Warning! This post contains spoilers for episode 5 of Pam & Tommy.
In the Hulu series Pam & Tommy episode 5, the Lees decide to sue Penthouse, and here's who won in real life. The series follows the real-life story of the release of Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee's sex tape, which was stolen and sold online by their jilted former electrician Rand Gauthier. It stars Lily James and Sebastian Stan as Anderson and Lee, and Seth Rogen as Gauthier, in a series that tries to take a more empathetic look at its subjects, who were often tabloid fodder at the time. Pam & Tommy itself has become the subject of controversy following Pamela Anderson's vocal objection to the retelling of what she considers to be one of the biggest traumas of her life. However, the series does try to highlight how much the media and the law failed to protect Anderson.
Leading up to the Penthouse lawsuit in the series, Mötley Crüe drummer Tommy Lee and Baywatch star Pamela Anderson discover that the tape has been stolen from their home and make efforts to recover it. They find that the tape is being sold online, but Lee insists that they will be able to find and get back every copy. When they learn that Bob Guccione, the founder of Penthouse, has a copy of the tape, Lee and his team of lawyers decide that the best course of action is to sue. Anderson, however, worries that a lawsuit will not only draw media attention to the tape but prompt Guccione, who is a big proponent of free speech, to retaliate by printing pictures anyway.
Turns out that Pamela Anderson was right to think that Penthouse's Bob Guccione would not back down. In the actual lawsuit, the Lees sued not only Penthouse, but everyone who they thought might be involved with releasing the tape, including Rand Gauthier and pornographer Milton Ingley, played in the series by Nick Offerman, who helped Gauthier release the tape. Prior to the Penthouse lawsuit, the tape hadn't been acknowledged by the mainstream media. The lawsuit put unwanted attention on the couple and news of the tape became one of the hottest topics in both celebrity and mainstream news cycles. Ultimately, the Penthouse lawsuit and restraining order were unfortunately both rejected.
According to Rolling Stone, the Lees' initial lawsuit asked for a restraining order against Penthouse and $10 million in damages. They also sued Pam & Tommy characters Rand Gauthier and Milton Ingley to prevent them from selling copies of the tape. The couple's lawsuit against Penthouse, however, was rejected. The magazine's lawyers argued that because Anderson had posed nude for Playboy before and the Lees were open about their sex lives, they had forfeited their right to privacy. Penthouse actually ran images taken from the tape in their June 1996 issue. Judge Stephen W. Wilson, who presided over the case, determined that the photos, including the image of Anderson on the cover, were newsworthy and therefore within Penthouse's rights to print. Ingley and Gauthier, however, were ordered to stop distributing the tape.
By the time they stopped selling the tape, it was too late to keep it out of the public consciousness. There were already bootleg copies being sold, and the media had already gotten ahold of the story. There was little empathy for Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee at the time because they were seen as wild, controversial figures. In 2022, 46 states in the United States have laws against releasing nonconsensual pornography, known as "revenge porn." In 1996, however, no such laws existed, and the Lees were largely blamed for even making a sex tape.
The story depicted in Pam & Tommy takes a few liberties with the reality of the situation. However, the series does present Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee as victims of a crime of revenge, rather than responsible parties in the release of the tape. While they ultimately got little justice for the stolen tape being published against their will, the series proves a sympathetic view of what it feels like to be exploited for profit.
New episodes of the limited series Pam & Tommy release every Wednesday on Hulu.