Wonderry Plus subscribers can listen to scam fluencers early and ad-free right now.

Join Wondery Plus in the Wondry app or Apple Podcasts.

A note to our listeners, the story includes mention of sexual assault,

sexually explicit content, physical assault,

and a very bad word that Joe Francis called me in an email.

Listen with care. Sarah, is there anything from the early

2000s that you think about a lot, but like everyone else has forgotten? I mean, obviously,

there are so many, but I'll keep it short, this fake American Idol style show called WB Superstar USA

that was trying to find the worst singer in America. I think about that a lot.

That's a good one. I remember that one too.

Okay, well, I obviously have one too, and mine is Girls Gone Wild. Do you remember that company?

I mean, everyone remembers Girls Gone Wild because if you watch TV at night, you would get

the ads without fail.

It would be like those girls taking their tops off, blurry around the boobs.

Yeah, exactly right.

Well, Sarah, I actually went so deep on my early Otts obsession that I reported on it for four years.

And now there's a three-part docu-series on Peacock based on some of my reporting.

For years, Girls Gone Wild was a direct-to-consumer video series featuring young women flashing while on spring break.

And in some cases, doing a lot more.

It became one of the hottest brands in the country until it all fell apart, thanks to

financial misdeeds, a once famous CEO, and a lot of very brave women.

It's September 2022, and Joe Francis is wandering around his 45,000 square foot mansion in southwest Mexico.

...