Luminary and New York Magazine's Tabloid season 2 premieres

Luminary, a subscription podcast network, and New York Magazine announced that Tabloid: The Pam & Tommy Sex Tape premiered 28 Jun. Acclaimed writer and journalist Lux Alptraum hosts the second season of the hit podcast series, which will be available on the Luminary app or on the Luminary channel on Apple Podcasts.

Tabloid’s second season digs up new details about Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee’s sex tape: how it was stolen, who distributed it, and how it affected their lives. We hear from Pamela’s manager about how she changed when she met Tommy. We hear the story of the electrician who stole the tape, and decide what parts of his story are legend. We meet the characters who hustled to get the tape into the world and their regrets. And Pamela finally gets an apology from the one person who made money off the tape.

But the most enlightening part of Tabloid is its cultural analysis. The series is designed to look back at scandals we never took seriously enough. And this is definitely one. The tape changed our culture, setting new legal standards for privacy. It popularized a style for unfiltered, raw honesty which people online still imitate every day. And it created an appetite for exposure which has left us all vulnerable.

“Tabloid: The Pam & Tommy Sex Tape is our feminist take on celebrity sex tapes,” said host Lux Alptraum. “On one hand, we wanted to find out how a video of the sexiest couple of the era ended up in the bedrooms of thousands of teenage boys. On the other hand, we wanted to take a sharp, analytical approach to the scandalized tone of celebrity gossip mags and reframe them with real-world economics and real people’s issues. We track its origins as a single VHS tape locked in a safe to an international phenomenon that wound up accelerating so many trends we still live with today.”

Host Lux Alptraum spent six years as editor of Fleshbot, a groundbreaking porn blog founded by Gawker Media. In the years since, her writing has been featured in outlets including The New York Times, Cosmopolitan, and Hustler, and helped shape the Peabody-nominated documentary series Sex.Right.Now. Guests on Tabloid: The Pam & Tommy Sex Tape include Ray Manzella, Pamela Anderson’s former manager; Guerin Swing, a close personal friend of Tommy Lee’s; Amanda Chicago Lewis, the reporter who broke the story of how the tape got stolen; Cort St. George, a man who worked at the internet porn company that ended up with the tape; Kevin Blatt, celebrity sex tape broker; Vanessa Diaz, a People Magazine reporter from the early aughts; Anna Holmes, founder of Jezebel; and Sinnamon Love, an internet porn pioneer.

Each season of Tabloid, a joint production between Luminary and New York Magazine, digs into a story from the gossip rags of the past that looks totally different seen in today’s light. Tabloid: The Pam & Tommy Sex Tape premieres on Monday, June 28. The first season of TABLOID was The Making Of Ivanka Trump, hosted by Vanessa Grigoriadis.

New episodes of the Tabloid: The Pam & Tommy Sex Tape podcast will be available each Monday through August 9. You can listen to the show on the Luminary app or on the Luminary channel on Apple Podcasts.

About Luminary

Luminary is a subscription podcast network with an award-winning lineup of original shows you won’t find anywhere else. Subscribers enjoy unlimited access to the full collection of Luminary Original Podcasts, featuring celebrated creators, diverse voices, and important stories told through a new lens. You can find Luminary’s original content via the Luminary app, available on iOS, Android, and the web, and it is now available on Apple Podcasts Luminary channel.

Luminary was founded by Matt Sacks in 2018 with backing from NEA, a global venture capital fund. Driven by a love for podcasts, Luminary is elevating the podcasting experience for both listeners and creators.

Luminary offers all listeners a seven-day free trial. After the free trial, the annual subscription is $34.99, or the equivalent of about $2.99 per month. Luminary also offers a monthly subscription for $4.99. International pricing is similar to US pricing, with annual and monthly plans available in each territory.

About New York Magazine

New York Magazine obsessively chronicles the ideas, people, and cultural events that are forever reshaping our world. Part of Vox Media since November 2019, the beloved and influential New York brands include the groundbreaking magazine New York, which is published biweekly in print, and six thriving verticals: Intelligencer, delivering national news and sharp commentary on politics, business, technology, and media; The Cut, covering style, self, culture, and power; Vulture, the premier site for culture news, criticism and service; The Strategist, dedicated to shopping the internet smartly; Curbed, covering cities and city life; and Grub Street, home to food news and authoritative restaurant criticism.