The director of the documentary tells Inside Edition that Joe Francis was a "violent abuser" who "managed to just keep on getting away with it because of his charm." Francis denies all allegations of sexual assault.
In the early 2000s, “Girls Gone Wild” was a pop culture phenomenon.
The videos featured partying college-aged women on spring break, including many who exposed their bodies on camera, making the show’s creator, Joe Francis, a multi-millionaire.
But a new documentary claims many of the women who appeared on the show still bear the emotional scars years later.
“It has now transpired that [Francis] was a violent abuser and managed to just keep on getting away with it because of his charm,” the documentary’s director, Katinka Blackford Newman, told Inside Edition.
One woman featured in the documentary claims Francis attacked her in the back of the “Girls Gone Wild” tour bus.
“That was the worst night of my life,” she said.
Blackford says many women who appeared in the videos didn’t know what they were doing at the time.
“They were clearly completely drugged. They'd signed a form that gave away all their rights. And so those images will be out there forever,” Blackford said.
Inside Edition has investigated Francis before. In 2008, we discovered that a number of families, including the wife of chief correspondent Jim Moret, received unsolicited “Girls Gone Wild” videos in the mail.
Francis reportedly lives in a luxurious villa in Mexico and faces potential jail time if he returns to California for a misdemeanor assault conviction in 2013.
Francis denies all allegations of sexual assault and says the attacks against him are baseless.
“Girls Gone Wild Exposed” premieres Saturday on TNT.
