up, whether it’s a surprise celebrity couple or a simple meme. But back in 1996, before Facebook, YouTube, and even Google existed, Baywatch star Pamela Anderson and Mötley Crüe drummer Tommy Lee found themselves at the center of an unprecedented viral sensation when their private sex tape was stolen and sold on the web.

The new Hulu series Pam & Tommy, starring Lily James and Sebastian Stan as the star duo, revisits this spectacle, which all started when a disgruntled contractor (played by Seth Rogen in the show) working on the couple’s house planned to get back at them after he was fired without pay. His plan was to steal a safe in Lee’s garage; what he found inside was lucrative footage that would lead to a full-blown celebrity sex tape scandal.

As new episodes roll out weekly, we’re looking back at some of the key moments in the saga involving Anderson and Lee’s turbulent relationship, the tape theft, and the legal battle that ensued.

1994

Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee meet on New Year’s Eve at the Hollywood club Sanctuary. “I thought he was a cool, friendly, nice guy. I gave him my number,” the actress told Movieline magazine, per the New York Post.

February 1995

Weeks after they first met, the couple have their first date in Cancún, Mexico. And by “first date,” we mean Anderson was on location for a photoshoot, and Lee crashed the trip, eager to see her again. After work, Anderson and Lee would see each other to go dancing and attend events. One of the nights, Lee “just proposed! He just said, ‘I want to marry you!’” the manager of the club they were at told People. The next day, they got married on the beach with eight guests (and no shoes).

1995

A 54-minute home video, containing eight minutes of Anderson and Lee having sex, is stolen from the couple’s Malibu home by electrician Rand Gauthier.

The contractor was fired from a renovation job on the couple’s mansion and was still owed $20,000, which his clients refused to pay him, according to a 2014 report in Rolling Stone by Amanda Chicago Lewis. When Gauthier and a fellow worker returned to the Lee-Anderson house post-firing to retrieve their tools, Lee pointed a shotgun at them. Thus, Gauthier planned his revenge (and spent the whole summer of ’95 plotting it). The burglary happened one night in October, a few days before Halloween. Gauthier told Rolling Stone he hopped the fence of the property, disguised himself as the couple’s dog when passing security cameras, and exited near dawn with a safe stolen from the garage, rolled out on a dolly.

The magazine notes that there are inconsistencies with Gauthier’s account in 2014 and how friends recalled he told the story closer to the heist, in regard to whether he committed the theft alone.

Inside the safe were guns, jewelry, and an assortment of personal items, including the tape, which Anderson and Lee recorded in the spring and summer of 1995. Gauthier brought the cassette to Milton Ingley, an adult film studio owner and friend. Using a loan from porn mogul Louis “Butchie” Peraino, Gauthier and Ingley made copies of the tape and set up websites where people could buy a VHS of the footage.

1996

Anderson and Lee realize that their safe is missing in January. They file a police report and hire a private investigator. Soon after, they learn that Penthouse magazine has acquired a copy of the tape but promises not to publish images from it. Still, that spooks the couple. In March, they file a $10 million civil suit against Penthouse, Gauthier, and others they thought had the tape.

For its June 1996 issue, Penthouse puts Anderson on the cover and reports on the tape in great detail. Because the outlet didn’t have permission to use photographs taken from the footage, “they illustrated the article with the stolen Polaroids that had first been published abroad,” per Rolling Stone.

“It’s devastating,” Anderson told CNN while promoting her action film Barb Wire. “But I really do believe that if anyone were to print those pictures, because it is stolen property, I really think they are going to pay for that and I really strongly believe and have faith that’s going to happen.”

Also in June, the couple welcome their first son, Brandon Thomas Lee.

1997

A judge dismisses the lawsuit, saying that Penthouse’s images of Anderson and Lee had previously been published elsewhere and were therefore no longer private property, according to The Los Angeles Times. The judge also shut down Anderson’s claims that the magazine exploited her image for profit, because the photos were used in a “newsworthy” story.

In October, the court issues an injunction against Ingley, barring him from further selling the tape. In November, Internet Entertainment Group founder Seth Warshavsky announces that he’ll broadcast the tape on the brand’s website, Club Love (a big publicity move). He does so days later after a judge refuses to issue an injunction against him, according to the Times.

