Kevin Blatt is trying to make Paris Hilton the world’s biggest name in adult video history. But she won’t be thanking the former Clevelander anytime soon.
Hilton, the celebrity socialite, heiress and star of the Fox reality television show “The Simple Life,” is the subject of a new sex video made and sold by her former boyfriend Rick Salomon. The DVD and VHS tape entitled “1 Night in Paris” will be on the market Wednesday, June 9. Blatt, public-relations specialist for the distributor, Red Light District Video, said preorders for the tape have reached half a million.
He has a history with the sex tapes of the hotel heiress. The former Beachwood resident was doing promotions for Seattle-based Sex Brat.com when the first Paris Hilton video flooded the Internet last summer. Salomon claimed a friend stole the tape from his house without his knowledge or permission and sold it to Sex Brat for $50,000.
Lawsuits followed, and Sex Brat ultimately dropped the project in November after learning Hilton had not consented to the tape’s sale.
During the media frenzy, Blatt became a media go-to guy on celebrity sex tapes. He appeared on ABC’s “20/ 20,” VH1, “Access Hollywood” and Howard Stern’s radio program to talk about the celeb sex-video phenomenon. Blatt, who has his own company called KB Consulting, is now with Red Light District Video, which bought the second tape from Salomon. This time, Blatt is confident it will be a big success.
“The attorneys here have done due diligence . . . Rick Salomon is the clear copyright holder. This is unprecedented, groundbreaking stuff,” Blatt said.
Lou Colombo, a partner at the Baker & Hostetler law firm in Cleveland, specializes in First Amendment matters and copyright litigation. He said the new tape in particular and celebrity sex tapes in general present odd legal situations.
“Some thorny questions come up.
As far as privacy, three or four distinct torts apply. The most obvious would be commercial appropriation. She [Hilton] may have consented to making the tape. But did she ever intend for its distribution in a mass market? That would be just one legal approach,” Colombo said.
Representatives of the Hilton family have declined comment.
Adult industry journalists say that the new Hilton video is on track to be as big as or a bigger seller than the Tommy Lee and Pam Anderson tape, which is generally considered the No. 1 selling tape in adult-video history.
“It’s going to be big. The word is that advance sales for this tape are between half a million and 600,000,” said Gene Ross, who has written about the adult industry for 20 years and has his own Web site, Adultfyi.com. “And that’s just DVD. I don’t know what the VHS sales are.”
Tim Connelly, publisher of the Web site Adult Video News (AVN.com), said, “People want to see this privileged person compromised. It’s what they call added value.”
Blatt, 35, grew up in Beachwood, graduating from Mayfield High School in 1987. He attended Ohio State for a couple years, he said, but left without a degree and worked at a variety of jobs around Cleveland, selling aluminum siding, radio air time and working security at music clubs in Cleveland.
In 1996, he moved to San Diego and into the adult Internet world. He distances himself from the term “pornographer.”
“I consider myself a broker for adult-themed entertainment. I’m an information provider,” Blatt said.
As for the popularity of celebrity sex videos, Blatt said women like them as much as men do.
“Women want to see what kind of curtains the celebrities have,” he said, laughing.