Rob Lowe made major changes to his life after his sex tape was leaked in the ’80s — but what has he said about the scandal?
Lowe’s star was on the rise after his roles in Thursday’s Child, The Outsiders, St. Elmo’s Fire and About Last Night. The actor was campaigning for Michael Dukakis in the 1988 presidential election when a sex tape was leaked showing Lowe with two people: 22-year-old Tara Seburt and her 16-year-old friend Lena Jan Parsons.
At the time, the age of consent in Atlanta, where the video was filmed, was 14. Both girls were of legal age to engage in sexual activity, but 18 was the legal age to be involved in recording. Lowe, for his part, maintained that he thought Parsons was 21 because they met at a nightclub before the encounter.
The footage went on to become one of the first-ever commercially released celebrity sex tapes. Lowe, meanwhile, settled a lawsuit with Parsons. family out of court and was not charged with a crime. His career took a hit, and he battled alcohol addiction for several years before getting sober in 1990.
Lowe, who has since poked fun at himself by mentioning the drama in a Saturday Night Live monologue, has credited his wife, Sheryl Berkoff, for helping him get to a better place. The couple tied the knot in 1991 and expanded their family twice with sons Matthew and John.
After bouncing back, Lowe went on to appear in The West Wing, Brothers & Sisters, Parks and Recreation, Code Black and 9-1-1: Lone Star. Over the years, he has also made rare comments about the sex tape.
Keep scrolling for Lowe’s candid quotes about the scandal:
Still Finding Work
“I’ve been fortunate that I’ve always, always, always worked. Even after the sex tape was made public, it was like: You’re still a professional baseball player, but you’re playing for Double or Triple A,” Lowe told GQ in 2015. “I lost the role in Titanic that Billy Zane got. But I was never banned from the game.”
Lowe revealed that only two people in Hollywood reached out to him in the aftermath: actress Jodie Foster and producer Don Simpson.
“Jodie and I had done The Hotel New Hampshire together and she sent me a note with a recurring line from John Irving: ‘Keep passing the open windows.’ She was saying, ‘You’ll get through it,’” he added. Don basically said, ‘F*** ’em if they can’t take a joke.’ Oh, and Hugh Hefner took me aside at one point and said, ‘You had to do it. The technology existed.’”
In on the Joke
During the Comedy Central Roast of Rob Lowe, the actor poked fun at the scandal with a sketch where he appeared to be naked while dancing to “For Just a Moment” from St. Elmo’s Fire before turning around to show himself adjusting a saxophone.
Comedian Rob Riggle made a dig about the tape in the 2016 special, saying, “Rob, in both your sex tapes you appeared with two other people — good God, you can’t even carry a sex tape. You’re like the me of sex tapes. Self-deprecating! Beats you to the punch!”
Poking Fun Years Later
Lowe quipped on SiriusXM’s The Jess Cagle Show in 2019 that he “invented” the sex tape. He went on to joke that “the problem” was that he “didn’t make any money off of it like everybody does now.”
A Jumping Off Point for His Sobriety
Elsewhere in the SiriusXM appearance, Lowe credited the scandal for helping him get clean.
“It’s one of the reasons why I got sober. I woke up one day and I was like, ‘What am I doing with my life?’ I’m 29 years in and, like, people talk, but it’s the best thing that ever happened to me,” he noted. “Honestly, I do because it got me sober, and sober got me married. I’ve been married 29 years and I have two great sons. I don’t think any of that happens without going through that scandal.”
Dealing With the Aftermath
“[The fallout] definitely changed my life at the time, and, in hindsight, I realized it was another step that led me to recovery and reevaluating my life,” Lowe told People in 2024. “But the thing that really changed me was not being able to show up for my family and myself.”
Lowe recalled being “so ready” to kick his addiction by the time he checked into a rehab facility in 1990.
“It was relieving, and it was scary, [but] I learned the tools to change your life if you have the self-honesty to do it. I felt, ‘Oh, OK, I’m not alone. I’m not crazy.’ I didn’t have any doubts [and] I wasn’t like, ‘Well, maybe I’ll be sober for a little bit,’” he shared. “I always tell people: you can’t get sober — I don’t care if it’s fentanyl, booze, drugs, coke, pot, gambling, overeating, sex addiction, whatever, you cannot stop for your job, your wife, your family, your parole officer because you screwed something up. You only are going to stop when you’re ready, period.”
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