I Get Punked by Tila Tequila -- and Learn the Truth About Celebrity Sex Tapes

By Barry Dutter

What’s the best way for a D-list celebrity to get attention? How about by releasing a sex tape? But how to sell the new sex tape in a way that would attract the most attention?
How about by pretending that she didn’t want the thing released?
Seemed like a smart business move. If an actress released the tape with her blessing, it might get an initial burst of publicity and that would be it. But if she came out against the tape, she could do a slew of media appearances detailing her various legal struggles in blocking the tape’s release. She could go on talk shows and talk about how upset she was that this private tape was being released without her permission.
That would be a hell of a lot more interesting than her just going on various shows and saying, “Buy my sex tape!” (Can we even call them “tapes” any more? I mean, does anyone even own a VCR at this point?)

I had the opportunity to find out first-hand just how the whole process works when I was invited to watch a sneak preview of a new sex tape starring reality TV “star” Tila Tequila.
Tila Tequila, you may recall, came to fame by having more friends on myspace than anyone had ever had before. That led to her starring in perhaps the greatest reality show of all time, A SHOT AT LOVE. The first season of that ground-breaking show had the pint-sized cutie looking for love amidst a group of girls and guys.
The brilliance of the show was that it was the first dating show to have a bisexual protagonist. You didn’t know if Tila was going to end up with a man or a woman at the end. My fascination with A SHOT AT LOVE lasted all the way through the first season and about five minutes into the first episode of the second season, at which point I realized that the show had nothing new to say.
Most of America seemed to loose interest in Tila after that. She tried various showbiz ventures, including music, but nothing else she did seemed to catch the attention of the American public the way the first season of her TV show did.
Once you got past the novelty of the bisexual angle, there wasn’t a lot there to keep viewers engaged.
Tila has made something of a name for herself as a sex symbol, often showing up in racy pictorials in men’s magazines. So it probably seemed a natural idea for her to make a sex tape. Her first tape was a short video of her with a male partner in 2004. That one came out around the peak of her fame.
In order to drum up interest in another one, she and her people had to come up with a new angle. What they came up with was, “The first ever three-girl celebrity sex tape!” But how to sell the new sex tape in a way that would attract the most attention?
How about by pretending that she didn’t want the thing released?
Seemed like a smart business move. If she released the tape with her blessing, it might get an initial burst of publicity and that would be it. But if she came out against the tape, she could do a slew of media appearances detailing her various legal struggles in blocking the tape’s release. She could go on talk shows and talk about how upset she was that this private tape was being released without her permission.
That would be a hell of a lot more interesting than her just going on various shows and saying, “Buy my sex tape!” (Can we even call them “tapes” any more? I mean, does anyone even own a VCR at this point?)
This is where I come in. I saw an ad on Craigs List looking for people to come in and watch a few minutes of an adult film and then have their reaction filmed for possible use of the promotional web site for the film.
The ad didn’t mention who the star of the tape was. But all applicants were warned they would be seeing some hot and heavy girl-on-girl action.
Seemed like an easy gig, so I figured what the hell. The screening was to take place at a building in North Hollywood, right next door to the offices of the porn company Vivid.
Me and my fellow screeners were to meet in a restaurant/bar on the first floor called The Casting Office. From there, we would be taken, one at a time, to the screening room upstairs to watch a few minutes of the video and give our reactions. When I arrived at the restaurant, there were three or four other people (a mix of girls and guys) waiting to screen the video.
A cute twenty-something gal named Britt was our contact. Britt gave us the lowdown. She said, “Tila is really upset about this video. She doesn’t want this thing released. We can’t even let her know we’re showing this to you. We’re so worried about her finding out about it, we couldn’t even do this in the Vivid building. We had to move next door for this screening.”
Right off the bat, this story sounded shady to me.
Would any company really have to move their screening to another building just because a celebrity was angry at them? I mean, how would the celebrity even know they were holding a screening? Why couldn’t they just do it and not tell the celebrity about it?
But Britt totally played it straight. That got me thinking, “Well, I’ve heard some pretty outrageous stories about Tila Tequila, so who knows… maybe she really is crazy enough to crash the offices of the company that is releasing her video.”
(The sex tape had officially been released a few weeks earlier. The promo we were shooting was billed as a “prank” for a web site, but let’s face -- Tila’s appearance in this video could only be construed as her way of promoting her sex tape.)
One by one, my fellow screeners were led up the stairs to watch the tape. The thing I found odd was that after each person went up the stairs, we never saw them again. I assumed they being taken out a back exit so that they couldn‘t discuss what they had seen with those of us who hadn‘t watched it yet. Those of us left at the table began to wonder if the other screeners were being taken upstairs and killed one by one!
After waiting about 45 minutes, my turn came to watch the tape. I was led up to the second floor by a very effeminate man named Jonathan. He assured me that he was not going to kill me.
We got off the elevator and I was taken into an office that had been set up for the screening.
There was a small crew in the room --a director and a cameraman. They asked me to sit in a chair and told me I would be watching Tila’s DVD on a computer monitor.
I was warned that I would be seeing some hot and heavy action. I said I could handle it.
The director said there would be two cameras filming me -- the big camera behind my back and a smaller camera on the computer itself, aimed at my face. I was told to give my honest reactions as I watched the film.
The director started the DVD in the middle of the movie -- a scene where a naked Tila and two other naked girls were, uh, doing stuff that guys like to watch.
The director said he had to run out to use the bathroom, but he would be back in a few minutes.
I started watching the movie. It looked like pretty much like any other lesbian porn you’ve seen before. (I mean, how many different ways are there to show women doing it?) Tila and these two other naked chicks were all over each other.
