Almost a staggering twenty years ago in 2007, Kim Kardashian and her ex-boyfriend Ray J were all anyone talked about when their 2002 sex tape was released through Vivid Entertainment.
At the time, it was reported that Kim was paid $1 million for the rights to Kim Kardashian, Superstar, an explicit 41-minute tape from her and Ray J’s Cabo vacation that was filmed five years earlier.
Initially, Kim attempted to sue the company over the tape’s release before agreeing to settle out of court, and seven months later, she and her family launched their E! reality show, Keeping Up With the Kardashians.
The series launched Kim to superstardom and turned her whole family into household names and as most superfans know, ran for 20 successful seasons before coming to an end last year.
In the show’s very first episode, Kim addressed the sex tape and argued at the time that this is what secured the show’s initial viewership. Kim admitted to the Los Angeles Times last year how she knew producers would “love” her willingness to speak openly about the infamous video.
“I do think that, obviously, as producers, I’m sure they loved it. And loved [us] wanting to talk about the elephant in the room. I probably wouldn’t have, unless it was for the show,” she said. “Sometimes I feel like, ‘OK, I know I should probably deal and get this over with. Someone’s gonna ask me, so I might as well just go ahead and do it.’”
And now, 15 years later, the sex tape is a key storyline in the Kardashians’ new Hulu reality show, which premiered last month. The Kardashians’ very first episode showcased Kim breaking down in tears amid reports that Ray J’s manager was threatening to release a second sex tape.
However, later on in the series, her ex-husband Kanye West was praised by Kim and the family after he retrieved a laptop from Ray J that apparently contained all unreleased footage. Kim however joked that she couldn’t be 100% sure there wasn’t a second sex tape, saying of her ex-boyfriend, “What if I was f****** sleeping and he stuck a dildo up my a**? I don’t know.”
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Ray J has now clapped back at the comment by leaking a private conversation that he had with Kim on Instagram last month after the episode aired. In the messages, Ray J claims that he, Kim, and her momager, Kris Jenner, planned the sex tape’s leak — a stance that he doubled down on in an interview with the Daily Mail.
“I can’t live the rest of my life in this lie. This morning, I woke up and said, you know what? For the remainder of my life, I’m going to live in my truth and not in the lie that’s been created by Kris Jenner and Kim,” he explained to the outlet. “I will not let them do this to me anymore.”
He went on to call the sex tape’s release the “biggest lie in the industry in the history of entertainment” as he claimed that he, Kim, and Kris were “partners” throughout its leak.
“I’ve never leaked anything. I have never leaked a sex tape in my life. It has never been a leak. It’s always been a deal and a partnership between Kris Jenner and Kim and me and we’ve always been partners since the beginning of this thing,” he said.
Ray J alleged that is was he who suggested the leak to Kim after they saw her friend Paris Hilton’s profile skyrocket following the release of her sex tape with Rick Saloman. Kim has always maintained that she never wanted the video to come out, however, Ray J stated that she was on board with the idea and asked her mom to help orchestrate it.
He has also insisted that he never possessed a copy of any of the tapes they’d made and claimed that there is a second that was filmed in Santa Barbara.
“She’s always had all the tapes in a Nike shoebox under her bed,” Ray J said. “I’m sure she has bigger beds now and better boxes. That’s how it all came about. Once I pitched the idea to her, just playing around a little bit, that’s when she jumped on the idea, talked to her mom and it was out of my hands from there.”
Ray J said that he regretted the leak as he was publicly blamed for the sex tape’s release. And because he signed a contract without seeking legal advice, he was unable to correct the record.
“You’re watching a whole family create an empire from a lie they’ve created, it’s heartbreaking and disrespectful to all the entertainers who have been honest and true to their craft,” he added.
He also claimed that the implication that he leaked the tape cost him job offers and while it has been quite some time since the tape’s release, Ray J alleged he decided to speak out now after Kim made the tape a storyline once again.
In addition to Kim’s dildo joke, Ray J was unhappy when Kanye told Kris that his family would no longer be “extorted” after he’d retrieved the laptop.
Ray J said that he was more than happy to hand over the device, which contained intimate photos and “mini-videos” that Kim sent him during their four-year relationship, to alleviate Kim’s fears about new footage being released, and he never expected payment for it.
The laptop also contained emails that proved they’d spoken over the years following their split in 2006. However, Ray J maintained that he never had a second sex tape to leak and doesn’t “have a plan to ruin them.”
Ray J also provided the Daily Mail with screenshots of a conversation he had with Kim on Instagram last month, where he accused her of “playing games” and said that they “had an agreement.”
“We sat down with [redacted] and your mom and we planned all of this together, now you really are taking this lie to the next level, making me look krazy [sic],” one message read.
“Unless you reach out to me soon I’m gonna take it to the level where it shows all of what we did — all of the meetings and convos about the plan.”
Elsewhere in Ray J’s DMs, he said: “You know what we did! Your mom controlled this whole sex tape deal” and asked: “Why are you trying to ruin me when you know I was just a player in this! You have to stop believing your own lies!”
He also called Kim out for her “out of control” comment about him “sticking a dildo in [her] a**,” writing: “Seriously, it makes me look like a rapist and a dirty perv and I’m catching a lot of slack from it.”
Kim went on to apologize for the dildo comment and ensured that her team would put out a statement clarifying how she was just joking.
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