Joe Francis digs his fingers into my knee. "I want that jury to know that each and every one of you are mentally f--ing retarded and you should be euthanized because, as Darwin said, you have naturally selected yourself," he shouts. "You are the weakest members of the herd. Goodbye! And if that jury wants to convict me because I didn't show up, which is the only reason why they did, then, you know, they should all be lined up and shot!"
It's early evening on Tuesday, May 7, and Francis, 40, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt that clings to his muscular frame, is seething. Just the day before, a Los Angeles jury deemed the Girls Gone Wild founder guilty on three counts of false imprisonment and one of assault likely to cause great bodily injury, and now he faces the real possibility of time in prison when he is sentenced in July (though he notes the charges are misdemeanors, not felonies). It's the latest brush with the law for a man who could write a treatise on running afoul of it, who keeps a veritable posse of lawyers in his employ at any given time. But Francis is adamant he is innocent of the allegations brought against him on behalf of three young women, who said he took them to his house, kept them there and even assaulted one. Hollywood reporter
PHOTOS: Tax Evader and Accused Jailbaiter: Inside Joe Francis’ Criminal Charges
After multiple e-mails and phone calls, he has agreed to an exclusive interview just before departing on a long-planned vacation to India -- first saying he wouldn't address anything "legal," then agreeing to talk about the latest charges as well as all his other issues.
He sits on a couch in his sleek, Bel-Air home, sandwiched between his girlfriend (25-year-old Wilhelmina model Abbey Wilson) and this reporter. We are well into our third -- or is it fourth? -- $55 bottle of Double Diamond Bomber X cabernet.
"The problem with the jury system is that anyone who's not smart enough to come with an excuse to get out of jury duty doesn't get out," he continues. "Only the stupidest of the stupidest people end up on juries, you know? I've never met a smart person who's done jury duty."
Francis has been jailed in Florida and Nevada; successfully sued for defamation by Las Vegas mogul Steve Wynn, whom he now owes $20 million; indicted for tax evasion and filming underage girls; blamed for the Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing of a company connected to Girls Gone Wild (which he says he no longer owns); and banned from entering GGW's Santa Monica offices by bankruptcy trustee R. Todd Neilson, who filed suit to keep Francis off the premises.
Add to all this Los Angeles Times reporter Claire Hoffman's claim in a 2006 article that he pinned her to a car and twisted her arm so hard tears flooded her eyes -- and that's an awful lot of mischief. But none of it, says Francis, is his fault.
PHOTOS: 'Girls Gone Wild' Creator Joe Francis: 'If I Wasn't Me, I'd F---ing Hate Me'
"You know why I've been criticized, why I've been brutalized?" he says. "Anybody who criticizes me, anybody who -- it's just a jealous guy. Everybody who says, 'Oh, Joe Francis is this' -- look at their penis and tell me if it's small. Tell me!"
And how about the size of his own, um, manhood? He laughs gleefully. "It's been widely reported my penis is huge, but look, I have nothing to prove" -- upon which he tries to do just that, tussling with his rather sweet girlfriend and urging her to tell me about his assets. She wriggles away, mortified.
"Tell him!" he laughs.
"No way!" she yells, vanishing into the kitchen.
Then Francis is back to explaining why juries hate him: "I have private jets, I have a great life, I'm a good-looking guy. I'm not conceited, but like -- look, I have girls around me all the time, whatever I want. I make a lot of money. It's a great life. If I wasn't me, I'd f--ing hate me."
Actually, despite his braggadocious quotes, he is in person generous, trusting, warm and eager to please, qualities that have endeared him to a Hollywood who's who -- from next-door-neighbor Quincy Jones to CAA's Kevin Huvane to Paris Hilton to the Kardashians.
Francis grew up with three sisters in Laguna Beach, Calif., the son of an entrepreneur and homemaker with whom he has severed all ties.
He got his first big break when he compiled TV outtakes into the video Banned From Television, using innovative direct marketing tools to sell it. Soon after, he filmed young women, often intoxicated, exposing themselves and created the Girls Gone Wild franchise. That made him a millionaire many times over but also opened him up to lawsuits from women who claim they weren't fully cognizant when they signed release forms. He dismisses all the suits against him.
