by Sean Smith
Then Kim fell out with Brandy over money. Ray didn’t go into any details – it wasn’t relevant to a discussion on cheating – but later Brandy’s mother, Sonja Norwood, filed a lawsuit against Kim and her siblings for running up credit card charges without permission. Sonja alleged that in 2004 Kim had been authorised to make one purchase only on the Norwood American Express card in her capacity as Brandy’s stylist. She claimed that Kim made unauthorised purchases and passed the card number on to her brother and sisters, who then also made unauthorised purchases, including items from their two stores, DASH and Smooch. The suit alleged the total amount charged was $120,636. Sonja was asking for the return of the money plus 10 per cent interest.
The Kardashians issued a statement: ‘The charges against the Kardashians are meritless. Both Kim and Khloé were employed by the Norwoods and never used their credit cards without express authorisation. The Kardashian family looks forward to proving the absurdity of these claims in court.’ Mrs Norwood, who told People magazine that the Kardashians had reneged on a promise to repay the debt, was also looking forward to her day in court.
In the event, neither party got their wish and the case was dismissed with prejudice, which meant that it couldn’t be appealed or filed again. It was over permanently. Media reports described it as an ‘apparent settlement’, but the details remained confidential. Neither the Norwoods nor the Kardashians have subsequently commented on the lawsuit. Brandy and Kim are no longer friends and the singer was stony-faced when asked about Kim in a television interview in 2014.
Once she and Ray J were no longer an item, Kim was free to date whomever she chose. She couldn’t help but notice that anyone Paris went out with was snapped by the paparazzi and appeared all over the magazines as a result. Such publicity would be gold dust for both her and, just as importantly, DASH.
In May 2006, she went to the movie The Da Vinci Code in Calabasas one afternoon with Nick Lachey at a time when his divorce from Jessica Simpson was going through. When they came out, there was a mass of photographers waiting to record the event. Nick was very unimpressed and would later imply that it was Kim who tipped them off. When he was asked if those shots sparked the start of her rise to stardom, he replied, ‘That’s one way to interpret it.’
He continued, ‘Let’s just say this. We went to a movie. No one followed us there. Somehow, mysteriously, when we left, there were 30 photographers waiting outside.’ He added, ‘There are certain ways to play this game, and some people play it well.’
The New York Daily News quoted a friend saying, ‘She wanted to get her photo in the magazines and knew being seen next to Nick would be big news, since he had just ended his marriage. She was in communication with editors at the celebrity weeklies and provided them with details of the date to guarantee her spot in the limelight.’
Kim herself admitted that the date with Nick was her first taste of being the centre of attention. She said that people were curious about who he was with. The liaison with Nick Lachey, who wasn’t really Kim’s type, amounted to exactly nothing, but did get her name into the media. By itself, it wouldn’t be enough to change things. It was just a brick in the wall at this stage.
The following night, Kim was with Paris as usual. The two of them went to their crowd’s usual hangout, the Hyde nightclub on Sunset. In Kardashian Konfidential, she recalled that for the first time, as they arrived, the paparazzi shouted her name instead of her celebrity friend’s. Paris may not have been best pleased at her companion stealing the show. Certainly, their friendship began to cool as Kim became better known.
Paris was already a paparazzi favourite before her sex tape was released, but there is little doubt that 1 Night in Paris greatly enhanced her fame. Kim, too, had a sex tape, which, as Nick Lachey would say later, ‘was already in the can’.
The pornography grapevine was aware that there was a new sex tape being offered around in the winter of 2006. Kim heard about it as well, but didn’t believe the rumours. She even gave an interview to Complex magazine – her first front cover – in which she denied the existence of any tape. On her way back from a trip to New York, she took a call from Kourtney, who told her that the sex tape she had made with Ray J was now in the public domain.
The first thing she did was to go round to her mother’s house and tell her everything. She broke down in floods of tears as she came clean about the existence of the tape – a startling confession from a young woman who neither drank nor did drugs, but tended to be impetuous where men were concerned. Kim was devastated that her most intimate moments with the boyfriend she loved might be seen by the whole world.
