LOS ANGELES, CA — Whether any of the under-aged girls who’ve managed to flash their lady bits for the Girls Gone Wild cameras will be featured on the company’s newly launched GirlsGoneWildCash.com affiliate program is unknown, but on-again/off-again jailbird and company CEO, Joe Francis, is proud to proclaim the new program alive and waiting for webmasters.Although still locked in a legal battle with Panama City, FL U.S. District Judge Richard Smoak, whom Francis accuses of being driven by revenge, Francis announced this week that the Girls Gone Wild lifestyle brand is offering tidy financial incentives to webmasters willing to send traffic to the fledgling program.
With payouts of as much as $35 per signup, Francis proclaimed “This is a great opportunity for all of us” in a company press release. “The Girls Gone Wild CASH program allows our affiliates to participate in the fun and excitement of America’s favorite lifestyle brand,” he assures.
According to the write-up, GirlsGoneWild.com has installed a new shopping cart system, which will allow “for greater customization and a more robust user-centric experience,” in addition to “real time no-shave stats with NATS, giving web surfers increased flexibility in ordering DVDs and other merchandise, while making the setup and sale process for affiliates streamlined.”
Promotional tools are available to webmasters interested in promoting content ranging from Spring Break frolics to wild parties, crazy bar behavior, and more – all supported by endless hours of national television advertising and Girls Gone Wild garments.
Anthony Fisher, VP of online, observes that “In 2007, USA Today named Girls Gone Wild one of the top 25 Trends That Changed America. It’s a great moment for web affiliates to join in the revenue generated by one of the world’s most recognized brands as we begin reaching up to become one of the top 25 trends that changed the Web.”
Unfortunately for Girls Gone Wild, one of the primary ways that many Americans have learned about the company is via the news media’s coverage of Francis’ ongoing legal battles, both concerning taxes and claims that his representatives filmed girls not only too young to be drunk, but too young to be providing valid 2257 documents.
In addition to renewed battles in Panama City concerning girls allegedly as young as 13 at the time of their video appearances, Francis’ recent high profile offer of $1 million to call girl Ashley Alexandra Dupre has been revoked, supposedly because archival footage revealed that she had already gone wild for a week on one of the company’s 2003 tour buses. The fact she may have been a month shy of her 18th birthday at the time has not flapped the unapologetic Francis, who insists that even if she wasn’t of legal age, “It doesn’t matter. There’s no sexual contact, so even if she was 17 or 16 for that matter, federal and state law permits posing nude. We’re just talking about nudity, not pornography.”
The validity of this distinction will ultimately be decided by legal experts, who will ponder whether a 17-year-old girl “dancing around naked and flashing her breasts” qualifies as pornography or merely nude modeling. Given that Dupre appears in seven full-length tapes and engages in not only flashing but also girl-girl activity may influence which side of the law the footage falls on.
In the meantime, Francis is missing few opportunities to take pot shots at Dupre, who apparently wanted more money in exchange for less raunchiness. “We can’t get a DVD together fast enough,” he gushed. “Her candle is going to burn out pretty quickly, especially after we release our footage. Our footage is from when she was 18-years-old, and it doesn’t get much better than that. Eliot Spitzer has put some miles on that girl.”
Francis isn’t looking as fresh as he was a year ago, either, but is presumably pleased to be free after spending nearly a year in jail after pleading no contest to child abuse and prostitution. Although he no longer needs to bribe guards for bottles of water or hide sleeping pills in his cell, he still faces federal tax evasion charges in Nevada.
