Two minutes wasted reading my blog

The “Marilyn Monroe” sex tape story is a hoax.

If you missed the story, a Marilyn Monroe “Collector/Producer” named Keya Morgan claims that he uncovered a sex tape of Marilyn Monroe while researching a book on her death. He then brokered a deal with an unnamed New York businessman who paid 1.5 million for the tape, which he will lock up in his vault with no plans to exploit the tape out of respect for MM’s memory. In an interview on CBS, “Keya Morgan” says that he was filming an interview with an eighty-something year old man who was present on the day Monroe died, and during the interview, the man mentioned that he had made a copy of the Monroe sex tape which was later confiscated by the FBI. Thus, he has the only copy of the film! Morgan claims that he himself would never have been a part of allowing the movie to be exploited and tarnish Monroe’s (pristine?) image, so he did the logical thing: he found a buyer and brokered the private sale.

I call shenanigans! For this story to be true, you have to believe:

1. The eighty year old man has quietly kept this film for 50 years and either shared it with no one, or only with people who kept quiet, but then for some unknown reason began telling a “producer/collector” about the tape while being filmed. Then, he readily showed it to Morgan. Then, allowed Morgan to broker a sale of the tape. Query: why didn’t the old man sell the tape himself years earlier? Anyone remotely lucid would realize the value of such a tape. The only answer would be that he really, really wanted to protect Monroe’s image (which isn’t exactly virginal to begin with.) But if he was so concerned about that, why would he tell Morgan about the tape while on camera? And, if he really wanted to make sure the tape didn’t become public, why would he sell it to someone else? The only certain way to make sure it remains under wraps would be to destroy the only available copy of the film. Shenanigans!

2. Producer/Collector Keya Morgan says he would never be a part of allowing that tape to be made public, yet he allegedly brokered the sale of the tape? How did secretly find a buyer willing to pay 1.5 million for the rights to keep the tape in his safe? Wouldn’t that kind of money require a bidding war of some kind? Most importantly, if your primary goal is to protect Monroe’s image, why would you go on the morning talk show circuit to talk about the tape, how you found it and what was on it? Doesn’t that tarnish her image too? If it was so important that the sale be secret until it was completed, wouldn’t the parties want to keep it quiet afterwards? It would be really easy to accomplish that by contract.

Plus, in the interview I saw of him on CBS, something just didn’t seem right. At one point, the interviewer asked why he sold the tape for so much less than he could have gotten. Even though at another point he made clear that he was simply the “broker” and not the seller, rather than tell her that, he says he didn’t want to exploit Monroe. If he was a broker, wouldn’t his duty be to represent the interests of his client, the seller? To be honest, he just looks like someone who is pulling a fast one.

3. Some unknown “businessman” was willing to buy the secretly buy the tape for 1.5 million dollars just to keep it in his safe? Did he buy the tape on Morgan’s word that it really was MM? It wouldn’t exactly be easy to positively identify anyone in a 50 year old amateur film, would it? If you bought the tape for that kind of money with no profit motive, would you really be ok with the “broker” of the deal going public with it?

Now, I don’t disbelieve that MM made a sex tape at some point. From the time cameras became commercially available, people have filmed themselves and others nude and having sex. Monroe was a struggling actress and model, and it isn’t that hard to believe she’d have made a stag movie for some quick cash early in her career. But that tape, if it exists, is not the subject of this story. All in all, the chance that this story is as reported is pretty slim, IMO.