My dad stole Pamela Anderson’s sex tape & made millions after shocking incident with Tommy Lee
FORMER Baywatch beauty Pamela Anderson has long faced hurtful allegations that she orchestrated the theft of her own sex tape to gain publicity and boost her career.
But today we can reveal the identity of the real mastermind behind the outrageous plot — and who made millions from its sale.
Low-budget film producer Milton Ingley came into the possession of the old-fashioned 8mm tape in 1995 when the safe it was kept in was stolen from Pamela’s lover, Mötley Crüe drummer Tommy Lee.
The man who took the safe had intended just to hold it for ransom, but Milton came up with the idea of blowing it open.
Now, Milton’s daughter Helen has broken her silence to tell of her guilt over the scheme.
And although he made millions Helen said he spent every penny on a flashy lifestyle.
His luxuries included £300 bottles of Champagne, prostitutes every night, swish hotel rooms — and lots of cocaine.
Flight attendant Helen, 55, grew up in Los Angeles, where her dad ran a small film studio.
One of his friends was electrician Rand Gauthier, hired to help with the refurbishment of Tommy’s Malibu mansion in 1995, around the time he married Pamela on a beach in Cancun, Mexico.
He fell out with Tommy when the drummer complained about “shoddy” work, pointed a gun at him and refused to pay him £15,000.
‘This is pure gold’
In return, Rand stole his safe which contained a video of the couple on their honeymoon, roughly eight minutes of which was of them having sex.
On the Crime Against Pam & Tommy documentary, which is out on the TNT channel in the US, Helen says: “My dad said, ‘This is absolutely pure gold, we are going to make millions off this’.
“He knew he was going to get in trouble but he didn’t care. I didn’t really want to be part of it but I loved my dad and helped him with whatever he asked.
“It really raked in a lot of money, I would say millions. And my dad spent every dime of it.
“He loved Amsterdam. He was having the greatest time.
“He would send me pictures, he would be in a coffee shop, smoking a cigar, saying, ‘This is the greatest thing ever’.
“But my dad never thought about the effect it would have on Pam and Tommy, and Pam in particular.”
On how she got involved, Helen adds: “I had moved to Phoenix and my dad called me one day in 1996 and said, ‘You need to come to LA, I need you to help me with something’.
“He made a strange request, ‘Wear business attire, bring your social security card and your passport’. I thought, ‘What are we doing?’.
“My dad picked me up at the airport and he was paranoid, just not himself. He said, ‘I need you to open up a safety deposit box’.
“So he gives me these tapes. I take them into the bank and get back in the car and he hands me a pair of pliers and some other tapes and says, ‘Cut up these tapes . . . Rand brought this safe to the studio and it’s from Pam Anderson and Tommy Lee’s house’.
Rand had planned on holding the safe for ransom because they didn’t pay him.
But my dad said, ‘Oh no, we are going to blow that sucker open’.
Lo and behold, it’s home videos, the two of them on their honeymoon having sex.
“He said, ‘I made copies, these are the originals and they are stolen property so we need to get rid of them’.”
Helen spread the chopped-up evidence over the Interstate 5 motorway in California.
She says: “That is where the original tape ended up. He proceeded to take me back to the studio to show me the video. I was shocked. Rand really didn’t want any part of it.”
But Milton distributed the 54-minute tape with the help of the Peraino crime family, who leant him £50,000 to cover the costs.
Without release forms from Tommy or Pamela, however, he could not distribute it in the US.
So he moved to Amsterdam in 1997 and stayed there until 2004.
Helen says: “He decided the best way to do this was to go to Europe.
He called me and said, ‘Book me a ticket to Amsterdam’.”
She showed the documentary makers a “foreign currency table” document proving that the tape was sold all over the world.
Customers in the UK bought it on VHS video for as much as £65.
The explicit footage was posted via mail order to countries including the United Arab Emirates.
In Australia it cost £60.
Mexicans were charged £37.
From her home in Arizona, Helen says: “At that time the internet was barely starting. Everything was dial-up, there was no streaming, so you had to see it on VHS. He came up with his own dot com for people to look for it. And he started putting it on message boards on the internet. People had to message him to buy the tape. He had separate companies. You sent the money to a PO Box in Canada and somebody from another location shipped you the tape.”
“Everybody was buying it. It was all over the world. Germany, Brazil, Argentina. You name it. Everybody wanted to see it but Pam and Tommy fought really hard to stop it. My dad knew he couldn’t release the tape here in the US without having lots of problems so he sat on the tape for about a year before he figured out a way around it.”
Internet entrepreneur Seth Warshavsky is estimated to have made £50million in just one year when he got hold of the footage then sold it through his online subscription website — the start of the online porn business.
‘No desire to watch it’
This killed Milton’s VHS scheme and he moved back to Mesa, Arizona, where he died, aged 60, in 2006.
Talking about the footage last year when US drama Pam & Tommy — starring Brit Lily James and Sebastian Stan as the couple — was released, Pamela said: “I have no desire to watch it. Never watched the tape. I’m not going to watch this.”
Helen also hates the tape.
She says: “I really wish the tape was never around because eventually it is what took my dad from me, and he was my best friend.
“He was a great guy and I miss him terribly. Ultimately, this is a story of greed and greed will ruin you.”
Helen’s interview comes as Pamela, also 55, once again refutes that she ever made a penny from her controversial sex tape.
The former Playboy pin-up has been dogged for years by rumours that she signed a secret deal to cash in.
Pamela has previously admitted to being offered £3million for the rights by Bob Guccione, the founder of adult magazine Penthouse. But she refused.
And on her new Netflix documentary, Pamela, A Love Story, she adds she “never would have monetised” it.
Her producer son Brandon says: “I wish she would have made the money. She would have made millions of dollars if she had just signed the paper. Instead, she sat back with nothing and watched her career fizzle into thin air. She was in debt most of her life.”
There'd be no scandal today
PAMMIE believes the sex tape was so explosive because people had more secrets at the time of its release.
The recording was the first to go viral, creating a massive scandal.
But Pammie, 55, told Bustle Magazine the fallout would have been less damaging if it had happened today.
She said: “I don’t think there’s as many secrets these days.
Everything’s so saturated, everybody’s famous, (and) everyone has Instagram.
“The novelty isn’t the same. People (are) embracing their bodies, embrac- ing their sexuality. Since the #MeToo movement, people are more vocal.
“There’s more of a camaraderie among women and feminism.
“But my kind of feminism was learned from my mother . . . There were always these things that you don’t talk about, or that you put to the side, laugh off, don’t tell anybody, get through, suck up.”