Pam and Tommy’s sex tape mastermind revealed: LA film producer made millions selling stolen home video – as daughter breaks silence to reveal his outrageous scheme and why original footage was cut up and scattered over a highway
- The man behind the sales of Pam and Tommy’s sex tape was a porn producer
- Milton Ingley spent the fortune raised from selling the video on a lavish lifestyle
- Ingley also recruited his daughter to destroy the original version of the video
The man who orchestrated the distribution of the infamous Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee sex tape in the 1990s spent all of his fortune to fund his lavish lifestyle, according to his daughter.
Milton Owen Ingley, a former porn actor who went by the moniker Michael Morrison, came into possession of the tape in 1995 when his friend, another former adult star, Rand Gauthier, stole a safe containing the video after a dispute with Lee.
According to Ingley’s daughter, Helen, Gauthier’s plan was merely to hold the tape for ransom until Lee paid up for home repairs. Ingley however, who was now working as a producer, saw dollar signs, she told The Sun.
‘My dad said, “This is absolutely pure gold, we are going to make millions off this,”‘ Helen told the website. The producer died in 2006 at the age of 60.
As the tape was being sold around the world, she said her father was holed up in Amsterdam, far from US law enforcement, spending $500 a night on champagne as well as hundreds on hotel rooms, prostitutes and ‘lots of cocaine.’
Lee and Anderson were arguably the most famous celebrity couple in the world when they were married between 1995 and 1998
Milton Ingley, pictured in 1988, borrowed money from the mafia in order to fund the distribution of the sex tape
Ingley’s daughter, Helen, said that her father spent all of the money he made from the sex tape on his lavish lifestyle
Ingley was portrayed in Hulu’s controversial dramatization of the scandal by Nick Offerman and Gauthier was played by Seth Rogen. Anderson objected to the series while Lee worked with the production.
Helen, an air hostess, said that in 1995, Ingley called her and told her to come to Los Angeles because he needed her help with a project. At the time, she was working for the airline America West and was based in Phoenix.
When she arrived at LAX, her father picked up from the airport and told her about the tape. Ingley had his daughter cut up the original copy of the tape in order to help them distance themselves from the theft.
Helen said that her father borrowed thousands from mobster Anthony ‘Big Tony’ Peraino in order to fund the distribution of the tape.
The producer had already made copies of the honeymoon clip, which recorded around eight minutes of the Lee and Anderson performing various sex acts.
Helen went on to say that Rene Gauthier did not want in on the money making scheme.
In 1997, Ingley moved to Amsterdam and began distributing the tape worldwide, in some cases for as much as $200 a pop, via Canada. The Vietnam veteran couldn’t sell the sex tape in the US without Anderson and Lee signing off on it.
Ingley lived in Amsterdam between 1997 and 2004 and would regularly send his daughter pictures showing him in the city’s famed coffee shops while spending money on cigars and champagne.
After internet entrepreneur Seth Warshavsky spearheaded efforts to stream the video online, Ingley’s business was torpedoed resulting in him moving back to Mesa, Arizona where he passed as a result of diabetes complications in 2006.
‘Everybody was buying it. It was all over the world… You name it. Everybody wanted to see it but Pam and Tommy fought really hard to stop it,’ Helen said.
Nick Offerman on set playing porn impresario Milton Ingley in Hulu’s hit series Pam & Tommy
Whirlwind romance: Pam And Tommy is based on the model’s tumultuous three-year marriage to rock star Tommy Lee – which saw them tie the knot in 1995 and take part in their notorious sex tape (pictured in 1995)
According to an obituary, Ingley entered the porn industry in 1977 as a favor to a girlfriend at the time. In the 1980s, he set up his own adult production company, Chandler Studios. His catchphrase in the industry was, ‘Here’s the deal.’
A friend, Sharon Mitchell, told Adult Video News at the time of his death: ‘In 1997, Milton dropped out of sight. No one could find him. It was a mystery to some…but most found out later that Milton lived happily for over seven years in Amsterdam.’
Mitchell said that Ingley lived his life ‘fast and hard.’
‘Some say Milton grew tired of life; diabetes had left him blind. He ate too much, lived hard, f****d a lot, loved a lot, and laughed more. For a man like that to be inactive is like a death sentence, I think,’ Mitchell said of her friend’s later years.
Speaking in her new Netflix documentary, Pamela: A Love Story, the 55-year-old TV personality confessed that she wasn’t thinking about having children when she posed for Playboy.
After welcoming her sons she’d hoped that she would be able to speak to them about it before they found out on their own.
Unfortunately, her children were told about her career before she got a chance to tell them and also revealed they were taunted at school after her sex tape with their father and her ex-husband Tommy Lee was stolen.
‘I wasn’t thinking when I was in Playboy that I was going to have kids soon and they were gonna grow up and it was gonna be embarrassing for them,’ Pamela explained.
‘But I always thought I’d tell them, age-appropriate – but I never got the chance – they always found out before I could really talk to them about it… But a tape of your parents having sex is another level.’
Looking back: Pamela Anderson has revealed how her glamour model career and stolen sex tape impacted her sons Brandon and Dylan (pictured in 1995 shortly before the tape’s release)
Family: Pamela’s kids were told about career before she got a chance to tell them and also revealed they were taunted at school after her sex tape with ex-husband Tommy Lee was stolen (Brandon and Tommy pictured with dad Tommy Lee)
‘When I was a kid I thought everyone knew things about me and my family that they never should’ve known. Everyone had this dirty little secret about my family’, Brandon, now 26, confessed.
‘I just remember in school if anyone ever brought up my mum I was very quick to fight. I would flush with anger.’
An emotional Pamela recalled: ‘I remember one day after school Dylan came to me in tears and he was like, “mum why did you do that tape?” I was like “oh gosh really, we didn’t make a sex tape.”‘
Dylan, 25, then revealed it would have ‘been a different story if she did cash in on the tape’.
‘She 100 percent cared about her family being ok and me being ok. She didn’t care about the money,’ he said.
Brandon went on to add that he ‘wished’ she’d made money from the tape.
‘She’d have made millions of dollars instead she sat back with nothing and watched her career fizzle,’ he said.
Pamela has consistently stated that she and her ex never saw any money from the widely circulated sex tape.
When the tape was obtained by Warshavsky, who initially streamed the video online, before trying to set up a distribution agreement with Pamela and Tommy.
The couple eventually signed the agreement to cut down on their stresses over lawsuits, but the agreement — which Pam reportedly thought would confine distribution to online — ended up being much broader than she believed.
With the agreement signed, Warshavsky then licensed the video out to a video company to print physical copies for sale in adult stores.
Sales of the tape reportedly generated hundreds of millions in dollars, but none of that money was making its way back to Pam and Tommy.
According to Entertainment Weekly, the couple then filed a copyright suit for the physical distribution. As they had made the tape together — and not just starred in it — they were considered the copyright holders.
The couple were eventually awarded $740,000 each in a judgement against Warshavsky, but he reportedly never paid either of them.
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