Review: The Madness of Joe Francis: I Thought We Were All Just Having Fun. I Was Wrong.

The Madness of Joe Francis: I Thought We Were All Just Having Fun. I Was Wrong. by David L. Angier

My rating: 2 of 5 stars



I had seen the saturation of late-night TV by Girls Gone Wild ads and then noticed that they disappeared. I heard the news story about the house invader that degraded Francis and learned from the story that he was very wealthy from GGW. So, I came across this book and decided to read it and learn about the apparent decline. Maybe the real nail in the coffis was the near $50 million Francis now owes Steve Wynn, but certainly this books shows how Francis has the character and big mouth to write checks maybe even his own deep pockets cannot cash. Angier's telling is rather tedious, but even it is telling: Francis is a megalomaniac and maybe suffers from hypomania which comes across like he's pepped up on drugs, which may be he is or was. When he chooses to represent himself against the minors suing him for selling footage for them his ego issues seem to be his nemesis. Actually, as the epilogue jury foreman interview shows, that performance and judge Smoak's inflexibility on a minimum for any judegement saved his bacon. Still, as the Wynn story shows, it wasn't a wake-up call, just the confirmation his big head needed to lead him into bigger troubles. It's really amazing he 'succeeded' as well as he did given what a jerk he apparently is from the accounts recorded here.





View all my reviews