Joe Francis is a tough guy to avoid. Flick on late-night TV and you’ll be bombarded with the not-so-subtle ads for his Girls Gone Wild videotapes, which feature cheesy, low-budget footage of tipsy coeds flashing for the camera. In the four years since Francis first started showing up at Mardi Gras parties and spring-break beach bashes, enticing young women to bare all in exchange for a T shirt, the tapes have become wildly popular. Frat boys proudly play the videos at parties. Justin Timberlake and Brad Pitt sport girls gone wild caps around town. The tapes have also made Francis, a former TV production assistant who maxed out his credit cards to start the company, a very rich man. He’s moved millions of tapes, and built GGW into an empire reportedly worth $100 million. Donald Trump gushes about Francis, hailing him as a “great entrepreneur.”
HE’S CERTAINLY living the life of the big-time tycoon. At 30, he hosts movie stars on his private jet, cruises the streets of L.A. in a Ferrari and squires around a series of rich girlfriends, including hotel heiress and professional party girl Paris Hilton. His latest project, NEWSWEEK has learned: a nationwide chain of theme restaurants. “We want it to be like Hooters,” Francis recently related aboard his leased Gulfstream. “We want to have them across the country in college towns.”
Unless he winds up in prison. Last spring Francis was arrested in Panama City Beach, Fla....
http://msnbc.com/news/969656.asp?0cv=CB20Sounds like a Rat Robertson inspired charges.