Photo: Courtesy of Kevin Blatt
If you’ve seen 1 Night in Paris, or whatever the Kim K and Ray J sex tape was called, then you’ve witnessed the business cunning of Kevin Blatt. Blatt is the celebrity sex tape broker, and, while the nature of his work has shifted with the times, that moniker is still very much his. With decades orbiting the outer fringes of pop culture, he’s become something of a Hollywood fixer, brokering sex tape deals but also 21st-century phenomena like intimate text messages and dick pics.He’s worked for the likes of TMZ, the Daily Mail and the Sun, and regularly appears on podcasts about the weird underbelly of Tinseltown. And while he still works with the tabloids, and also does PR for celeb site Mr. Skin, today he’s in the reputation management business with Brand Cloud, a company that uses reverse SEO and other digital sorcery to help celebrities bury unwanted information or claims made against them. It’s monetizing both sides of the reputational coin, as is his hallmark. As he appears on Fuse TV’s original series Sex Sells – which sees host Weezy delve into the successes of entrepreneurs and industry leaders in sexual health and positivity – we spoke to Blatt to find out more.VICE: Could you describe your working life as it is today? I appreciate you wear many hats.
Kevin Blatt: I work as a go-between or a fixer of sorts. As you can imagine, having spent many years doing the celebrity sex tapes, and the promotion of them, people still come to me on a regular basis trying to monetize dick pics, text messages, video, you name it. And while the juggernaut of celebrity sex tapes isn't what it used to be, there's still a market for it. But a lot of people don't realise that there's another side, which is the preservation of one's reputation. That's primarily what I focus on now. I work for a reputation management company called Brand Cloud. So all those years I spent – I won't say defaming celebrities – but promoting their misfortunes. Now, I profit by making that stuff go away.So when you get a celebrity sex tape, you will go to the celebrity who's not involved in disseminating it, and either help them kill it, or help them profit from it. Either way, you’re getting paid.
Yeah, you just gotta tell me what side of the desk you want me to sit on. If you wanna get the tape back, I'll help facilitate that. But if you want to put it out, well, I'll help facilitate that as well. It all just depends on what the objective is.In the PornHub era, how does the celeb sex tape business still function?
That’s a really good question because PornHub and all these tube sites are free. I could put out the greatest sex tape of the biggest celebrity in LA right now – there's no way to monetize it, other than if I were Pornhub, xHamster or YouPorn. These companies are still ad-based. When you see those ads on those websites, they're seeing millions and millions of eyeballs a day. That's the benefit of having something like that reside on a tube site: You can get millions of people to see it for free. It's not like back in the day when you would put out a sex tape – you had DVDs and VHS tapes and online memberships. Talk to me about some of the most nefarious shit you’ve seen in your working life in Hollywood.
I've seen an actor – a humongous, humongous actor – who's known for being a ladies’ man and crazy sexual proclivities and drugs. And he's gay. I mean, I've seen gay sex tapes of this guy. And nobody would believe it. I've seen a director, one of the biggest directors in Hollywood, who would hire a prostitute to come every Friday to a five-star hotel in Beverly Hills. [She would] Give herself a milk enema, and basically just let it all go on top of a coffee table that he'd be laying underneath.OK.
Crazy, devious behaviour. Keep in mind, there are so many celebrities in this town that have such weird sexual appetites, and obviously, discretion is valued upon everything else. I think it was Charlie Sheen who basically said something along the lines of, “I don't pay hookers to have sex with me, I pay them to leave.” Right? That has a lot to do with Hollywood's culture. How does the reality of Hollywood match up with our romanticised version?
You want to know the real reality, bro? The reality is this: There are a lot of people that suck off the tit of the celebrity in this town… It's not just George Clooney, it's not just Charlie Sheen, and not just Arnold Schwarzenegger that you’re dealing with. You're dealing with Schwarzenegger’s agent, their manager, their lawyer, their makeup artists, their stylists, directors of their new project. There are so many people attached to a person’s success in this town – there's nothing this town won't do to protect that machine and keep it going.
How old are you?
I’m 54, bro, but I am the most immature 54 year old you are ever gonna meet in your life. I went out with a 29 year old last week. My friends think it's terrible. I think it’s great.Yeah. Uhh... I don’t know.
Listen man, you only go around once. Life’s too short to date old, ugly bitches.I guess LA is the place to fuck around, isn't it?
Growing up, my nickname in Cleveland, Ohio was “Hollywood”. I used to wear sunglasses in school every day. I’d always tell people, “Someday, I’m gonna live in Hollywood, someday you're gonna read about me and I'm gonna be famous.” People would go: “That Kevin Blatt, he’s so full of shit.” Maybe that's the motivation I had growing up or whatever. But if you envision it happening, it happens. I’m not saying it happens to everybody. But I just knew that someday I was gonna live out here. I [just] didn't think I would be on this peripheral fringe or underbelly of Hollywood. A long time ago, somebody told me there are more millionaires per capita in southern California than anywhere in the world. And if you could convince somebody of your idea, or sell somebody on you, there's no amount of money that you can’t raise or be in proximity to, right? But they said the one thing you have to do in order to become uber-successful is, you need to have a niche. In a city where there’s 15 million people living in it, you have to stand out. You have to do one thing differently than anybody else. So that's why [it’s] “the celebrity sex tape broker” – because have you ever met another celebrity sex tape broker?No, not at all.