STORY: How to Keep a Celebrity Sex Tape Off the Internet
"I've had 1 percent of all the lawsuits Steven Spielberg has had," he insists. "I was at lunch at Jeffrey Katzenberg's house, and his son David was like, 'You've gotten sued a lot.' We're all playing backgammon. We're at the Malibu house, and I love Jeffrey, and I love David, OK? And then Jeffrey looks at him and goes, 'Son, do you realize how many active lawsuits DreamWorks has against it?' And he goes, 'It's 1,000 lawsuits against DreamWorks right now.' "
Francis doesn't say how much all this has cost him, or how much money he has now -- though he certainly has enough operating capital to pay for six to eight lawyers, the number his criminal defense attorney, David Houston, estimates are working on his various suits. He also has enough to maintain a 40,000-square-foot estate in Punta Mita, Mexico, along with the Bel-Air house, where bottles of Chateau Petrus and other $10,000-plus vintages are in his kitchen.
He spends much of his day working from home and has been trying to get film and television projects off the ground, while working with the Kardashians on a skin care line. It is unclear how involved he remains with GGW or what its financial condition is. (Neilson declined comment.)
Francis' lawyer Houston has been with him since Francis was jailed in Panama City, Fla., in 2007 (he was jailed for contempt of court during talks to settle charges that his cameramen filmed two underage 17-year-old girls exposing themselves). Francis shot back with his own lawsuit against a U.S. District judge, the girls' parents and Bay County officials, alleging there was a conspiracy against him. He noted in his complaint that his story was the kind "Nina Simone sang about; William Faulkner wrote about it; historians teach about it."
STORY: Gawker's Nick Denton Admits He Went Too Far With Lena Dunham
Indeed, they might have, given what came next: "They ended up moving me to death row," he says.
Death row? In Panama City? "Yeah, with all the convicted murderers. I was there on a civil lawsuit. But they wanted to punish me so bad, they put me on death row with all the death row inmates. I was on death row with the murderers for six months. Like, should I take the blue juice? The blue juice is what they'd use [to execute prisoners]. When they would get out for 30 minutes a day, they would come by my cell and talk to me about how they wanted to die."
He gets up to search for the inmates' letters, then changes his mind. "I want to show you their letters. I've never shown anyone these things," he says. "One guy disemboweled his wife and cut out the baby and threw it away. It was awful. These people are awful. They put me on death row with convicted murderers, people that would rape and kill dead bodies. I was in an orange jumpsuit -- shackled and chained in my cell. Death row, that's how it works, man."
(Francis' lawyer Houston later clarifies: "They held him in a wing of that jail that had the most dangerous criminals, potentially headed for death row.")
It's early evening on Tuesday, May 7, and Francis, 40, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt that clings to his muscular frame, is seething. Just the day before, a Los Angeles jury deemed the Girls Gone Wild founder guilty on three counts of false imprisonment and one of assault likely to cause great bodily injury, and now he faces the real possibility of time in prison when he is sentenced in July (though he notes the charges are misdemeanors, not felonies). It's the latest brush with the law for a man who could write a treatise on running afoul of it, who keeps a veritable posse of lawyers in his employ at any given time. But Francis is adamant he is innocent of the allegations brought against him on behalf of three young women, who said he took them to his house, kept them there and even assaulted one. Hollywood reporter
PHOTOS: Tax Evader and Accused Jailbaiter: Inside Joe Francis’ Criminal Charges
After multiple e-mails and phone calls, he has agreed to an exclusive interview just before departing on a long-planned vacation to India -- first saying he wouldn't address anything "legal," then agreeing to talk about the latest charges as well as all his other issues.
He sits on a couch in his sleek, Bel-Air home, sandwiched between his girlfriend (25-year-old Wilhelmina model Abbey Wilson) and this reporter. We are well into our third -- or is it fourth? -- $55 bottle of Double Diamond Bomber X cabernet.
"The problem with the jury system is that anyone who's not smart enough to come with an excuse to get out of jury duty doesn't get out," he continues. "Only the stupidest of the stupidest people end up on juries, you know? I've never met a smart person who's done jury duty."
Francis has been jailed in Florida and Nevada; successfully sued for defamation by Las Vegas mogul Steve Wynn, whom he now owes $20 million; indicted for tax evasion and filming underage girls; blamed for the Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing of a company connected to Girls Gone Wild (which he says he no longer owns); and banned from entering GGW's Santa Monica offices by bankruptcy trustee R. Todd Neilson, who filed suit to keep Francis off the premises.
Add to all this Los Angeles Times reporter Claire Hoffman's claim in a 2006 article that he pinned her to a car and twisted her arm so hard tears flooded her eyes -- and that's an awful lot of mischief. But none of it, says Francis, is his fault.
