The 84-minute film, part of TNT’s Rich and Shameless anthology, digs into the queasy popularity of Girls Gone Wild and assembles a deluge of evidence suggesting that Francis, a fixture of mid-aughts gossip blogs, was a serial physical and emotional abuser. The anything-goes raunch and eye-popping infomercials also (barely) masked something much more sinister and damaging, according to a new documentary, Girls Gone Wild Exposed.
(Nor was it without controversy at the time.) Francis dominated the soft-core porn market in the early internet days millions of people purchased footage of the girls – often barely over 18 and sometimes younger, predominantly white, thin and blonde – getting badgered by cameramen to take more shots, take their tops off, make out with their friends, use sex toys on themselves.