hot, humid, the kind of weather that makes your shirt stick to your back. Tina was probably thinking, what am I doing here? She was just a Finnish capoeira instructor who was in Dubai for its good standard of living. Then she taught Sheikha Latifa. And now that princess needed her help.
Infamous
Encore: Dubai's Missing Princesses I Part 2
Spring has sprung, and I am dying to get out of town. I'm actually going away this weekend with some friends, and I recently bought my partner a new Quince carry-on that I might just be borrowing for this trip.
Infamous
Encore: Dubai's Missing Princesses I Part 2
This year, I'm treating myself to the luxe upgrades I deserve with Quince's high-quality travel essentials at fair prices, like lightweight European linen styles from $30, washable silk tops, and comfy lounge sets, with premium luggage options and stylish tote bags to carry it all. The best part? All Quince items are priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands.
Infamous
Encore: Dubai's Missing Princesses I Part 2
For your next trip, treat yourself to the luxe upgrades you deserve from Quince. Go to quince.com slash infamous for 365-day returns, plus free shipping on your order. That's q-u-i-n-c-e dot com slash infamous to get free shipping and 365-day returns. quince.com slash infamous
Infamous
Encore: Dubai's Missing Princesses I Part 2
Hervé Jobert had been working in Dubai making submarines. The business he worked for was a subsidiary of a government-owned conglomerate called Dubai World. But Gilbert had problems with this company. They would allege he embezzled, and he would deny that. And so he escaped. Oh, also, Gilbert claims he was once a French spy.
Infamous
Encore: Dubai's Missing Princesses I Part 1
Tina was riveted by Latifa's story about her older sister Shamsa, who has been described as cheeky, full of life, with dark hair and full lips like her younger sister. Her name meant son in Arabic. But in terms of the pecking order in Sheikh Mo's family, she and Latifa were not a planet that others orbited around.
Infamous
Encore: Dubai's Missing Princesses I Part 1
Latifa said the story started nearly two decades earlier, when Shamsa had big plans for her life. She wanted to go to college. In a letter she purportedly wrote to her cousin, she said that Sheikh Mo wouldn't let her. By the way, we reached out to Sheikh Mohammed's attorney with a detailed list of questions about everything you're hearing in this episode. We did not hear back.
Infamous
Encore: Dubai's Missing Princesses I Part 1
Tina learned that Shamsa had supposedly just left the house, disappeared off to points far from Surrey. Latifa, meanwhile, says she was back in Dubai.
Infamous
Encore: Dubai's Missing Princesses I Part 1
While everyone was searching for Shamsa, Latifa and she were still talking. The whole time, she was communicating with me. But according to a letter supposedly written by Shamsa after she left home, They found her. a group of Sheikh Mohammed's agents allegedly appeared. They grabbed her, kicking and screaming, threw her in the car.
Infamous
Encore: Dubai's Missing Princesses I Part 1
Shamsa claims she was transported to another Sheikh Mohammed's British estates. Around 5 a.m. the next day, she was on a helicopter and then a plane on the way back to Dubai.
Infamous
Encore: Dubai's Missing Princesses I Part 1
Latifa was there. She was just a teenager at the time and one imagined she wanted to see her sister. But Shamsa didn't come back to her house. Latifa says she was locked away at a palace. We snuck in a telephone so we could talk to her.
Infamous
Encore: Dubai's Missing Princesses I Part 1
And Shamsa wasn't giving up hope. Not yet. She supposedly managed to get a letter to an immigration lawyer she'd met in London. And the story eventually reached British journalists.
Infamous
Encore: Dubai's Missing Princesses I Part 1
Now, growing up in Dubai, I know there's nothing more important than the family name in Emirati culture. It's everything. They're also fiercely private. Problems within a family are handled internally and never talked about with outsiders. So the fact that this became a news story was a big problem for Sheikh Mo.
