Girls Gone Wild Declares Bankruptcy, Joe Francis Still Rich

by Lizzie Plaugic

Lately while watching late-night TV, you may have found yourself licking Cheeto-fuzz off your fingers and thinking, "Is this the third Magic Bullet infomercial I’ve seen? What happened to all the Girls Gone Wild commercials?" Well, those after-hours GGW commercials might be harder to come by in the upcoming months. That’s because Girls Gone Wild has gone the way of its old companion, VHS player: general obsolescence and, more specifically, bankruptcy.

Earlier this year, GGW kingpin Joe Francis lost a $20 million lawsuit against painfully rich casino mogul and robot Steve Wynn after Francis claimed Wynn threatened (in an all-caps email) to have him "buried in the middle of the desert." Anyway, Francis still owes Wynn a whole bunch of money for various casino debts and the lawsuit, and has been shifting his assets around to avoid paying.

But who’s feeling the heat from this? Not Francis—who, by the way, would just like to add, that this has no effect on his personal wealth—but three GGW subsidiaries: GGW Events, GGW Magazine and GGW Direct, all filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Chapter 11 falls under the category of “reorganization” and Francis claims the bankruptcy is "just like American Airlines." So maybe U.S. Airways also has a thing for topless girls? What Francis is really saying is that things will continue as usual for the company—except probably not really.

A spokesperson for Wynn says the bankruptcy doesn’t affect the debt owed, (which seems to be growing even as I type this) so, I guess nothing has really changed. My theory is, this spat between Wynn and Francis actually has nothing to do with money and they’re really just locked in some sort of Luke Skywalker/Darth Vader battle. Have you seen them? There are definitely some shared genes there. I don’t know Joe, I’m thinking maybe don’t take your X-Wing Fighter ship cruising around the Las Vegas desert for a while?