The Kim Kardashian sex tape: An oral history

In 2002, Kim Kardashian — then an obscure heir of the late attorney Robert Kardashian and the personal stylist to singer Brandy Norwood — was in a serious, loving relationship with Norwood’s younger brother, Willie “Ray J” Norwood, also a singer.

In October of that year, when Kardashian was 22 and Ray J was 21, the couple went on a trip to the luxury Esperanza resort in Cabo, Mexico, to celebrate Kardashian’s 23rd birthday. They took a handheld camcorder with them and filmed themselves goofing around for the camera, and also having sex. On later occasions, they filmed themselves in bed again.

By 2006, Kardashian was beginning to make a small number of appearances in the media as the best friend and seemingly constant companion of Paris Hilton, the Hilton hotel heiress who had found phenomenal global fame as the star of both Fox’s “The Simple Life” and “1 Night in Paris,” a 2004 sex tape that she had filmed with ex-boyfriend Rick Salomon.

In 2007, 10 years ago this month, the tapes that Kardashian and Ray J had made were released to the public by porn company Vivid Entertainment as “Kim Kardashian, Superstar,” a 41-minute movie. Kardashian initially had sued to prevent it from being released, but ultimately settled the suit.

It is no exaggeration to say that in the 10 years since, Kardashian has transformed American culture.

This is the story of that movie, beginning in the months leading up to its release.

Perez Hilton, a blogger who revolutionized celebrity news in the early 2000s: “Kim was a young, ambitious thing and she was determined to make it in Hollywood, because she didn’t graduate college, she wouldn’t necessarily have a real job. She did the closet thing [Kardashian had started a business organizing celebrities’ closets and sharing the proceeds from any clothes they sold on eBay] and whatnot, but she clearly wanted more.”

Kevin Dickson, a former editor at In Touch Weekly, and now the co-author of the novel “Blind Item”: “I had become friends with Kim, and she would give me stories [about herself] every week and we would promise her coverage and then the editors would back out. So it was really hard to get her coverage. Then she got on ‘The Simple Life.’ That was one of the conditions [we gave her for us to be able to write about her in the magazine]: You have to be on TV. She was on for literally less than 90 seconds. But that was enough for us to start putting her in In Touch.”

Perez: “Back then, one of the things that got her a lot of attention in addition to being Paris Hilton’s friend, before the sex tape and before the reality show [E!’s ;Keeping Up with the Kardashians’] she was the very first girl that Nick Lachey was spotted on a date with after his split from Jessica [Simpson, the singer whose short-lived marriage to Lachey was chronicled in MTV’s ‘Newlyweds’]. It was only one date, but of course conveniently they were photographed by the paparazzi on that date. Wonder how they found out about that!”

Dickson: “That was one of the early stunts that backfired. We tried to get her to f–k Nick Lachey so she could be a celebrity girlfriend. She would literally bake him a basket of muffins and try to get him to come to her house and he wouldn’t go and so they went to dinner somewhere in the North Valley and we had paparazzi there. But our paparazzi told all the other paparazzi. It was a mess.”

Kardashian’s attorney, Marty Singer, insists that Kardashian has never planted stories about herself in the tabloids or tipped off paparazzi about her whereabouts. He told us, “Unlike many people who try to leak information about themselves so they are written up in Page Six and the New York Post, my client did not do so.”

He also said the paparazzi were “keeping an eye” on Lachey because of the media interest in his dating life, and “my client had nothing to do with the paparazzi getting those photos.”

Ben Widdicombe, longtime New York journalist (and native Australian) who broke the news of the sex tape in his “Gatecrasher” column in the New York Daily News: “It was my habit, and still is, to peruse the Australian news and shortly before [the sex tape] story happened, I was reading the Sydney Morning Herald and Paris was visiting Sydney and there was a picture of Paris and her previously unknown friend Kim posing on Bondi Beach [on Dec. 28, 2006]. And I just thought, ‘Who is that woman?’ I was so struck by how beautiful Kim was and I just thought that she looked like a star and I’d never heard of her. So I made a mental note that Paris has this incredibly good-looking friend called Kim Kardashian. Literally the next time I heard about her [it was when a source told me] that there was this tape for sale.”