Infamous
Encore: Dubai's Missing Princesses I Part 1
But it's hard to get Western readers to care about things happening halfway around the world, especially when they're happening to an Arab woman. And before long, the story had been forgotten. I lost my communication with Shamsa. And now, Latifa claims she was kept under even tighter lock and key. They wouldn't allow me to have internet. I didn't have a phone.
Infamous
Encore: Dubai's Missing Princesses I Part 1
With even less freedom than before, Latifa started to lose it. She needed to do something.
Infamous
Encore: Dubai's Missing Princesses I Part 1
Now, Sheikh Mohammed's office has denied that Latifa has ever been arrested or detained. All we have to go on is Latifa's word.
Infamous
Encore: Dubai's Missing Princesses I Part 1
She says she couldn't change her clothes. She had no soap to wash herself with. She slept on a thin mattress that she claimed was covered in blood and feces.
Infamous
Encore: Dubai's Missing Princesses I Part 1
When she finally got to visit her family a year later, everything in Dubai seemed different.
Infamous
Encore: Dubai's Missing Princesses I Part 1
Nothing is normal. According to Latifa, she was put back in prison for another two years. When I got out, The second time, I hated everyone. She wasn't even 21. And she says she'd spent more than three years in prison.
Infamous
Encore: Dubai's Missing Princesses I Part 1
So Latifa retreated into horse riding and scuba diving. She became friends with Tina. And eventually, she told Tina the whole story.
Infamous
Encore: Dubai's Missing Princesses I Part 1
Tina says it was about a year after that when Latifa came to her with a request.
Infamous
Encore: Dubai's Missing Princesses I Part 1
Latifa wanted to escape Dubai, this time for good. What happened next makes the plot of a James Bond movie sound boring because it involves a dramatic escape, a yacht and a video that would change everything.
Infamous
Encore: Dubai's Missing Princesses I Part 1
Yeah, I actually grew up in the UAE, and I lived there until I was 18, first in Abu Dhabi and then in Dubai. So what was that like? Well, it was interesting. The UAE is this tiny sliver of a nation, slightly smaller than Maine. It's right next to Saudi Arabia, and it was officially formed in 1971 from a bunch of these kind of tiny city-states ruled by different royal families.
Infamous
Encore: Dubai's Missing Princesses I Part 1
Hi y'all, welcome back to Infamous. You're about to hear the first episode in our series on Dubai's missing princesses. We first aired this in 2023, and since then, there's only been more intrigue over the world's missing royals. I mean, remember when internet conspiracy theorists were convinced Kate Middleton had disappeared when she actually was just dealing with a cancer diagnosis?
Infamous
Encore: Dubai's Missing Princesses I Part 1
Who are the sheikhs, right? Exactly, exactly. So the male members of those ruling families are called sheikhs and the female members are called sheikhs. You'd be surprised to think about it now, but back in the 90s when I'd tell people where I was from, they'd be like, Dubai? Where is that? I mean, are you trying to say that Americans don't care about the rest of the world? Not no.
Infamous
Encore: Dubai's Missing Princesses I Part 1
But yeah, there was a time when not a lot of people had heard of Dubai. I mean, the UAE is only 51 years old as a country. Before then, and before oil money changed everything, it was known as the crucial states.
Infamous
Encore: Dubai's Missing Princesses I Part 1
Well, it's definitely a little Orientalist way of describing it. But yeah, I mean, it was nowhere near as developed as it was now. They were nomadic people. I mean, the main industry was pearl diving and trading. So there's a grain of truth in there.
Infamous
Encore: Dubai's Missing Princesses I Part 1
Yeah, I mean, when I was growing up there in the 90s, Dubai was definitely still relatively small, but it was really, really rapidly developing as a tourism destination. It kind of marketed itself to all these foreigners as a safe haven with permanent sunshine, even in the dead of winter. So people flooded over.
