‘Girls Gone Wild’ Docuseries Reporter Dishes on Explosive Interview With Joe Francis

Joe Francis built a multimillion-dollar empire based around Spring Breakers exposing themselves on camera. His “sex sells” business model created a swarm of controversy, debate, and legal backlash. Peacock’s original docuseries Girls Gone Wild: The Untold Story digs into the cultural impact of the franchise and its creator. 

This was done through the lens of former employees, past women who felt exploited on VHS tapes and DVDs, journalists, and those who worked to take Francis’ operation down including former Panama City Beach Mayor Lee Sulivan.

Author and journalist Scaachi Koul interviewed Francis at length. Recorded audio from their explosive conversations is threaded throughout the three episodes. The BuzzFeed News reporter sat down with the debaucherous kingpin in 2022 for nine hours at his 45,000-square foot beachfront property in Punta Mita, Mexico for an in-depth article that ran in March 2023.  

Here Koul, who also serves as a co-executive producer on the doc, talks about the making of the project. 

Take me through how your Joe Francis story evolved into the Peacock docuseries. 

Scaachi Koul: It has been a long process. Karolina Waclawiak, who is one of the producers on the doc and used to be my editor at BuzzFeed News, called me one day asking, “What happened to Joe Francis and Girls Gone Wild?” I thought, “Good question.” That process started four years ago just in reporting. We were trying to make sense of Joe’s case in Panama City. He had a lot of legal issues there. We’d heard about some of it and how there were some issues with how the investigation happened. We fell down this rabbit hole. Here years later, we have this three-part doc that gets into that and how the company existed. It’s a look back and also a referendum on where we are now. It has been a pretty complex four years. 

Pictured: Joe Francis — (Photo by: Maxine Productions)

What was it like hearing from the ladies who relived the trauma they experienced and are still haunted by it today? 

I think these are life events they are talking about they have thought about every day since they happened. I think when we talk about content rooted in nostalgia, we talk about it like we are revisiting something or looking back at something. These experiences are a lot more elastic than that. The women who are often mired in them go back to them again and again daily. It’s not like 20 years later, and now she has time to think about it. I think that comes through. How much of an impact did Girls Gone Wild have on the women they filmed back then? The impact on them was so profound. 

These are girls who were going to high school and their teacher has seen them in a tape. I did so much reporting on how people found out in their small towns. It was their dad who saw something at the bar. There was one girl whose brother was in a barracks and someone brought him a tape that his sister was on. The impact was so profound and changed so much of their lives. I think we get into hopefully some of that, which is an experience a lot of women have in different places and ways. 

Your interview with Joe is used in the doc. I found it interesting that he made such a big deal about having you speak to him for BuzzFeed so he could get his side of the story out there. Here he turned down the opportunity to speak for himself on the doc. What was your reaction to that? 

That interview I did with him was in 2022. If I think about it, he has had a lot of life since then. I don’t know what has happened between our interview and now. He has his own feelings and makes his own choice of not participating. I think my interview with him is revealing and interesting. His words are interesting in the context of what all these women are also talking about. Him as an interview subject is one thing, but him putting into practice what he is saying as to what has happened with the history of this company. What these women are saying happened to them. That’s where I think he is really interesting. I don’t know why he didn’t. 

Scaachi Koul. Photo byMaxine Productions

Another aspect the doc goes into is how connected he was with celebrities, including the Kardashians, even with all the legal issues and controversies surrounding him. 

Girls Gone Wild and Joe Francis had really deep relationships with lots of celebrities. He was very well established in Bel Air early on. There are lots of famous people who were wearing Girls Gone Wild merch. Famous people who used to party with Joe. That’s not unique or rare. I think at the time of his celebrity 2003 to about 2006, everyone was just clubbing and hanging out. 

There were all these sorts of micro-celebrities popping up. Perez Hilton was making it even bigger. It was very much the culture of the time. In terms of his associations now, I think he has some power. I think he still has sway and is friends with certain people. I think he still has certain numbers in his Rolodex. There is always an appetite amongst people who seek celebrity to be aligned with that. Maybe that’s part of it. I don’t know. I’m not hanging out with him. 

For you so entrenched in the story, was there anything new or eye-opening through the production process? 

I found all of it pretty jarring, from beginning to end. My perspective changed over the course of the story. I was married when we started working on this. I’m not anymore. My attitude towards all of this kind of work, which I’d been doing for a long time. I’ve written about gender and sex and abuse like this for a long time. I feel different, but I don’t know. It’s a good question about the material. Four years is not a lot of time, yet it is so much time. Nothing feels that different. I mean [Donald] Trump is going to be president in a month. What’s old is new. 

Why do you think now is a good time for this to come out? 

I think any time is a good time to talk about what happened. I think we should always be talking about what happened. I think there is no way to stop repeating the mistakes of the past without discussing them. 

What kind of impact do you think this will have? 

I’m curious to find out. I hope it makes people think about their sexual politics a little more. I think it’s hard to think too hard about it because you don’t want to feel complicit in something that is gross. We all are in lots of ways without trying to. I think it’s worth considering how all of this is connected with the spectrum we are on. This is when it comes to how much bodily autonomy we allow girls and women to have. I think thinking about that journey is interesting and worthwhile because I would like more progress. I’d liek for me and other women I know. The only way I know how to do that is to try to think about what has happened. I think records are important. 

We’re in this era of Instagram and OnlyFans. Back then, it was an interesting time when people all had phones. Documenting everything about our lives wasn’t as prevalent, which I think made the fact these cameras were around more interesting to people. How is it looking at today? 

What you’re saying about us not really having phones is true. Ownership was a different question. We talk about OnlyFans and sex work and pornography or whatever women are engaged in, we’re usually talking about things that were made lawfully. Often women are owners, hopefully, in that profit. Here that’s not what was happening with Girls Gone Wild at all. Some of them were minors. The ones who were adults were not necessarily participants in that way. It’s clear they didn’t fully understand what the outcome could possibly be. Even in terms of how much they were paid. It’s a completely different conversation, which is so interesting. The proliferation of the internet changes ownership in this way. 

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It was also interesting hearing from employees of the company. How was it hearing their side? 

I think there are lots of ways we are morally compromised. I think this documentary has forced a lot of people to rethink how they participated in the world back then. It’s painful. You see that. There are people we’re talking to who are reckoning in real-time with what they are saying to us. They are older. Some of them have gotten married. They have more women in their lives that they don’t have romantic or sexual relationships with, which is so important. You’re talking to a completely different person than the one who worked there. I think that is true for everyone we talked to. This is a story ongoing for 25 years. 

Now this is out, what do you want to say to viewers? 

I hope people watch it. Whenever I talk to sources for stories liek this I tell them it will be hard but worth it. The way to make it worth it is for people to watch it so it feeds into their worldview and makes for a better one. 

Girls Gone Wild: The Untold Story is streaming on Peacock