Early reports about the tape erroneously suggested that an unsavory sex act known as “water sports” was included in the footage.

Steven Hirsch, the founder and co-chairman of Vivid Entertainment: “Someone just called the office one day and said, ‘We have some footage of a celebrity.’ Somebody took the call and we set up a time to talk. The person brought it in and they had the footage on this computer and they came in with this big, like, rolling suitcase and they unpacked all of it. It was a production. I remember thinking, ‘Oh wow. This person’s prepared.’ Usually you just get the footage and we’d put it into one of our edit bays, but it in this case it was very much compact and all together. I think they just wanted to be in control the whole time … It wasn’t that they were representing the people in the video. It definitely wasn’t. Because Kim was not involved in it. It was that these people had the footage and were looking to sell it.”

Widdicombe: “There’s no question that some of my sources were cooperating for their own purposes, and those purposes were to publicize the existence of the tape and its potential sale.”

Widdicombe publishes the story on Jan. 17, 2007.

Dickson: “One day in the morning [editorial] meeting [at In Touch], we got this alert — it just came up saying there was this story saying that Kim had a sex tape. I had to call her, but she was in Australia, so I had to wait because of the time difference. So I left her a couple of messages saying, ‘You need to call me. This is urgent. This is not a drill.’ Back then, it was bad to have a sex tape. I knew her and I knew that she was quite mousy and she had very young sisters at that point. I’d met the family by then, so it was like, ‘Oh f–k — this nice person who I know has a sex tape. What do I do?’ … It took a long while for her to call me back, and I had to go to IKEA, so I went to IKEA in Burbank and I was walking through the end of it, and Paris calls me and she’s like, ‘Dude — what the f–k!’ And Kim was crying in the background. She’d seen the story by then, and Kim’s saying, ‘It’s not me, it’s not me.’ Kim was saying that [hip-hop ‘video vixen’] Superhead was actually the person in the video.”

Karrine Steffans, formerly known as “Superhead,” now a New York Times bestselling author: “She said that it was me?”

Singer insists that Kardashian did not lie about the existence of the tape. He says his client initially did not believe rumors about the alleged “wild contents” of a purported sex tape and she therefore disavowed it. Given that Kardashian knew that no tape including “water sports” existed, it’s reasonable to believe that she genuinely did not believe that she was the person in the tape. Singer adds that once she learned there was actually a tape, she was “aghast” and tried to prevent its release. He also denies that Kardashian said that Steffans was the person in the video.

Dickson: “So Kim denied it and denied it and she was denying and crying at the same time. Paris was like, ‘I’m going to get my lawyer to look into this. If anybody else comes out with stills, if anyone starts offering clips, any proof that it’s Kim, call us.’ [At the magazine] we were exploring whether and how to cover the rumors, because at this point, the editors saw it as finally a break in what we could do with Kim.”

Rob Shuter, who would later become Paris Hilton’s publicist and is now the founder and editor-in-chief of NaughtyGossip.com: “Normally when a crisis happens, publicists are like vultures. We call like crazy because we want to get them as a client. I don’t think anybody was really very aggressive about getting Kim. Nobody really wanted her on their roster. I think we thought it was a blip and it would disappear and we’d never ever hear of her again.”

Hirsch: “It took a little bit of research to figure out what was going on with her family, and she was Bruce Jenner‘s stepdaughter and her father represented OJ Simpson and then I did some research on Ray J and saw that people knew who he was but that his sister [the singer and actress Brandy] was very well known. So there were these pieces that came together and I thought, ‘Wow. This is super interesting.’ Everybody would sort of in some way be connected to her because they knew somebody who was an intimate part of her life … The next step was trying to get a deal done. She wasn’t involved in that. It was trying to get a deal done with the people who had the footage. They had guaranteed that we would be able to distribute it. I questioned that as time went on … I think we announced we had the footage, and that’s when we started getting legal letters from Kim’s attorney.”