Infamous
Encore: Dubai's Missing Princesses I Part 1
Yeah, I mean, there was a point in the 2000s when I started to see tour buses on the way to school, and I was like, oh, this has really changed. And that is the world that you can now see on the Real Housewives of Dubai. There's a lot of gold here, and we have a lot of gold diggers, too.
Infamous
Encore: Dubai's Missing Princesses I Part 1
The thing that's so weird about Dubai is there was always this other side to it, a terrifying side. You could be arrested for being gay or for being a man allegedly wearing women's clothes. There was no freedom of speech. You'd try to buy an issue of Vogue and there'd be big black Sharpie marks over nipples or other body parts, which were considered too risque.
Infamous
Encore: Dubai's Missing Princesses I Part 1
Back then, even the internet was censored by the government. If you tried to log into a website the government didn't like, it would be blocked and an error message would pop up. And what would it say? Oh man, it would basically say that the site is blocked because it's inconsistent with the religious, cultural, political, and moral values of the United Arab Emirates.
Infamous
Encore: Dubai's Missing Princesses I Part 1
Money. That's a big part of it. People put up with it because it's basically a tax haven. You don't really have to pay any income tax to live there. So you can make lots of money in this kind of a set of golden handcuffs.
Infamous
Encore: Dubai's Missing Princesses I Part 1
But unlike Kate, this is the story of several very real disappearances, about women desperately attempting to escape a gilded cage, with dire consequences. We hope you enjoy it, and thanks for listening.
Infamous
Encore: Dubai's Missing Princesses I Part 1
Spring has sprung and I am dying to get out of town. I'm actually going away this weekend with some friends, and I recently bought my partner a new Quince carry-on that I might just be borrowing for this trip.
Infamous
Encore: Dubai's Missing Princesses I Part 1
This year, I'm treating myself to the luxe upgrades I deserve with Quince's high-quality travel essentials at fair prices, like lightweight European linen styles from $30, washable silk tops, and comfy lounge sets, with premium luggage options and stylish tote bags to carry it all. The best part? All Quince items are priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands.
Infamous
Encore: Dubai's Missing Princesses I Part 1
For your next trip, treat yourself to the luxe upgrades you deserve from Quince. Go to quince.com slash infamous for 365-day returns, plus free shipping on your order. That's q-u-i-n-c-e dot com slash infamous to get free shipping and 365-day returns. quince.com slash infamous
Infamous
Encore: Dubai's Missing Princesses I Part 1
Before we get into the epic tale of what happened with Sheikha Latifa and her father, I want to note that there was one thing she was known for, and it definitely wasn't handcuffs. It was an act of total freedom, at least metaphorically speaking. She was jumping out of airplanes. Picture it, over and over, many, many times.
Infamous
Encore: Dubai's Missing Princesses I Part 1
Latifa is in a black skydiving suit, free falling from hundreds of feet above the aqua blue Persian Gulf. She has the best view of Dubai, the city, the sea, the desert. She's wearing pink and orange sunglasses that match her Nike sneakers. In a photo, you can see her stretching out one leg in front of her, as though she's running on a cloud.
Infamous
Encore: Dubai's Missing Princesses I Part 1
That's Latifa in a video she recorded herself. She's got long black hair and dark almond-shaped eyes that widen as she talks. When we think of wealthy golf royals, we think of monthly stipends and designer handbags. Maybe they have a flat in London and a maid, maybe a cushy job as a VP of a bank, even if that job is really just a way of transferring money into their own bank accounts.
Infamous
Encore: Dubai's Missing Princesses I Part 1
But Latifa was a bit different. She was constantly on the move. If she wasn't jumping out of planes, she was riding horses, playing with her pet monkey, or mastering martial arts. Which is how she met her friend, Tina Jauhiainen.
Infamous
Encore: Dubai's Missing Princesses I Part 1
Tina's from Finland. She moved to Dubai more than 20 years ago, which in the very transient city with lots of expats and real housewives makes her an old timer. Tina started seeing Latifa almost every day. Latifa wasn't allowed to work, so new hobbies like capoeira and then skydiving became obsessions.