Kris Jenner was mortified when she realised the graphic nature of the tape: ‘I cried myself to sleep. I don’t think anything can prepare you for something like that when it comes to your daughter. I had to go into a room and cry for a couple of days and say, “OK, pull yourself to-fucking-gether!”’
They decided they needed to handle the situation – to try and gain some control over what was happening. It was the only sensible thing to do. They learned the tape was now in the hands of a company called Vivid Entertainment, one of the leading distributors of pornography in the US. Steve Hirsch, the Vivid chairman, announced the forthcoming release of the tape in February 2007. He said, ‘We are comfortable we have the legal right to distribute this video no matter what others may say.’
Kim countered by telling the media of her intention to sue Vivid. She said, ‘Everyone is pretty disappointed and very confused as to what’s going on and who’s behind this. We’re just going to get to the bottom of this and do whatever we have to do to stop it.’
When the story appeared in E! News, Kim was described as one of Paris Hilton’s closest friends, a socialite and the daughter of O. J. Simpson’s defence attorney, Robert Kardashian, a stylist and fashion designer, and the stepdaughter of Bruce Jenner. It mentioned that she co-owned the boutique DASH in Calabasas. She was also going to be in an advertising campaign for the high-end clothing line Christopher Brian Apparel, it said. The ‘actor-rapper’ Ray J only merited a sentence, in which we learned he was the brother of Brandy and co-starred with her in the sitcom Moesha. In the media coverage, he was being left far behind, even though he was rumoured to be in a relationship with Whitney Houston. The article was a useful barometer for judging where Kim stood in terms of public recognition at the time.
The piece also mentioned Damon Thomas and said Kim had been linked to Nick Lachey, the rapper known as The Game (Jayceon Terrell Taylor) and Nick Cannon, the actor, rapper and TV presenter who went on to marry Mariah Carey. Cannon dated Kim between September 2006 and January 2007.
He described their breakup on The Howard Stern Show. He recalled that the sex tape was to blame: ‘This was my issue. We talked about this tape … and she told me there was no tape. If she had been honest with me, I might have tried to hold her down and be like, “That was before me”, because she is a great girl.
‘She’s actually one of the nicest people you’ll ever meet. But the fact that she lied …’
That had been Kim’s knee-jerk reaction when she first heard the rumours about her tape. If she denied it, the whole nightmare might go away. Now she was taking action. She filed a right to privacy lawsuit to try to stop the release of the DVD. Her complaint accused Vivid of ‘egregious commercial exploitation and violation of Plaintiff’s most personal and intimate sexual relations with her former boyfriend of three years.’ She described the tape as being ‘extremely hurtful not only to me, but to my family as well.’
Ray J seemed strangely on the sidelines while all this was going on, but he and Kim remained on good terms. She said she didn’t suspect him of handing the tape over to the ‘porn pedlars’.
Kim realized that she needed to talk to Vivid if she wanted to have any kind of control of the situation. This was common practice and made good sense for both sides, then at least there would be a fixed outcome and it would call a halt to paying expensive legal fees. Kim’s lawye
rs must have told her that there was no guarantee of success when pursuing a legal claim, and, what’s more, even if she were successful, a sex tape might take on a life of its own once it was leaked and couldn’t be removed from the Internet. An agreement needed to be reached.
Kim was a novice in such matters, as was her mother, despite her astute handling of Bruce’s affairs. The larger-than-life character Joe Francis, so claims a source, had a hand in helping Kim. He was the boss of the mild soft porn franchise Girls Gone Wild and a great friend of the Kardashian family. He had launched the brand in 1997 and it soon became a byword for young, attractive women, often tipsy, flashing their breasts and bottoms for the camera and generally whooping and hollering as they did so. It was a brilliant concept from a smart and savvy 24-year-old entrepreneur. His cameramen would go to all parts of the country, trawling bars and college parties for girls willing to participate. There was never a shortage of volunteers. The girls might well be taking their tops off at the end of a fun night in any case, so he was just tapping into what was already happening and giving it a nudge. The favourite hunting ground was the Easter vacation time in the US known as spring break, which is traditionally a chance for college students to let their hair down.