On Feb. 21, 2007, Steven Kurtz, an attorney representing Kardashian, files suit against Vivid Entertainment in LA, in an attempt to prevent its release. “Kim Kardashian, Superstar” was released on March 21, 2007, and Kardashian settled the suit with Vivid on April 27, 2007.

Widdicombe: “I do believe that it’s possible that the other partner [in a sex tape] can be coaxed into agreeing to it with the promise of a payday. It’s a dance the distributors do. Sometimes they have [the tape] with the rights, sometimes they need to talk up the value of it in order to persuade the participants that it’s a good idea.”

Hirsch: “We went back and forth; we thought we had a deal, then we didn’t have a deal.”

Steffans, who dated Ray J on and off for years: “Ray was still trying to figure out whether to sign the deal. I told him I didn’t think it was a good idea, because he’s the man in the situation and also African-American. ‘You’re a black man, so it’s not going to do for you what it’s going to do for her,’ is what I told him, and I said, ‘If she were a black female, I’ll tell her not to do it. But she’s not.’ He thought it was going to bring him wealth, and more fame … Ray J was Brandy’s brother and everyone always called him Brandy’s brother and no matter what he did, he couldn’t come out from under that shadow … And he really, really, really, really believed — really in his heart of hearts believed — that this sex tape was going to finally make him white-girl famous. It’s a different kind of famous. White girls can do anything and be famous; a white girl could slip and fall in the middle of Rodeo Drive and all of a sudden she’s a star. Black women can’t do that, and certainly black men can’t do that, and white men can’t do that.”

Hirsch: “It was a very difficult time, and ultimately we were able to come to an agreement. It was a very difficult deal to get done. Probably [the hardest deal we’ve done]. [Kim] did not want it to happen. I know people have speculated on [whether she planned the release of tape from the beginning], but the facts are the facts. A lot of nonsense has been reported over the years … [The persistent rumors about Kris Jenner, Kardashian’s mother, being involved in selling the tape are] such nonsense. I don’t know who started that. [People don’t want] the truth to get in the way of a good story … I had no contact with [Kris].”

Steffans: “Here’s what I know about sex tapes and working with Vivid: If there’s a legal issue, it’s not going to [be released]. So in order for that tape to come out, Kim would have had to have signed off on it, period. That’s just the way that works … Steve Hirsch would never have gone against that if he didn’t have signatures.”

Clyde DeWitt, an attorney who has been representing the adult entertainment industry for 35 years, but did not work on the tape: “[Imagine for example that] somebody finds a DVD in somebody’s garbage and it’s got a [sexually explicit] movie recorded on it. They couldn’t sell it because they don’t have releases [signed by the performers], they don’t have 2257 records [federally required documentation showing that producers of sexually explicit material have obtained proof of age from every performer] and they don’t have a release from the copyright owner … [In order to sell it they would have to] find both the people who are in the movie and find the photographer, which might be one of the two of them. Then they would need to get a release and identification documents and some other information from the performers and you need to get [permission] from the copyright owner.”

Singer denies that Kardashian provided ID to Vivid to prove her age at the time the tape was made.

Hirsch: “Ultimately she [Kim] did sell us the footage so we had the ability to put it out and distribute it.”

Reports at the time claimed Kardashian was paid $5 million. Hirsch told us, “I don’t comment on that other than to say we haven’t disputed it,” but Singer told us that figure is “greatly inflated.”

DeWitt: “A friend of mine is Vivid’s lawyer. He’s a really good lawyer. I’ve known him for years and years and years. Believe me, Vivid wouldn’t do it unless they had all the I’s dotted and the T’s crossed. And Steve Hirsch, too: He’s fastidious about making sure everything is done the right way — to his credit.”

Dickson: “Then she calmed down. When [Vivid] talked money with her, she started talking [to me] more frequently again. I went and met with her and said, ‘You lied [about the tape’s existence].’ And she said, ‘I had to. My lawyers told me I had to lie because they were trying to kill it.’” (Singer denies that Kardashian initially lied about the tape’s existence at the insistence of her attorneys.)