Infamous
Encore: Dubai's Missing Princesses I Part 1
Turns out the image of a fearless, free, daredevil princess wasn't the whole story.
Infamous
Encore: Dubai's Missing Princesses I Part 1
Now, some Emirati women live very free lives. They study abroad, work in government, don't wear hijabs. But a lot of these personal freedoms are decided by families and aren't codified in law. Up until recently, it was legal for a man to have sex with a girl as long as she was 14. But for women, if you had kids out of wedlock, you could face a minimum of two years in jail.
Infamous
Encore: Dubai's Missing Princesses I Part 1
And if you get divorced, you can lose custody of your children to the father once daughters reach 13 and sons 11. This means that some women are basically second-class citizens to their husbands and fathers. For example, Emirati women need their male guardian's approval to marry, meaning their dad, or if the dad has passed away, a brother or a cousin.
Infamous
Encore: Dubai's Missing Princesses I Part 1
And get this, only Emirati men pass down citizenship. So if an Emirati woman has a child with a non-Emirati man, her kid won't automatically be a UAE citizen. To return to Latifa, well, she says that her life as a royal was even stricter than life for regular Emirati women.
Infamous
Encore: Dubai's Missing Princesses I Part 1
This was all disturbing to Tina, obviously. But there was something else Latifa said that was a real turning point for her. Now she would understand what Latifa's life was really like. More after the break.
Infamous
Encore: Dubai's Missing Princesses I Part 1
So Tina had already been friends with Latifa for several years before Latifa finally told her about her sister.
Infamous
Encore: Plumping Profits? A Kardashian Scandal | Part 2
Right. And so last episode, we learned all about Kylie's beginnings, how she grew up on TV, and how she then sparked all this debate over the size of her lips. Exactly. And she launched Kylie Lip Kits, which became Kylie Cosmetics. And that is why you were writing a story about her. Right. So it seems to me like Kylie's in this tense negotiation and she's in the middle.
Infamous
Encore: Plumping Profits? A Kardashian Scandal | Part 2
Her mom wants her to be in Forbes. She wants her to be a billionaire. And by extension, she wants Kylie's company to be valued as high as possible. But where is Kylie in this whole thing? Like, what does she want?
Infamous
Encore: Plumping Profits? A Kardashian Scandal | Part 2
Hey everybody, thanks so much for coming back to Infamous this week. Just wanted to let you know that you need to go back in your feed to find part one of the series that we are dropping this week. So go back to find our series about Kylie's lip kits. It's episode one that you want, Plumping Profits. And then listen to this one afterwards because this is episode two. Thanks so much. Bye-bye.
Infamous
Are the Menendez Brothers Guilty?
We probably should have talked about this earlier, but of course, the abuse that we're referring to is horrible, graphic sexual abuse of children. The brothers allege that they were abused sexually by their father continually from a very young age and went into a lot of detail, graphic detail that we don't need to go into here.
Infamous
Are the Menendez Brothers Guilty?
But are you saying that the second jury didn't hear that or that they did hear some of that?
Infamous
Are the Menendez Brothers Guilty?
Kitty, we talked about a little bit. People said not very nice things about her. Her hair was messy. She needed a bleach job. She lost her children in malls when they were young and just continued on with her shopping. Even after security announced over the PA system, they had been found. None of this is a reason to murder your mother, right? Did she know about the abuse?
Infamous
Are the Menendez Brothers Guilty?
So they get sent to prison. They both actually get married in prison and they are supposedly really model prisoners. They're trying to be helpful to others and with less education than them in the prison. And by the way, they keep appealing their case, right, and getting turned down.
Infamous
Are the Menendez Brothers Guilty?