The franchise produced a variety of videos, all with Gone Wild in the title. One of the most popular was Girls Gone Wild: Doggy Style, hosted by none other than Ray’s first cousin, Snoop Dogg. The brand was incredibly popular, because it was perceived as inoffensive high spirits and not pornography. There were no penises in Girls Gone Wild.
Joe was very much part of the Paris Hilton set that included Kim and would descend on the clubs of Hollywood for a good time in the evening. Invariably, Joe would be accompanied by a number of beautiful blondes. His parties at his Bel Air mansion were legendary and rivalled the Playboy ones for popularity. He was said to be earning $29 million a year from his business and had two private planes, which he was happy to lend to his friends.
Back in 2003, it was widely reported that he’d had a fling with Paris herself. He was, however, prone to be indiscreet. He was once asked on The Howard Stern Show who gave the best oral sex among his many celebrity conquests. He didn’t hesitate: ‘Paris is the best … Paris is amazing in bed … better than anyone.’
He also reportedly dated Kourtney, and did introduce her to the father of her three children, Scott Disick, in 2005. He was good friends with Kris Jenner, who found him entertaining and great company. He often flew the Kardashians around – to Las Vegas or Mexico.
He was involved in a long, drawn-out legal saga of his own that had begun in 2003 in Panama City, Florida. He had fallen foul of the authorities there, who took exception to him using the town as a venue for a spring break pay-per-view filming for Girls Gone Wild. Both his Ferrari and his Gulfstream jet were confiscated. The chain of events would end up costing him many millions, as well as his liberty. From March 2007, he would spend nearly a year in jail.
Before he was jailed, however, he was able to help and reassure Kim. Joe was already a friend of Steve Hirsch and would be able to bring all the parties to the table. A meeting was arranged at the Girls Gone Wild offices between Steve, Kim and Ray J to discuss a way forward.
Vivid is a much more hardcore company than Girls Gone Wild and there was certainly no shortage of penises in their productions. Steve is a very different character to the larger-than-life Joe, despite their friendship. A separate source who worked for Vivid observed, ‘He was the antithesis of Joe Francis. He was very clean and sober. Steve was a businessman who understood financial opportunity. He was calculating and very smart.’
Girls Gone Wild already had a connection to Vivid through its website. They had a marketing agreement that if you were buying or browsing for something on the former’s site, there was a link to buy something more hardcore from the latter. In the trade, it was known as an up-sale.
The source at Vivid explained, ‘We used to describe the pornographic world in terms of narcotics. Girls Gone Wild and Playboy were cigarettes. Pretty soon, though, you would want a glass of whisky to go with that and that’s when you came to Vivid. Pretty soon after that, you want to move on from whisky to marijuana and that’s when you started getting into crazy Evil Angel hardcore and then, finally, you end up on heroin – watching the most disgusting things you can find.’
Kim’s sex tape was definitely whisky, maybe taken with a little water, and much more suitable for distribution by a company like Vivid rather than Girls Gone Wild. Steve could see great possibilities for his company and was hugely keen to agree terms. According to a source at Girls Gone Wild who had sight of the agreement, Kim and Ray J received $300,000 each in respect of the tape. They would also receive a residual on videos sold or downloaded.
The lawsuit was duly dropped. Steve Hirsch said, ‘We are pleased that Kim has dropped her legal action against us. We met with her several times and reached a financial arrangement that we both feel is fair … we’ve always wanted to work something out with Kim so she could share the profits.’ Reports that she was paid $5 million to give up the suit were wildly inaccurate, although once again such inflated figures increased the value of the product in the public’s mind. The source from Girls Gone Wild claimed, ‘That was all a nonsense figure.’