PHOTOS: 'Girls Gone Wild' Creator Joe Francis: 'If I Wasn't Me, I'd F---ing Hate Me'
"You know why I've been criticized, why I've been brutalized?" he says. "Anybody who criticizes me, anybody who -- it's just a jealous guy. Everybody who says, 'Oh, Joe Francis is this' -- look at their penis and tell me if it's small. Tell me!"
And how about the size of his own, um, manhood? He laughs gleefully. "It's been widely reported my penis is huge, but look, I have nothing to prove" -- upon which he tries to do just that, tussling with his rather sweet girlfriend and urging her to tell me about his assets. She wriggles away, mortified.
"Tell him!" he laughs.
"No way!" she yells, vanishing into the kitchen.
Then Francis is back to explaining why juries hate him: "I have private jets, I have a great life, I'm a good-looking guy. I'm not conceited, but like -- look, I have girls around me all the time, whatever I want. I make a lot of money. It's a great life. If I wasn't me, I'd f--ing hate me."
Actually, despite his braggadocious quotes, he is in person generous, trusting, warm and eager to please, qualities that have endeared him to a Hollywood who's who -- from next-door-neighbor Quincy Jones to CAA's Kevin Huvane to Paris Hilton to the Kardashians.
Francis grew up with three sisters in Laguna Beach, Calif., the son of an entrepreneur and homemaker with whom he has severed all ties.
He got his first big break when he compiled TV outtakes into the video Banned From Television, using innovative direct marketing tools to sell it. Soon after, he filmed young women, often intoxicated, exposing themselves and created the Girls Gone Wild franchise. That made him a millionaire many times over but also opened him up to lawsuits from women who claim they weren't fully cognizant when they signed release forms. He dismisses all the suits against him.
STORY: How to Keep a Celebrity Sex Tape Off the Internet
"I've had 1 percent of all the lawsuits Steven Spielberg has had," he insists. "I was at lunch at Jeffrey Katzenberg's house, and his son David was like, 'You've gotten sued a lot.' We're all playing backgammon. We're at the Malibu house, and I love Jeffrey, and I love David, OK? And then Jeffrey looks at him and goes, 'Son, do you realize how many active lawsuits DreamWorks has against it?' And he goes, 'It's 1,000 lawsuits against DreamWorks right now.' "
Francis doesn't say how much all this has cost him, or how much money he has now -- though he certainly has enough operating capital to pay for six to eight lawyers, the number his criminal defense attorney, David Houston, estimates are working on his various suits. He also has enough to maintain a 40,000-square-foot estate in Punta Mita, Mexico, along with the Bel-Air house, where bottles of Chateau Petrus and other $10,000-plus vintages are in his kitchen.
He spends much of his day working from home and has been trying to get film and television projects off the ground, while working with the Kardashians on a skin care line. It is unclear how involved he remains with GGW or what its financial condition is. (Neilson declined comment.)
Francis' lawyer Houston has been with him since Francis was jailed in Panama City, Fla., in 2007 (he was jailed for contempt of court during talks to settle charges that his cameramen filmed two underage 17-year-old girls exposing themselves). Francis shot back with his own lawsuit against a U.S. District judge, the girls' parents and Bay County officials, alleging there was a conspiracy against him. He noted in his complaint that his story was the kind "Nina Simone sang about; William Faulkner wrote about it; historians teach about it."
STORY: Gawker's Nick Denton Admits He Went Too Far With Lena Dunham
Indeed, they might have, given what came next: "They ended up moving me to death row," he says.
Death row? In Panama City? "Yeah, with all the convicted murderers. I was there on a civil lawsuit. But they wanted to punish me so bad, they put me on death row with all the death row inmates. I was on death row with the murderers for six months. Like, should I take the blue juice? The blue juice is what they'd use [to execute prisoners]. When they would get out for 30 minutes a day, they would come by my cell and talk to me about how they wanted to die."
He gets up to search for the inmates' letters, then changes his mind. "I want to show you their letters. I've never shown anyone these things," he says. "One guy disemboweled his wife and cut out the baby and threw it away. It was awful. These people are awful. They put me on death row with convicted murderers, people that would rape and kill dead bodies. I was in an orange jumpsuit -- shackled and chained in my cell. Death row, that's how it works, man."
(Francis' lawyer Houston later clarifies: "They held him in a wing of that jail that had the most dangerous criminals, potentially headed for death row.")