Yeah, you as well. So first, let's just review the case. So it was 1989, Lyle and Eric Menendez. Lyle at that time was 21, Eric was 18. They shotgunned their parents 16 times in the family room of this extraordinary Beverly Hills mansion. And they are now 56 and 53, sentenced to life in prison without parole, right? But back in 1990, when this was all happening,
Infamous
Are the Menendez Brothers Guilty?
I mean, you seem to be implying that they're not going to get out in a short period of time.
Infamous
Are the Menendez Brothers Guilty?
Okay, but wait a second. The stuff that happened in 22 and 23 with these documentaries about Menudo, right? One of those boys who was in that band, that boy band, said that he was raped by Jose Menendez.
Infamous
Are the Menendez Brothers Guilty?
But there has been a slow cultural shift around child sexual abuse, right?
Infamous
Are the Menendez Brothers Guilty?
Catholic priests scandal in Boston, the Boy Scouts, Penn State football. A lot of stories showed that boys are really sexually abused. This really happens. They very rarely statistically make up abuse. And so, you know, I think that you're right by the letter of the law, but sometimes maybe the spirit of the law changes with changing cultural norms.
Infamous
Are the Menendez Brothers Guilty?
Everybody just said, these are two spoiled rich kids, 722 North Elm Drive in Beverly Hills. They are tennis stars. They're preps. They're just gross. And they were just after the $14 million inheritance. That's why they killed their parents.
Infamous
Are the Menendez Brothers Guilty?
I think that makes sense. I mean, I do want to just mention that this TV show that may get them out of prison, you know, when it first came out, Eric said that he hated it.
Infamous
Are the Menendez Brothers Guilty?
Then you even have Kim Kardashian coming out. She wrote an essay that said that these brothers were denied a fair second trial, although Jesse Weber may quibble with that. And they have been denied an opportunity to fully present their case. And we owe it to these little boys who lost their childhoods, who never had a chance to be heard, helped or saved to let them out of prison.
Infamous
Are the Menendez Brothers Guilty?
So if Kim Kardashian says this is what we should do, this is what we should do. So if you had a crystal ball, what would you say is going to happen?
Infamous
Are the Menendez Brothers Guilty?
Well, we will be watching. And it's a fascinating case, I have to say. Something I missed the first time around. Didn't know anything about it. And I can't believe how kaleidoscopic it is and how many interesting aspects there are. Thank you so much, Jesse Weber. Everybody should check out the Law and Crime Network, where he has a million fascinating cases that he is watching.
Infamous
Are the Menendez Brothers Guilty?
I think we should also mention that they had gone to San Diego to buy these shotguns, right? They had traveled there. I believe they had used a friend's ID. This was extremely premeditated. Right.
Infamous
Are the Menendez Brothers Guilty?
Right. And somebody even said back then, look, a crime of rage is one shot, two shots maybe, but someplace between one shot and 16 shots, you look at your brother and you say, you know, Lyle, I'm not as pissed off as I was seven shots ago. And so I think it is true that everything that led up to the murder and the incredibly gory nature of this murder
Infamous
Are the Menendez Brothers Guilty?
And look, there's a lot of very dark stuff here with child abuse that we'll talk about a little bit later. But there is some truth to the fact that they did kill their parents. It was premeditated. They had also previously burglarized some houses, stealing up to $100,000 out of some different houses. One of the brothers who had been at Princeton University had been sent home because he was
Infamous
Are the Menendez Brothers Guilty?
had cheated on a test. So things were careening a bit out of control for these two guys who, again, they're gorgeous, right? They've got that like sort of Marky Mark look, but preppy. Didn't they have like a million trophies in their house because they won every tennis tournament?
Infamous
Are the Menendez Brothers Guilty?
And the original rap on it was that the father was just simply too demanding and dictatorial of his sons, not necessarily abusive, although that changed. So who was Jose Menendez? He's a record executive, right? Yeah.
Infamous
Are the Menendez Brothers Guilty?
There are so many bizarre things that happened before even the killing in terms of Kitty. The mom had actually typed out, helped type a screenplay for one of the brothers. And the screenplay was about killing his parents.
