The Changing Face of Celebrity Sex Tapes

Remember when starring in a private sex tape could virtually destroy a celebrity? The time was 1988, the place was the Democratic National Convention. Fresh from acting as if anyone should listen to him about politics, Brat Pack actor Rob Lowe went back to his hotel and filmed himself having sex with two girls, at least one of whom was underaged. Not long after, the tape became public and, with much help in the shilling department from Maury Povich, Rob Lowe became far more well known as the star of a pornographic video than he had ever been as a mildly talented star of bad movies. Thus began the feud between Rob Lowe and Maury Povich, as well as the beginning of Rob Lowe's life as a virtual pariah in Hollywood. From 1988 to 1992 Lowe appeared in only five movies. In the five years previous he appeared in a dozen movies. The Rob Lowe sex tape appeared a mere twenty years ago, but it seems like a lifetime in terms of how low Hollywood has sunk since then.

It is almost impossible to imagine the career of any actress before 1990 surviving a sex tape scandal. Heck, Ingrid Bergman was denounced on the floor of Congress and not allowed to make a movie in America for over six years simply because she had an unfilmed adulterous affair that produced a child and an eventual marriage. We don't even need to go that far back. Can you imagine Meryl Streep still having a career if a sex tape had surfaced starring her right around the time Sophie's Choice came out? What a much different world we live in today. Paris Hilton makes a sex tape and actually becomes a bigger celebrity as a porn star than she'd been as a celebrity who had never actually accomplished anything. Colin Farrell and Pamela Anderson have not watched their respective careers go down the toilet after their own sex tapes showed up, darn the luck. Today, it appears that the quickest route to dragging yourself off the D-list isn't to do stand-up comedy, but to "accidentally" let your sex tape get into the wrong hands. (Are you listening, Kathie Griffin?)