Saved by Paris Hilton? Parenting on drugs? On the run in Mexico?
When the tables turn on a pornographer, you know things will get wild.
This is the shady side of Girls Gone Wild creator Joe Francis.
Although Joe Francis made a career out of exposing
women's bodies, he's insisted that he's done so legally — getting the women's signed consent for
their participation in Girls Gone Wild. However, in the documentary, Girls Gone Wild Exposed,
a woman named Jannel claimed that Francis had sexually assaulted her on his tour bus
after picking her out in a club. As she explained in the documentary:
"He basically just forced himself on me, and it hurt. I didn't give my consent that night."
This isn't the first time Francis has been associated with sex crimes.
In 2003, he was arrested for child pornography
for reportedly filming underage girls engaged in sex acts. He was arrested again in 2007
on sexual battery charges for allegedly groping a woman. Then in 2008, Francis pleaded no contest
to child abuse and prostitution after an underage girl said he forced her to touch his privates.
In 2009, Francis was accused of sexual assault when a woman told the Los
Angeles Times that he had pressured her into sex on his tour bus.
He threatened to sue, having never been formally charged for the assault.
He's also apparently displeased with the 2022 documentary, writing on his Instagram,
"Every issue and accusation has been fully litigated.
I was either found to be innocent or the victim of all of these terrible accusations."
Joe Francis has
definitely had money troubles over the years. His wallet took a major blow in 2013 in particular
when his company, Girls Gone Wild, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. At the time, Francis had
owed $10.3 million to Steve Wynn for a casino debt and was being sued by two other women for
issues relating to Girls Gone Wild. However, he apparently didn't comply with the terms of his
bankruptcy case, and by 2015, there was a warrant for his arrest when he didn't turn over two cars.
Francis decided to flee to Mexico seemingly to avoid paying his debts, as well as more jail time.
As of April 2022, he was still living in Mexico but had since sold Girls Gone Wild to
a pornography company. Francis now runs a luxury estate called Casa Aramara. While a judge ruled
in 2017 that he couldn't profit off that business until his debts were paid, he still gets a lot of
celebrities to vacation there. And although 20% of the estate was lost in a 2020 fire,
TMZ reported that Francis is somehow dropping over a million dollars to repair it.
Joe Francis' ex, Abbey Wilson,
probably has some bad things to say about him, considering the two clearly didn't part on
good terms in 2020 after 12 years together. The U.S. Sun reported that, following their split,
Wilson accused Francis of purposely trying to infect her with the COVID-19 virus by
spitting in her face when he was infected. During that same altercation, she claimed
he violently assaulted her, pulling her to the ground and stepping on her head. Though Francis
went to jail for 73 days over the incident, he was released after agreeing to attend therapy.
Wilson also accused him of physically assaulting her again and threatening to release explicit
videos of her as revenge. Yet Francis told the Daily Mail that she made up the domestic violence
accusations and bribed Mexican police. He even later accused her of theft, writing on Instagram,
"She is also a fugitive of justice for stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars."
Joe Francis has made some questionable moves
as a parent — especially relating to his nasty custody battle over twins Alexandria and Athena,
whom he shares with his ex, Abbey Wilson. According to the U.S. Sun, in June 2021,
Wilson was granted emergency custody of the girls and a restraining order against Francis
after accusing him of drug use and physical abuse. She claimed in court
documents that he had threatened to take their children far away from her. She also said,
"[He] would scream at his daughters, he would insult them."
Despite Francis' fortune, Wilson indicated he was a deadbeat dad. She wrote on Instagram,
"My ex has not provided financial support in over a year. [...] He stole our home,
ALL of our clothes and personal belongings."
Yet Francis has a different take, claiming that
Wilson kidnapped his daughters. In April 2022, he wrote on Instagram,
"Abbey Wilson is currently wanted for the kidnapping of
Alexandria and her sister by Mexican authorities."
He also claimed that she was hiding his daughters with her alleged drug-trafficker boyfriend.
However, her lawyer told the Daily Mail,
"The kidnapping claim is just ridiculous. If someone physically hurts you,
you move out and you don't give them your address."
Joe Francis has done
multiple stints in jail for various reasons. For example, in 2007, he served time for
intimidating two women who brought a lawsuit against him during the negotiations of a civil
case. He was also charged with criminal contempt twice, seemingly for his disrespectful attitude.
"Wow!"