Infamous
Are the Menendez Brothers Guilty?
Okay? I mean, this is, you know, you don't get weirder than that. Additionally, Lyle wore a hairpiece, right? So one thing everybody knows about the Menendez brothers is they have these gorgeous heads of hair, right? These very swoopy, kind of Tom Cruise heads of hair. And he was balding, and he said his father encouraged him to wear a hairpiece.
Infamous
Are the Menendez Brothers Guilty?
So, you know, you just get layers and layers of eeriness. And then one of the things that people said happened is that Kitty actually pulled the hairpiece off Lyle. And both of the brothers were so outraged by this. He did this in the middle of a fight and showed his balding head that this was one of the precipitating factors for the killing.
Infamous
Are the Menendez Brothers Guilty?
Yeah, no, I think that's definitely true. And we'll talk a little bit more about Kitty. But the fact remains that she also was subject to this man, right? To Jose. I don't think that anybody thinks he treated the people in his family well, right? He wanted to become a senator, as you say, in Florida. Saw his sons as his successors. He wanted to be the Kennedys, right? The brothers call in to 911.
Infamous
Are the Menendez Brothers Guilty?
And the cops arrive and they are so sure that these kids haven't done it that they don't do anything to try to look at gunpowder on their hands. Right. What happened when the cops showed up?
Infamous
Are the Menendez Brothers Guilty?
That is such a melodrama within a larger drama here. It's so strange. So as you said before, there was a deadlock trial, right? And then there was one where they were found guilty.
Infamous
Who Sold Pam, Paris and Kim's Sex Tapes?
Yeah, I'm glad you didn't take offense to being a purveyor of analysis of sleaze.
Infamous
Who Sold Pam, Paris and Kim's Sex Tapes?
Actually, now that I'm thinking through this, it might have been that I knew her as this crazy heiress partier and The Simple Life was announced and I booked the interview to come out and coincide with the release. So it probably wasn't out yet.
Infamous
Who Sold Pam, Paris and Kim's Sex Tapes?
But then she wants a piece of it. Or what happens?
Infamous
Who Sold Pam, Paris and Kim's Sex Tapes?
I mean, she's... you know a beacon of light she's she's a lovely human being through and through she's an optimistic glass half full person and i'm glad that she's having a renaissance and coming out without her makeup on i mean it is a bit sad that like the only middle-aged woman who can go out without her makeup on is the woman who we all agree was like the hottest one from the 80s
Infamous
Who Sold Pam, Paris and Kim's Sex Tapes?
So that brings us to her mentee, Kim Kardashian's tape, which, you know, everybody will tell you that they know that she released that tape, right? At the time, she was... Paris' personal stylist or whatever, you know, they were homies. They were hanging out. She was not anybody who was well-known outside of Beverly Hills, although her father, having been OJ's lawyer, was pretty prominent.
Infamous
Who Sold Pam, Paris and Kim's Sex Tapes?
Her mother was a super go-getter. She knew all the people there were to know, right? Is that the truth? Like, what happened there? The thing people say is, like, she copied Paris because she knew this was the way to get famous.
Infamous
Who Sold Pam, Paris and Kim's Sex Tapes?
So thereby she still looks great. You know, obviously her documentary that she made about was really good, really, really good, really, really honest, you know, mostly. And I think that the story that you wrote and what you uncovered about her sex tape. It's become a bit of a trope to be like, oh, she was a villain back then. And she was just supposed to be a sex crazed hoe.
Infamous
Who Sold Pam, Paris and Kim's Sex Tapes?
I'd be like, this is legal and this is not legal. I mean, you could have fun as an attorney, I think, with all of these gradations of gray.
Infamous
Who Sold Pam, Paris and Kim's Sex Tapes?
I do think we should talk about the Hulk Hogan sex tape for a second, which in our world was a massive tectonic shift because it shifted the journalism around gossip in a really profound way, or at least a perception of what you could report.