Hirsch: “As the process of coming to an agreement was going on, that was being reported on in the media. There was a time when we thought we were going to put it out and then something happened and we weren’t able to do it. So it was delayed and that was reported on, so by the time it actually came out, people were well aware of it. It did well. It did very well.”

Dickson: “Kim and Paris’s relationship went to s–t almost immediately as this scandal made her so famous … I was still friends with both of them and Paris was like, ‘That [expletive not suitable for a family newspaper] is playing you for a fool’ and all this other stuff. By this point, [Kim] was worthwhile as a source — she was phenomenal. That continued for six years of cover stories, which was insane.”

Steffans: “Now time had passed; I forget how much time. [Ray] was living far out, here in LA, deep in the Valley in a townhouse and he was dating Whitney Houston around this time. He invited me over, I drove to his place, we hung out that day, we took a shower, I’m sure we had sex and then in bed, he tells me the Kim Kardashian sex tape didn’t do what he thought it would do for him. He was complaining and he’s upset that Kim’s making all the money and she’s getting all the attention. I think he was doing [VH1 reality dating show] ‘For the Love of Ray J’ or was about to do that. But that wasn’t what he wanted. Doing a dating reality show wasn’t what he thought was going to happen. He thought he was going to have a real reality show about his family and about his career. But they ended up putting him in this VH1, two-seasons-and-you’re-done kind of thing.”

In August 2007, MTV announced it had canceled “The Simple Life.” Two weeks later, E! announced that it had bought “Keeping Up with the Kardashians,” a “new non-scripted family sitcom” about Kim and her family, produced by Ryan Seacrest and Bunim-Murray, the production company that had been behind “The Simple Life.”

“Keeping Up” had been in development since well before the sex tape was released.

Steffans: “Ray will say that Kim rode off of him and maybe initially he was her springboard, but to be honest, really she springboarded off of Paris, did a little somersault, landed on his penis and springboarded right off of that into the world of white-girl famous.”

Perez: “I think the sex tape hurt her more than it helped her. I don’t believe that excuse the sex tape ‘made her.’ Paris Hilton made Kim Kardashian and that reality show [‘Keeping Up with the Kardashians’] made Kim Kardashian. I’m confident that Kim Kardashian would have landed the show without the sex tape. First of all, she already had a famous friend and more importantly she had a very connected family. Her stepdad at the time was Bruce Jenner and her mother was Kris Jenner, who had been married to a very connected lawyer. And Kris Jenner’s best friend is Shirley Azoff, Shirley Azoff is married to one of the most powerful men in music, Irving Azoff. They just knew all the right people. If it wasn’t in 2007, eventually Kim and the Kardashians would have gotten their own reality show, somewhere, somehow. Because they wanted it, they were hungry for it and they knew how to get it. They had the connections.”

Steffans: “Ray was collateral damage in her plan to be famous. I know that he feels that also.”

Shuter: “I didn’t know who Ray J was. He was Brandy’s little brother, who apparently wasn’t so little. I remember people who saw the tape saying what an enormous penis he has, but I couldn’t tell you who he was. Unless he walks around with his junk hanging out, I wouldn’t recognize him. He, to me, is a penis. And there’s only so many marketing opportunities for that. You don’t remember his face. He’s not really around. I don’t see him on the circuit or that sort of celebrity club world that they all go to or the same restaurants. I’ve never seen him as part of that world.”

Several years later, in August 2011, shortly after Kardashian married NBA player Kris Humphries, Adam Dread, Esq. – a Nashville, Tennessee, attorney who had successfully, albeit briefly, gotten singer Mindy McReady’s tape removed from Vivid’s site — was contacted about “Kim Kardashian, Superstar.”

