A celebrity sex tape is typically an amateurpornographic video recording involving one or more celebrity famous person(s)which has, intentionally or unintentionally, been made available publicly. Suchvideo tapes are often released without the consent of their subjects, and couldpotentially damage celebrities" careers. In 1988, a sex tape caused significantdamage to Rob Lowe"s career.[1] In recent years, however, many celebrities havebenefited from the publicity resulting from the release of a sex tape.[2] Therelease of Paris Hilton"s sex tape in 2003 as well as Kim Kardashian"s sex tapein 2007 brought them to a new level of fame, leading to magazine covers, bookdeals, and reality TV series.

The surfacing of sex tapes has become socommon that some are "leaked" as a marketing tool to advance or establish amedia career.[1] A celebrity can fight the release in court to maintaindeniability while still enjoying the career benefits. In contrast, a celebritymay take the route of openly releasing the tape and benefit directly fromroyalties as well as indirectly from the publicity. The current publicacceptance of celebrities with sex tapes is speculated by Joe Levy, executiveeditor of Rolling Stone, to be due to the easy availability of pornography, aswell as couples more commonly making their own tapes due to the prevalence ofvideocameras