Marilyn Monroe sex tape a hoax
guendee@phillynews.comWHAT DO Marilyn Monroe, Lindsay Lohan and Britney Spears have in common? Of course, each woman was a point on the singer/actress continuum, each dyed her hair blond at point or another, and each was famous in her day for having a hot mess of a social life. But in more specific terms, all three have recently had media panting over false rumors that they had starred in sex tapes.
Lohan and Spears rumors are old news. But Monroe was back scandalizing a new generation from beyond the grave after New York collectibles dealer Keya Morgan came forward earlier this week with a wild story involving a 15-minute "French-type" silent reel, the FBI, Marilyn Monroe, a secret $1.5 million sale and the thwarted vengeance of J. Edgar Hoover.
The story as told by Morgan: The film, of a pre-fame Monroe performing oral sex on an unidentified man, was in the possession of the son of a former FBI informant who had worked under Hoover during the Kennedy administration. Hoover obtained the film in the '60s, hoping that the unidentified man in the film was JFK and that it could be used against him. Morgan, who first heard of the film while digging through recently-made-public FBI documents, tracked down the informant's son. The son was in possession of a bootleg copy of the film, which he claims is the only existing copy. Morgan then brokered a $1.5 million sale of the reel to an unidentified New York businessman, who Morgan says purchased it specifically so that it would never see the light of day and ruin Monroe's legacy.
Thus Morgan, having secured Monroe's good name out of the goodness of his heart... went and told the press the details of the French-type film, his part in brokering the deal and his upcoming documentary.
If you've noticed something fishy about this story, you're not the only one. After big news outlets picked up the story, several blogs and Web sites stepped up to poke holes in what they see as a shameless self-promotion move to get press for Morgan's unreleased documentary.
Web sites Defamer, the Smoking Gun and Radar are among several that questioned Morgan's credibility, going so far as to track down and publish the FBI documents that Morgan claimed had led him to the film and to point out some large differences between what the documents say and what Morgan claims they say, including how the dying informant got the reel in the first place. Defamer, which led the pack in scrutinizing the claims, is now being threatened with legal action by Morgan.
So what with Morgan's claims not lining up with the FBI's paperwork and his refusal to disclose any of the names in his story other than his own or to produce proof of the film's existence and Monroe experts far and near calling shenanigans, SatTatt feels pretty safe sticking Marilyn in the Venn diagram overlap of "Women who partied all night long" and "Women who nevertheless are not on film performing sexual acts." May she, Lindsay and Britney party hard in there for a long time. *