Most notably though, in 2013, he was sentenced to 270 days in jail after he was convicted of
false imprisonment, assault, and dissuading a witness. The charges stemmed from an incident
in 2011 where Francis wouldn't let three women leave his home following a night of partying.
One victim said he physically attacked her, bashing her head onto the floor.
Francis didn't take his conviction well, telling The Hollywood Reporter,
"Just because a jury is mentally retarded and jealous of who I am, y'know, that jury,
you should be put in jail, you stupid idiots."
He later apologized for his outburst but tried justifying his comments, saying in a statement:
"Anyone who has ever been wrongfully convicted of a crime [...] would be as frustrated as I am."
In 2015, Francis was sentenced to jail again,
pleading no contest to child abuse and prostitution charges after Girls Gone
Wild featured underage girls. Despite his plea, Francis told the Los Angeles Times,
"I never committed any crime. [...] A few corrupt individuals
were able to keep an innocent man in jail."
In terms of shadiness,
it's worth mentioning that Joe Francis seemingly made a whole career out of exploiting others.
Not only did he get his start on a TV show called Banned from Television, which usually displayed
real people's graphic deaths, but Girls Gone Wild basically made Francis rich off mostly inebriated
girls. Girls Gone Wild Exposed filmmaker Katinka Newman explained to the New York Post,
"Behind the fun, the wet T-shirt competitions and the faux-feministic
liberation centered around flashing your breasts in front of a camera, lives were being ruined."
Francis was also notoriously nasty to the women who took legal action against him,
even once serving jail time for verbally harassing two women
during a civil case's negotiations, according to The New York Times. In a different case,
he infamously asked a woman on the stand, who was suing him for filming her when she was underage,
if she was a prostitute. Even after being sentenced for child abuse and prostitution
in another trial, Francis unapologetically told reporters,
"I'm going to go back to making videos."
"You're a big fan of the 'Girls Gone Wild' videos?"
"Girls Gone Wild! I just succumbed to the advertising, I guess."
In 2004, Joe Francis was the victim of an over-the-top kidnapping and extortion plot and —
unsurprisingly — the situation was pretty crazy. It all started when he returned to his Bel Air
home one night to find a masked man with a gun. The intruder tied Francis up and stole some of
his belongings before demanding more money, which Francis didn't have in the house. Seemingly to
ensure he paid up and stayed quiet, the intruder forced Francis to make a degrading video of
himself in sexual positions. According to an NBC News story about the incident, Francis recalled:
"He's holding a gun and a camera and making me say things."
From there, he was thrown in the back of his own car and driven to another location,
where the suspect threatened to release the tape if he wasn't paid a ransom.
Francis went on to work with police, making several attempts to arrange a money drop-off
to catch his attacker. Eventually, a famous socialite cracked the case,
having heard things on the party circuit. Per NBC News, Francis dished,
"Paris Hilton was at a party with me
and she pulled me aside [...] And she goes, 'Look, I know who did it.'"
The attacker was later identified as Darnell Riley, who pleaded guilty to
robbery and attempted extortion. He blamed the mob for his actions, telling Page Six,
"I was asked to rough him up. I worked with guys, if they told you to do something,
you don't ask questions."
Joe Francis has been accused of a
lot of questionable things over the years, and, in 2021, one of those things was that he was addicted
to drugs. While fighting for custody of their two daughters, Francis' ex, Abbey Wilson, claimed in
court documents that the Girls Gone Wild founder had been abusing hard drugs since 2017. Wilson had
contended that the drugs made him abusive toward her and the twins. The court documents revealed,
"Joseph's behavior continued to become more violent,
and he never left his addiction to drugs."
Of course, Francis denied the accusations, explaining to Page Six,
"My ex-girlfriend just keeps making up things and
lying and lying and lying. I have to defend myself."
He even accused Wilson of being the one who uses drugs, telling the Daily Mail in 2022
that she lives with her drug dealer boyfriend and uses fentanyl. Francis told the Daily Mail,
"At the height of the non-vaccinated part of the pandemic she was heavy into using of these drugs."
Wilson, meanwhile, has denied this. Whether Francis is actually an addict or not,
he's been linked to drug use before. In 2007, People reported that he was charged
with possessing prescription pills during one of his prison stints. So with all things considered,
it's pretty clear that Francis has one heck of a shady side. Yet it keeps the
entrepreneur in the headlines, even if it's usually for all the wrong reasons.
If you or anyone you know has been a victim of sexual assault, help is available. Visit the Rape,
Abuse & Incest National Network website or contact RAINN's National Helpline at 1-800-656-HOPE.