Man Who Stole Pamela Anderson And Tommy Lee's Sex Tape Explains Why He Did It
In an interview from 2014, Rand Gauthier explained how it all stemmed from a dispute over payment during renovation work
Anyone who was around in the 90s will know about Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee’s infamous sex tape, which had been filmed while they were honeymooning in Las Vegas.
The video only added to the pair’s fame, becoming huge news when Lee and Anderson filed a copyright-infringement suit against distribution company Internet Entertainment Group, which they won in 2002.
Now it’s also the subject of a new Hulu series, Pam & Tommy, which explores the couple’s marriage and the scandal that came from the leak - which, it turns out, stems from an accidental theft.
Alongside Lily James and Sebastian Stan, who play the titular celebs, the show also features Seth Rogen as Rand Gauthier, the man who stole the tape from their safe and sent it viral – long before such a concept even existed.
Gauthier had been working on Lee and Anderson’s Malibu mansion as an electrician, who got caught up in a payment dispute. The couple were refusing to pay for work they claimed was shoddily done, and suddenly fired a number of labourers on the renovation.
Gauthier was so fed up of their demands, that he was willing to just write off the $20,000 they owed him. However, things turned heated when he and a general contractor returned to the property to grab their tools.
Speaking to the Rolling Stone in 2014, he said Lee was pointing a shotgun at them, and shouted: “Get the f**k off my property.”
The outlet reports that Gauthier was ‘seriously p***ed’, as he had been made to ‘feel small’ by the rockstar.
“I was never really that popular with people,” he admitted.
“But I had never been held at gunpoint. It screwed with my head.”
According to Rolling Stone, Gauthier now wanted ‘revenge’, and decided to steal the giant safe he knew was located in the garage, supposedly holding all of Lee’s guns and Anderson’s jewellery.
He said he spent the entire summer of 1995 preparing for the heist, planning to throw a white Tibetan yak rug fur over his back and crawl to the garage on his hands and knees in the middle of the night so that security cameras would seem to show a dog resembling the one the couple owned.
Having just intended to take the items to have a laugh at their expense, what Gauthier didn’t know was that the safe also contained a homemade sex tape, which he then leaked through his contacts in the adult film industry.
“I made his career, is what happened,” said Gauthier, who was a ‘foggy 57-year-old who still works as an electrician and grows marijuana in his garage' in California at the time of the interview.
Two years before speaking to the entertainment magazine, he says he received a Facebook message from a page supposedly belonging to ‘Tommy Lee’.
All it said was: “Hey you f***ing f****t.”
In the end, Gauthier’s actions only really did Lee a favour – its infamy making the recording one of the most famous celebrity artefacts in history.
In fact, Lee’s friend Guerin Swing has since revealed that the musician still brags about it.
Swing, who features briefly in the video as part of the general honeymoon footage, told The Sun: “Tommy said to me the other day, ‘Let everyone know we did it first. Before the Kardashians, before anyone else. Let the mother-f***ers know, we broke the internet first’.”
The US artist had met up with Lee and Anderson in Las Vegas while they were on their honeymoon, and can be seen in the tape – which only features explicit content for about eight minutes - running about in a hotel corridor with a bucket on his head.
Swing said: “It’s essentially them just being kids, goofing with a video camera, a new toy. Tommy never showed me or anyone the video. He never talked bad about Pam. It wasn’t for anyone else to see.”
Of course, after Lee upset Gauthier, the private nature of the tape was jeopardised.
Recalling what happened when Gauthier returned to the mansion to demand pay, Swing said: “They walked on to the property without being allowed. Tommy was furious. He got a shotgun and told them to f**k off.”
Pam & Tommy will be available to stream on 2 February on Disney+ UK and Hulu.
Featured Image Credit: HuluTopics: Celebrity
Jess Hardiman