There’s a million pimps in Hollywood, but there’s only one celebrity sex tape broker.Sex Sells airs on Fuse on Wednesdays at 10pm ET and also on Fuse+ streaming service.@niche_t_
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Kevin Blatt: I work as a go-between or a fixer of sorts. As you can imagine, having spent many years doing the celebrity sex tapes, and the promotion of them, people still come to me on a regular basis trying to monetize dick pics, text messages, video, you name it. And while the juggernaut of celebrity sex tapes isn't what it used to be, there's still a market for it. But a lot of people don't realise that there's another side, which is the preservation of one's reputation. That's primarily what I focus on now. I work for a reputation management company called Brand Cloud. So all those years I spent – I won't say defaming celebrities – but promoting their misfortunes. Now, I profit by making that stuff go away.
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Yeah, you just gotta tell me what side of the desk you want me to sit on. If you wanna get the tape back, I'll help facilitate that. But if you want to put it out, well, I'll help facilitate that as well. It all just depends on what the objective is.In the PornHub era, how does the celeb sex tape business still function?
That’s a really good question because PornHub and all these tube sites are free. I could put out the greatest sex tape of the biggest celebrity in LA right now – there's no way to monetize it, other than if I were Pornhub, xHamster or YouPorn. These companies are still ad-based. When you see those ads on those websites, they're seeing millions and millions of eyeballs a day. That's the benefit of having something like that reside on a tube site: You can get millions of people to see it for free. It's not like back in the day when you would put out a sex tape – you had DVDs and VHS tapes and online memberships. Talk to me about some of the most nefarious shit you’ve seen in your working life in Hollywood.
I've seen an actor – a humongous, humongous actor – who's known for being a ladies’ man and crazy sexual proclivities and drugs. And he's gay. I mean, I've seen gay sex tapes of this guy. And nobody would believe it. I've seen a director, one of the biggest directors in Hollywood, who would hire a prostitute to come every Friday to a five-star hotel in Beverly Hills. [She would] Give herself a milk enema, and basically just let it all go on top of a coffee table that he'd be laying underneath.
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Crazy, devious behaviour. Keep in mind, there are so many celebrities in this town that have such weird sexual appetites, and obviously, discretion is valued upon everything else. I think it was Charlie Sheen who basically said something along the lines of, “I don't pay hookers to have sex with me, I pay them to leave.” Right? That has a lot to do with Hollywood's culture. How does the reality of Hollywood match up with our romanticised version?
You want to know the real reality, bro? The reality is this: There are a lot of people that suck off the tit of the celebrity in this town… It's not just George Clooney, it's not just Charlie Sheen, and not just Arnold Schwarzenegger that you’re dealing with. You're dealing with Schwarzenegger’s agent, their manager, their lawyer, their makeup artists, their stylists, directors of their new project. There are so many people attached to a person’s success in this town – there's nothing this town won't do to protect that machine and keep it going.
I’m 54, bro, but I am the most immature 54 year old you are ever gonna meet in your life. I went out with a 29 year old last week. My friends think it's terrible. I think it’s great.Yeah. Uhh... I don’t know.
Listen man, you only go around once. Life’s too short to date old, ugly bitches.
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Growing up, my nickname in Cleveland, Ohio was “Hollywood”. I used to wear sunglasses in school every day. I’d always tell people, “Someday, I’m gonna live in Hollywood, someday you're gonna read about me and I'm gonna be famous.” People would go: “That Kevin Blatt, he’s so full of shit.” Maybe that's the motivation I had growing up or whatever. But if you envision it happening, it happens. I’m not saying it happens to everybody. But I just knew that someday I was gonna live out here. I [just] didn't think I would be on this peripheral fringe or underbelly of Hollywood. A long time ago, somebody told me there are more millionaires per capita in southern California than anywhere in the world. And if you could convince somebody of your idea, or sell somebody on you, there's no amount of money that you can’t raise or be in proximity to, right? But they said the one thing you have to do in order to become uber-successful is, you need to have a niche. In a city where there’s 15 million people living in it, you have to stand out. You have to do one thing differently than anybody else. So that's why [it’s] “the celebrity sex tape broker” – because have you ever met another celebrity sex tape broker?No, not at all.
There’s a million pimps in Hollywood, but there’s only one celebrity sex tape broker.Sex Sells airs on Fuse on Wednesdays at 10pm ET and also on Fuse+ streaming service.@niche_t_