Dread: “I became friends with Steve Hirsch over taking the [McReady tape in 2010] down and because of that — I guess because of the media on that — I was then approached by somebody who wanted to buy the Kardashian tape and remove that. I can’t disclose names or numbers, but it was somebody that just really wanted to take it down. I think they were legitimate and they could have paid a lot of money to do it. We didn’t really get into [their motives] but it wasn’t like some creepy guy who wanted it for himself to stay in his attic and watch it all day. It was somebody who thought it was terrible and wanted it removed from public viewing. It wasn’t like an ultra-Christian right fanatic either. It was a wealthy person who thought it was bad for the world … I don’t know what relation they had to the Kardashians. And honestly I didn’t even ask … Me personally, I would think as a father, the worst thing in the world — seeing your wife, or for the kids, seeing your mom in a porn. So I think the intentions were actually pretty genuine. My limited interaction led me to believe it was a legitimate call to remove it … Even before [Hirsch named his price], it just kind of fell apart even after the first conversation.”

Hirsch: “I can only say that it’s the most popular tape we’ve ever done. Revenue-wise it has generated more income than any other tape that we’ve done. It’s the number-one movie for us of all time … [But] it’s different now. We’re 10 years into it and [the tape is] definitely in its later stages. I think that most people who wanted to see it has seen it. We do see renewed interest in it when something interesting happens in her life, no question about it. Probably its first and second year [were the high-water mark of its popularity]. But these things have a lifespan.”

Jim McBride, aka Mr Skin, whose website has chronicled celebrity nudity for 18 years: “Kim K. was the last one [to have a truly successful celebrity sex tape], and then really slammed the door behind her, in my opinion. Look at the ‘Fappening’ [a massive 2014 online dump of hacked celebrity nude pictures and videos] and even the thing that happened to Erin Andrews [the ESPN reporter who was secretly filmed undressing in a hotel room, the video of which went viral in 2009]. Every person today on their private phone has something they probably don’t want people to see, whether it be nude pics, sex pics, or something they don’t want out there. I think when the ‘Fappening’ happened, it made everyone feel vulnerable. I think when Pam Anderson [whose sex tape with ex-husband Tommy Lee was leaked in 1998] and Paris Hilton and Kim K. did this, there was that feeling that, ‘Hey, these are bad girls doing it and I want to see it, but that could never happen to me.’ But I think people today feel vulnerable, and when the ‘Fappening’ happened, there was overwhelming negative reaction to it. Because of this environment, I don’t think a company like Vivid could any longer market a sex tape as [‘the tape they tried to hide,’ as it’s billed on the cover] and have it be such a huge hit as the Kim K. tape.”

Shuter: “If something happens to Madonna, her greatest hits shoot up the charts. This is Kim’s greatest hits. This is her ‘Like A Virgin.’ When she dies, this is what’s going to chart. It’s not a tune, it’s not a movie; it’s the sex tape. That’s the body of work. I’m sure when she got divorced it spiked, I’m sure when she had a baby it spiked.”

Steffans: “Ray J did not get the riches, but he also did not get called whore and slut and a piece of s–t and trash. Kim gets called all of those things on a daily basis 10 years later. But she’s also making hundreds of millions of dollars between her and her family combined.”

In 2015, Time magazine named Kardashian as one of the 100 most influential people in the world. The magazine asked: “are [the Kardashians] indeed today’s Brady Bunch?” Forbes estimated that she made $51 million in 2016, and “Keeping Up with the Kardashians” is now in its 13th season. She declined to be interviewed for this story.

Kardashian and Paris Hilton — now a successful DJ with a massive, global clothing, shoes and accessories brand — have rebuilt their friendship and are once again close.

Ray J most recently competed in British reality TV show “Celebrity Big Brother.” He finished in last place, having left the set to get emergency dental work and then being denied permission to return. He continues as a musician, releasing songs including “I Hit It First,” believed to be about his romance with Kardashian.

CelebrityNetWorth.com estimates his wealth to be around $6 million. He declined to be interviewed for this story. His publicist, Courtney Barnes, didn’t respond to multiple requests for comment.

“Kim Kardashian, Superstar” has been viewed online more than 150 million times and has made over $50 million. In October they released “Kim Kardashian Superstar VR Experience,” a 3D virtual reality film featuring a Kim Kardashian lookalike. Vivid has named March 2017 “Kim K. Sex Tape Month.”