Top of our must-see list this week is Pam & Tommy, the eight-part biopic starring Lily James and Sebastian Stan as 90s power couple Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee. The Baywatch star and Mötley Crue drummer are perhaps best known for getting married just 96 hours after their second date - and then of course, the infamous sex tape from their honeymoon which got leaked.
The first episode of Pam & Tommy - called, ahem, 'Drilling and Pounding' - tells the story of how the tape got into the wrong hands in the first place. Seth Rogen plays real-life former porn star turned handyman Rand Gauthier, who we see working on renovations at Tommy's Bel-Air mansion. When Tommy refuses to pay Rand for his work (and threatens him with a gun) Rand takes revenge and steals a huge safe from Tommy's garage full of expensive jewellery and watches. When he breaks his way into the locked safe, he also finds a video tape...
How accurate is Pam & Tommy?
The show's depiction of events is fairly true to what really happened. While in the show Rand is a carpenter, in real-life he was an electrician. But his past work as a porn star is accurate. In a 2014 interview with Rolling Stone, Rand said Tommy owed him $20,000 and spent several days outside the mansion, plotting the theft. And just like in the show, when Rand broke in he really did wear a furry white rug and crawled on his hands and knees so he would look like the couple's dog on any security cameras. Cunning.
What happened to the tape after it was stolen?
The tape got stolen in 1995, when the internet was in its infancy. In Pam & Tommy we see Rand realised that he can sell copies of the physical tape via the internet and teams up with two porn producers 'Uncle Miltie' (played by Nick Offerman) and Seth Warchavsky (Fred Hechinger) to finance the operation. As the TV series unfolds, their plan spirals completely out of control.
Uncle Miltie (aka Milton Ingley) and Seth Warchavsky were real people in the porn industry and helped Rand mastermind the sex tape leak. It reportedly made them $77m. In 1998 Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee sued Warchavsky's company, the Internet Entertainment Group (IEG) and ultimately agreed to a confidential settlement. The company released the tape again (this time to subscribers only) and tripled the traffic to their website.
In his interview with Rolling Stone, Rand said: “I made [Tommy's] career". Arguably the sex tape leak played a huge role in Tommy and Pam's notoriety, and as one of the first celebrity sex tape scandals was a defining moment in celebrity culture.
Did Rand Gauthier go to jail?
Although Rand's theft of the tape is what catalysed the whole scandal, Rand never faced charges for stealing the sex tape. The only legal action was taken against his associate Warchavsky's company IEG (which resulted in a settlement), so Rand technically got off scot-free for his crime.
Where is Rand Gauthier now?
When he gave the Rolling Stone interview in 2014, Rand was still working as an electrician (and had a side hustle growing marijuana) in California but he doesn't appear to have done any press since, and he wasn't consulted in the making of Pam & Tommy.
Stream Pam & Tommy on Disney+ from 2 February
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