Background and career
Joseph R. Francis (born April 1, 1973) is an American softcore pornographer and the founder and creator of the Girls Gone Wild entertainment brand. Francis worked as a production assistant on the syndicated program Real TV (1996) before releasing the direct-to-video film Banned from Television (1998). Francis has, on several occasions, been convicted of bribery, false imprisonment, assault causing great bodily injury, dissuading a witness, record-keeping violations and tax evasion; in 2015, he pleaded no contest to child abuse and prostitution. Also in 2015, after being convicted for imprisoning three women at his Hollywood home (and assaulting one of them), he fled the United States and has lived at his residence in Punta Mita, Nayarit, Mexico, ever since, attempting to avoid extradition. Francis has since faced more sexual assault allegations, including allegations of engaging in sex with underage partners and nonconsensual sexual encounters with multiple women.
Joe Francis was born on April 1, 1973, in Atlanta, Georgia, to parents Raymond and Maria Francis, the latter of whom was from Austria. According to Francis, when he was seven years old, the family moved to Newport Beach, California, where he attended Our Lady Queen of Angels Catholic Elementary School, and then a series of boarding schools. As a teenager, he lived in Laguna Beach and attended Laguna Beach High School. His first job was at a computer and video store. Francis attended the University of Southern California's Business Administration program, concentrating his education at the Lloyd Greif Center for Entrepreneurial Studies. He also took several courses in film and television, graduating in 1995 with a bachelor's degree from the USC Entrepreneurial Program.
Francis's first business venture began while working as a production assistant for Real TV, a syndicated reality television program that aired footage of extraordinary events that were not usually covered on mainstream news networks; it was then that Francis came up with the idea for Banned from Television. During his time at Real TV, people who worked in the studio would often view footage involving car accidents, violent crimes, and other graphic incidents. Francis licensed the footage, which he then sold through the Banned from Television videos, which he marketed via infomercials. The first Banned from Television video was released in 1998, followed by two sequels that were also released the same year. Some of the more famous footage included in the series was: Luis Donaldo Colosio's assassination, the rampage and death of circus elephant Tyke in Hawaii, the executions of Roberto Girón and Pedro Castillo, the Royal Jomtien Resort Hotel fire, and the death of Mary T. Wojtyla, a woman hit by a speeding train in Downers Grove, Illinois. Other footage included: the murder of Pete Shrum, the murder of Lea Mek, the murder of Kevin Ramsay by Konstantinos Fotopoulos and Deidre Hunt, the attempted suicide of Terry Rossland, the 1998 Cúa hostage crisis, a 1990 Lucas Oil 200 (ARCA) race in which Slick Johnson was killed and paramedic Mike Staley injured, and the deaths of motorcycle stunt riders Corey Scott and Butch Laswell. Due to the films' graphic content, Francis stopped the series after three films, because he found it too disturbing to watch them back-to-back. While viewing footage for inclusion on Banned from Television, Francis came across footage of female college students flashing their breasts during Mardi Gras in New Orleans and at various spring break parties. It was this footage that sparked Francis's next business venture with Girls Gone Wild. The first film in the series was rejected by the British Board of Film Classification for sensationalizing real-world graphic violence and was also refused a classification by the Australian Classification Board in 2007.
Francis created the Girls Gone Wild franchise in 1997 when he began using direct-response marketing, such as infomercials, to sell videos that he had produced. The videos were of college-aged women, often heavily intoxicated, who willingly exposed their bodies or acted wildly on camera. In its first two years, Girls Gone Wild made more than $20 million. By 2002, Francis had produced 83 different titles within the series, and was airing 30-minute infomercials on all major U.S. networks. In 2005, the company planned to donate 100% of the gross sales of their Mardi Gras-themed DVDs to the Red Cross to help victims of Hurricane Katrina. Abbey Wilson, who won the franchise's "Search for the Hottest Girl in America" contest in 2012, became Francis's long-term girlfriend. The two appeared on season 3 of the VH1 reality series Couples Therapy. In 2013, Wilson's iPad, containing private sexual videos of Francis and Wilson, was stolen; in retaliation, and to prevent distribution of the video before it was sold to any media outlets, his lawyer, David Houston, said that the thief, when caught, would be "prosecuted to the fullest extent of both the criminal and civil laws." In 2014, Wilson became pregnant with twins via in vitro fertilization. On October 7, 2014, she gave birth to two girls.
As of December 2024, Francis lives outside the United States, where he faces mounting legal troubles. Since 2015, he has lived regularly in Mexico. Francis and Abbey Wilson separated in 2021, and have since been engaged in a legal battle over the custody of their two daughters, who have lived with their mother in the United States.
In June 2007, Ashley Alexandra Dupré alleged that Francis and his company filmed her without permission, but she dropped her lawsuit after Francis released footage proving her consent. The following year, four women sued Girls Gone Wild for allegedly filming them as minors. Francis represented himself for part of the trial, until the judge cited him for contempt of court and fined him $2,500 for asking a plaintiff during cross-examination if she was a prostitute. Francis hired two lawyers that same day to represent him for the duration of the trial. In February 2012, Clark County, Nevada, judge Mark Denton awarded $7.5 million to businessman Steve Wynn for defamatory statements made by Francis. In September 2012, a jury awarded a further $20 million to Wynn in a slander case against Francis, claiming that Wynn had threatened to kill him over a gambling debt. Francis's witnesses all denied hearing Wynn make such threats. The jury added an additional $20 million in punitive damages. In November 2012, Judge Joanne O'Donnell reduced Wynn's award to $19 million, reasoning that the jury's decision was "speculative" and formed based on their dislike of Francis. As part of his January 2015 no contest plea to child abuse and prostitution charges, Francis also agreed to settle a 2003 lawsuit which involved allegations of videotaping the exposed breasts of underage girls.