Then the cameraman told me he had to go check on some equipment in the next room.
Now I was alone in the offfice. Just me and the three-way celebrity lesbian sex tape that Tila Tequila did not want me to see.
It was definitely a strange experience. The cameras were still filming me, so I felt obligated to say something. I was being paid, after all. So I made a few comments to myself about the action on screen, basically cheering Tila on, and encouraging her to go for it! I wanted to give the producers something they could use in their promotional ads.
Just then, a pint-sized pixie walked into the room. It was Tila Tequlia.
The first thing you notice about her is how tiny she is. Even with high heels, she looks two feet tall!
She walked right up to me, dressed in a white blouse, a long black skirt and black boots. She looked like the way a porno actress would dress if she were playing an executive.
“What are you doing?” she asked me.
Obviously I was being punked. Obviously Tila was in on the gag. Obviously they wanted some kind of reaction out of me. But how to play it?
I assumed Tila was supposed to be mad at me, but her acting was so bland, it was hard to tell what she was feeling.
I started off sheepish: “You look a lot like the girl in the video,“ I said. “It’s my video and no one is supposed to see it,“ she replied. I realized I needed to play it up more, acknowledge that I knew who she was and how shocked I was to see her. I decided to act like I was embarrassed. “You’re not supposed to be here!” I exclaimed.
“Me? What about you? Why are you here?” We went back and forth for a minute, with her giving me a hard time about watching the video, and me acting like it was no big deal. I had to wonder where this prank was going. Was she going to take her clothes off and try to drag me into an impromptu adult film?
She reached over and took the DVD out of the computer, saying she was taking it away. I pretended to be really disappointed. “Can’t I just watch a little more?” I asked. “No,” came the reply. “You’ve seen enough.”
“Well, can I get a hug then? I’m a big fan!”
Tila very reluctantly gave me a hug then took the DVD and walked out the door.
At this point, the crew came back into the room (although Tila did not). She went back into hiding in order to spring her trap on her next unsuspecting viewer.
I didn’t know if they would be able to use my footage or not. I tend to just kind of roll with things, so when Tila walked in, I didn’t really have a big reaction at first. I think they might have been looking for more of a “Oh shit, it’s Tila Tequila, I’m in big trouble now!”
But like I said, she kind of underplayed it, too. If she had stormed into the room and seemed angry, I would definitely have played it differently. Or to put it another way, if she had been a better actress, I would have stepped up my game.
As soon as my screening was over, Jonathan handed me my cash and I was on my way. When I got home, I decided to do some research about this whole sex tape. Turns out there was a lot of press out there about Tila “fighting” the release of this tape.
She gave quotes to all the gossip sites, saying things like, “My reputation and public persona will be negatively affected in a manner that cannot be reduced to a dollar amount."
She added “The amateur videotape is of poor quality, and while I am not certain of all of its contents, I do know that it is extremely embarrassing.”
On her own web site, she reluctantly did a blog about the sex tape, saying it had been made two years ago, and that the “asshole” who was releasing it was demanding “$1 million” from Tila if she wanted to buy back the tape. She added that she had spent $75,000 in legal fees fighting then release of her first sex tape, and she was not about to go through that again.
Tila added that she had avoided talking about the tape, but she finally felt the need to address all the rumors that had been circulating about it. She stressed that that she wished the tape would never be released, “because it’s not who I am, not something I would condone, nor is it one of my proudest moments, AND the fact that it’s not the woman that I am TODAY!!!!!!!!!” (All those exclamation points are hers. She’s a bit of a drama queen when she writes!)
The main thrust of her blog was that she was a serious actress now (she just did a guest stint on $#!+ MY DAD SAYS, as well as a very funny skit with Jennifer Aniston and Zach Galifinakis on FUNNY OR DIE) and was trying to put her sexpot past behind her. She stressed that “this is not something...I wish to publicize.”
Tila apparently has some very loyal fans. Her blog got four pages of responses, all of them agreeing with her that the guy releasing the tape was an asshole, and saying that Tila deserved to be treated better. Basically, they bought every word of her denial. She calls them “the Tila army” and they are good little soldiers, I’ll grant them that. They pretty much believe anything Tila tells them.
(There was one hater on Tila’s web site who commented, “It’s not even a sex tape, it’s clearly a little porn made with professional porn stars.” Another Tila fan offered her support, but did chastise Tila for not telling the whole truth, adding “the video was obviously made recently, not two years ago.”)
Clearly the administrator for Tila’s site needs to work a little harder at keeping those truth-telling haters off her web site!
Tila’s PR people made a big deal stressing how much she was against the release of this tape. Her publicist released statement saying, "Tila Nguyen is in total shock and livid right now that someone had the audacity to leak out an intimate tape made with her and her two girlfriends without her consent. That tape was not meant for the public and she has been fighting fiercely in court to not have anything released. We are currently working with her lawyer's to decide what the next steps are."
I had to give them credit -- they certainly made a convincing argument about not wanting people to see that tape. But I knew the real truth. I was there in that screening room when Tila walked in. Clearly she was in on the whole thing from the start. Even the footage of her stopping people from watching the tape would be used to promote the tape.
It was a very clever marketing strategy, I thought.
About a week later, Tila’s “prank” video appeared online. Overall, the bit did not work out that well, because Tila just didn’t seem angry enough that people were watching her tape. I got some nice exposure in the prank tape. Mostly you see me laughing; I have a hard time keeping a straight face when I’m being punked by a petite pixie!
I don’t know if our “prank” video helped sell any copies of Tila’s sex tape. Actually, I don’t know anyone who even pays for porn any more. I still think if Tila really wanted to make some good money and get a lot of attention, rather than do a sex tape, she should have done CELEBRITY REHAB liked they asked her to. Maybe if the sex tape doesn’t sell well, she might want to start drinking heavily…