When I opened this up to requests, I was expecting some bad movies, or some weird TV shows that people wanted reviewed. What I was not anticipating was that someone would request a review of a celebrity sex tape. But, I only get a few requests a month, so I can’t really afford to turn them down, yet. Also, this is literally the easiest piece of media to find on the internet. The first copy I found had been watched 134 Million times. That’s more than watched the Super Bowl this year, and that’s just one video on one site.
Up front: I’m not a fan of Kim Kardashian, and I actually thought Ray J was a completely different person (no, not Ray J. Johnson, I know he’s fictional… I thought it was the guy who played Moesha’s OTHER brother). However, I am a professional, so I did my due diligence.
Kim Kardashian is now famous for being famous and hot and married to Kanye West, but back in 2002 she was a hairstylist for Brandy Norwood (after she was Cinderella, sadly), and apparently was dating Brandy’s brother Ray J. Also, didn’t know Brandy was Snoop Dogg’s cousin until now, so that’s neat.
Well, Ray J and Kim went to Cabo to celebrate Kim’s 23rd Birthday, and filmed themselves goofing around, and also in the bedroom. Kardashian apparently was married at the time, something I did not realize. Ray J and Kim later broke up, and Kim became friends with other noted celebrity sex-tape-haver Paris Hilton. Then, in 2007, this tape got bought up by Vivid Entertainment (noted distributor of sex tapes), and apparently the rights were sold to them by Ray J. Kardashian sued to stop the distribution, but settled for $5 Million instead. The popularity from the tape, combined with her appearances on Hilton’s Simple Life, got her a TV show and ensured that we will never be rid of her or her family.
As part of my nauseating background research into this article (by which I mean reading TMZ, you sickos), I found out some other interesting things:
1) Ray J makes a lot of money on this. As of 2014, he makes around $10k/month. When Kim “broke the internet,” with her nude photo shoot, apparently Ray J made $50k that week in royalties. Also, apparently, every time she has a baby, gets married, gets divorced, or makes the news, that doubles or triples that week’s income.
2) Ray J is a douchebag. He constantly tries to remind people, especially Kanye, that he slept with Kim first. He has songs about it that I’m not going to listen to. (update: Some A-hole requested the song of course).
3) TMZ loves this tape and the ensuing drama. There are probably 100 articles about it. Including a series of statements that Kanye West owned a copy of this video before he and Kim started dating, and that he often watched it while with other women. That’s… love, I guess?
Now, there are two versions of this video: The Original and the Extended Cut.
The original video was 41 minutes long, about 20 of which was sex. However, since then, they’ve cobbled together other tapes of Kim from her time with Ray J and added 1 hour of bonus footage, which includes, apparently, more sex. Specifically, about 4 minutes of it. In an hour. Of them doing stupid sh*t around Mexico and L.A. So, I stuck with the original.
I’m going to go ahead and skip the actual summary of the material for this. You can watch it yourself if you want, but I don’t recommend it.
The main takeaway from this is that Ray J should never have been the cameraman. It’s not just that he doesn’t do well with focusing, lighting, or any of that stuff, it’s that HE MAKES HIMSELF THE FOCUS MOST OF THE TIME. Clearly, he believed that he was going to be the real celebrity out of the two of them. So, in a video which is marketed as being about Kim Kardashian, famously attractive woman, she’s actually out of frame a lot of the time, instead having Ray J direct the camera towards himself.
The other thing is that Kim Kardashian apparently has strong porn instincts as far as her mid-coitus dialogue goes. If this is actually what she talks like during sex, then this is clearly the work she was born for. The only problem is that half the time she sounds like she’s starting to fall asleep. And maybe she was. Mexican Donkey Valium is strong, I’m told.
I wish I could praise the artistic camerawork, the strong storycrafting, the masterful performances, but I actually believed Ray J’s character more when he appeared in season 5 of Moesha.
Overall, this is to erotica what Renegade was to television: Profitable, famous, but lacking in quality.
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