Ironically, the media interest in the sex tape created by Kim’s legal action was just the sort of publicity that would guarantee its success. The source said, ‘The appeal has to be that you are watching some footage that was supposed to have been shot in the privacy of somebody’s bedroom that’s never been seen before. That is the whole allure – you are seeing something that you are not supposed to see.
‘Filing a lawsuit created sensationalism and media frenzy. That’s the only reason why anybody cared about this tape, quite frankly – because it was forbidden fruit. You know back then if Kim Kardashian had been hired by a pornographic company to do a video, nobody would have given it a second thought.
‘The implication in the legal action was that the sex tape was so scandalous and risqué that she would go to any length to prevent you from seeing it. Unintentionally, it was really brilliant marketing.’
Vivid needed to prepare quickly for the release of the tape. A series of top-level meetings was held at the offices on Cahuenga Boulevard in Studio City. The company started buying up every single domain name that its staff could think of involving Kim K, Kim Kardashian sex tape and so on. This was essential so that any related online searches would be directed back to Vivid and the sale of the tape. It was a laborious, if inexpensive, exercise, but it still needed to be done for a successful launch. When you have a property like this particular sex tape, you don’t just register one site and you have to include all the possible misspellings. They made sure they registered Kim Kardashian Superstar, which would be the eventual title of the tape. One did slip through the net, however. They failed to claim Kim K Sex Tape and this one had to be bought separately; it cost as much to capture and re-register as all the other 200 or so put together. Even then, it was more about time spent than the cost, which was no more than $2,500.
Meanwhile, one editor, working alone, started assembling the footage that Ray J had shot into a marketable form. This was somewhat problematic, as the tape was an old-style pre-digital VHS one; the images they put on the website the company had created for the tape were basically poor-quality screen grabs.
Steve Hirsch, a greatly admired figure in the world of pornography, had a knack for spotting something that might be big. When he got a sense of who Kim Kardashian was, he decided this was something the company should get behind with all its resources. Ostensibly, Ray J was still a bigger name, but it’s always better from the marketing point of view to concentrate on the woman involved, the more vulnerable victim of circumstance. The interracial aspect of the film would add a certain frisson for the tape’s buyers.
Steve’s staff initially thought they were dealing with a hip-hop artist having sex with one of his dancers. It only dawned on th
em during the marketing process that Kim Kardashian was actually the star and not Ray J. He was able to keep a low profile, although he was spotted driving a swanky new Lamborghini around Hollywood, thanks to his windfall.
One of the benefits to Vivid of having secured an agreement with Kim was that it would have made it easy to deal with the legal requirements of Statute 2257. It’s basically a law based around the minimum age requirement for participation in porn. Kim’s age at the time of making the tape wasn’t a problem – nor was there now any question of privacy violation. They had set up an agreement for adult programming with CinemaNow, an online movie site that allows filmmakers to distribute their films through streaming and downloads. They had the right to pre-sell the tape online so people could buy a digital copy in advance.
Everything went smoothly. A company source observed, ‘It was one of the easiest, most successful roll-outs that Vivid ever did. It was one of those things where you always expect about four or five things to go wrong and almost nothing did.’
‘It just caught fire,’ observed the source at Girls Gone Wild. It was a money-printing machine. From the very beginning, Vivid was making $1.2 million a month from Kim Kardashian Superstar in online sales alone. Thanks to her royalty arrangement, Kim was on her way to becoming a very rich woman – a millionaire in her own right.
The media stories suggested that as part of the agreement with Kim, Vivid was going to stop distributing the tape at the end of May, which naturally signalled to potential buyers that they had better order it soon or miss out altogether. Eight years later, it is still the star attraction of the Vivid catalogue.
The tag line on the video case read ‘Kim Kardashian Superstar … she’s 9½" from stardom’. It became clear within a couple of minutes that the number referred to Ray J’s impressive credentials.