Infamous
Who Sold Pam, Paris and Kim's Sex Tapes?
And that was, you know, the website Gawker that was a big sort of very funny, very knowing, very literate gossip site, something you never see really anymore, reported on, even maybe showed the Hulk Hogan sex tape, again, posted by an editor who was having severe substance problems and is now in recovery. Yeah. So what happened?
Infamous
Who Sold Pam, Paris and Kim's Sex Tapes?
And now we think that she was actually a victim. But in this case, Pamela Anderson was truly a victim.
Infamous
Who Sold Pam, Paris and Kim's Sex Tapes?
Yeah. Yeah. And in fact, the way to make recycled.
Infamous
Who Sold Pam, Paris and Kim's Sex Tapes?
Just thinking everybody gets away with it. So why wouldn't we? And we'll get clicks. And then billionaire Peter Thiel, who is very angry that Gawker has reported that he's gay, which we could also say was
Infamous
Who Sold Pam, Paris and Kim's Sex Tapes?
So basically today, what is the situation? Because as we know, amateurs are doing sex tapes all over the place.
Infamous
Who Sold Pam, Paris and Kim's Sex Tapes?
What just happened with Kevin and Kanye? Oh, my God. I love that that popped up just before we were doing this interview.
Infamous
Who Sold Pam, Paris and Kim's Sex Tapes?
So Vlad said, I'll be damned if I'm going to sit back and watch this proliferation of Nazism and fascism take over this country again and not saying anything. It's time to blow a whistle on these people.
Infamous
Who Sold Pam, Paris and Kim's Sex Tapes?
I think this Jew should go public with the details of the sex tape I intercepted for Kanye the Nazi right before he met Kim K. It's a hell of a story and one of the worst performances, I'm sure, of his troubled life.
Infamous
Who Sold Pam, Paris and Kim's Sex Tapes?
But he didn't want to have it out there. He put it down because... Years ago. Somewhere between 2012 and 2016. Yeah. But not because he was starting to date Kim and he didn't want it out there, just because he didn't want a sex tape of him out there. Kanye was like, no, that's not good for me.
Infamous
Who Sold Pam, Paris and Kim's Sex Tapes?
Right. She was a woman with her – I don't know if they were married at the time. They were, yeah. Okay. Her husband exploring her sexuality, being silly. It's a very silly sex tape in a lot of ways. They were just having fun. You know, they're holding – it's like a handheld little camcorder. It's not as though – you know, I didn't mean victim in that she is being set up to have sex on tape, but –
Infamous
Who Sold Pam, Paris and Kim's Sex Tapes?
she certainly had this stolen and she didn't want it out there. Yeah. Right.
Infamous
Who Sold Pam, Paris and Kim's Sex Tapes?
Which is the big question about sex tapes is like, who wants it out there? Who doesn't want it out there?
Infamous
Who Sold Pam, Paris and Kim's Sex Tapes?
Oh, no, it was stolen. So the next one that is famous is also by somebody that I have a vague connection to, who is Paris Hilton. So I was assigned a story by Rolling Stone to interview Paris Hilton when she was on The Simple Life. And 20 minutes before I'm supposed to meet her at some, you know, celebrity sushi restaurant, her publicist calls me up and says, hey-
Infamous
Who Sold Pam, Paris and Kim's Sex Tapes?
Paris doesn't have her car tonight. So if you can drive her home after the sushi restaurant interview, that would be awesome. And I was like, oh, yeah, I can drive Paris Hilton home. No problem. Oh, my God. So I walk into this restaurant and it's like Paris and Casey Johnson, who was the Johnson & Johnson heir that was dating Tila Tequila. And Paris is just in full form.
Infamous
Who Sold Pam, Paris and Kim's Sex Tapes?
And she's like, yo, you know, what's up? How are you? And I was really young at this time, right? So I'm like, yeah, down to like join your fun hang here over sushi. And she's just playing with her phone. She was like, oh my God, I was just like on a yacht in the Mediterranean. All these people are like calling me and I'm like, bitches, I'm in the Mediterranean. I cannot hear you.