That same month, Anderson and Lee sign away the copyright to the video to Warshavsky. At this point, they’re drained by all the legal back and forth, per Rolling Stone. The couple figured that if the tape was distributed online, at least it wouldn’t be sold in stores; but they didn’t realize the power of the internet then.

Now, Club Love subscribers could view the tape on the site. “We had thousands of sales a day, every day, for months,” director of sales and marketing Jonathan Silverstein told the outlet in 2014. Warshavsky even worked out a deal to get the tape manufactured into physical copies and sold in stores.

In December, the couple settle a lawsuit against Warshavsky’s Internet Entertainment Group for posting the tape online. They welcome their second son, Dylan Jagger Lee, the same month.

1998

In February, Lee was arrested after Anderson called the police, accusing him of assaulting her at home while she was carrying their two-month-old son, Dylan, Associated Press reported at the time. The police report said she had a broken fingernail and red marks on her back. She filed for divorce days later.

In May, Lee was sentenced to six months in prison after he pled no contest to felony spousal abuse charges.

1999

Anderson and Lee apparently reunite, with the rocker now out of jail. Entertainment Weekly reported that the two were considering remarrying, with the Baywatch star saying, “I picture Tommy and me…old, toothless, on a bench somewhere with our tattoos.” But they parted ways again the following year.

2002

Anderson and Lee finally get a win. They were each awarded $740,000 in a default judgment in their lawsuits against Internet Entertainment Group, People reports. An appeals court had since overturned the judge’s original 1998 decision, allowing for the case to get reopened. The total granted to Anderson and Lee was $1.48 million, split between them, equaling IEG’s profits from the tape.

2008

After an on-and-off relationship and brief marriage (in 2006) to Kid Rock and another brief marriage to Rick Salomon, Anderson is back with Lee. The drummer tells Rolling Stone that year, “Pamela and the kids have moved in with me” and that their reunion is “definitely working.” He added, “We’ve only given it a try 800 times — 801, here we go.” But they split for a final time in 2010.

2015

Two decades after filming the infamous footage, Anderson looks back on the scandal—and how she was exploited for other people’s profit. She told Andy Cohen on Watch What Happens Live!, “I’ve never seen it. I made not one dollar. It was stolen property. We made a deal to stop all the shenanigans. I was seven months pregnant with Dylan and thinking it was affecting the pregnancy with the stress and said, ‘I’m not going to court anymore. I’m not being deposed anymore by these horny, weird lawyer men. I don’t want to talk about my vagina anymore or my public sex—anything.”

2018

In March, Anderson publicly speaks out against Lee after he alleges their 21-year-old son, Brandon, knocked him unconscious. In a statement to People, Brandon responded to his father’s claims saying, “I’m devastated at the events of the last several days that have been a result of my father’s alcoholism.” Breaking her silence, Anderson shares a blog post titled “Alcoholism Is the Devil,” where she stands by her son and disapproves of her ex-husband’s behavior. “I pray Tommy gets the help he needs. His actions are desperate and humiliating,” she says.

Anderson adds, “I will never talk to Tommy again before he is sober and in his right mind.”

2020

Anderson brushes off a mention of the “sex tape” during an appearance on Watch What Happens Live!. When host Andy Cohen asks her, “As the star of a sex tape, what is your favorite celebrity sex tape?” She responds, “That was not a sex tape. That was a compilation of vacations that we were naked on,” laughing it off.

2022

Anderson has refrained from addressing Pam & Tommy in the lead-up to the show premiere on Feb. 2.

In January, a source did tell Entertainment Tonight, however, “The upcoming Pam & Tommy Hulu series has been very painful for Pamela Anderson and for anyone that loves her. It is shocking that this series is allowed to happen without her approval.”

The insider added, “Tommy feels fine about the series coming out and is excited to see it. He still doesn’t understand how this incident impacts Pamela differently from himself.”

Lee himself told ET in September 2021, “I know Sebastian, he’s playing me. From what he’s told me, really beautiful story.” He added, “I think a lot of people would think it’s one thing, but it’s really about privacy and how things got crazy then. There’s different laws now.”

Pam & Tommy is now streaming on Hulu.