Infamous
Who Sold Pam, Paris and Kim's Sex Tapes?
And then she's like, hey, we're going to my sister Nikki's house.
Infamous
Who Sold Pam, Paris and Kim's Sex Tapes?
We're here today with Amanda Chicago-Lewis, who is an investigative reporter and an amazing human being and also covers a lot of things that are quite infamous and has in her career. She is well known as the person who tracked down the guy who stole the Pam and Tommy car. sex tape. And the Hulu series, if you watched it, was actually based on her Rolling Stone article about that.
Infamous
Who Sold Pam, Paris and Kim's Sex Tapes?
birthday party at this club you know why don't you come and i'm like sure tara reed gets in the car yeah what's up you know we're the designated driver it's just i'm the designated driver for these people we get to the club she i had a sunroof in my car she pops out the sunroof and starts yelling hey like bitches over there what's up and then she's like oh no i don't know those people
Infamous
Who Sold Pam, Paris and Kim's Sex Tapes?
Like she's fully crazy, right? And awesome, by the way. I should say awesome. She and Tara Reid disappear into a bathroom for like 20 minutes. I don't know what happened in there. This whole night happens. Basically, we end up with the guys from Limp Bizkit and somebody stole our purses. Wake up the next morning and obviously I have a million messages from the publicist.
Infamous
Who Sold Pam, Paris and Kim's Sex Tapes?
And she's like, what happened? happened. You told me to drive her home. I mean, I did eventually drive her home.
Infamous
Who Sold Pam, Paris and Kim's Sex Tapes?
But then basically they're freaking out to the point where I'm like, I don't know why you guys are freaking out about this so much. Her image is to be a crazy party girl heiress. So what exactly are we talking about? Nothing that bad happened. Freaking out, freaking out. And I'm like, look, I still need to do the sit down.
Infamous
Who Sold Pam, Paris and Kim's Sex Tapes?
And they're like, you can go to Kyle Richards' house and you can sit with Kyle and Paris and do the sit down. Of course, I go there and it's totally weird. She's back in her pretending to be little girl persona. Everything you see about Paris in public is not who she is, right? And I'm just like, why are these people being so hella intense about this? This is Rolling Stone. Who cares?
Infamous
Who Sold Pam, Paris and Kim's Sex Tapes?
done well because also there's two moments when the tape quote-unquote came out okay so let's get into this so i said two days you know two days later i mean do i remember this was 20 years ago it could have been two months later but in some short amount of time right but you tell me what the i know what the sequence of events is when she found out about her sexy i'm such a loser it's like so much so okay
Infamous
Who Sold Pam, Paris and Kim's Sex Tapes?
You know, the fascinating thing is this catapulted her into fame. I was just a reporter being assigned to write a two page story off of a dumb reality show she had.
Infamous
Who Sold Pam, Paris and Kim's Sex Tapes?
So we are going to be talking about sex tapes quite a bit in this episode, and particularly an article that she also wrote for Wired in 2021 about a guy named Kevin Blatt, a celebrity sex tape broker who she also called the Forrest Gump of 21st century scandal in that article.
Infamous
Who Sold Pam, Paris and Kim's Sex Tapes?
Goes back to like, yeah, I mean, this stuff is important. Or is it?
Infamous
Who Sold Pam, Paris and Kim's Sex Tapes?
Right. So Kevin Blatt is, we're talking about the celebrity sex broker that we referenced at the top. Who is this guy? Where did he grow up? What's his deal?
Infamous
Who Sold Pam, Paris and Kim's Sex Tapes?
And he is recently in the news for threatening Kanye West to potentially release Kanye West's sex tape that apparently he was working with Kanye to keep quiet. So it's a sleaze fest. We're excited to get into it. Thank you so much, Amanda, for being here.