Where Is Girls Gone Wild Creator Joe Francis Today? He Moved To Mexico

Trigger warning: This piece mentions allegations of sexual exploitation.

A new Peacock docuseries revisits the controversial media franchise Girls Gone Wild — told through the perspectives of former employees, the women who are still navigating its fallout, and the founder himself through audio from a 2022 interview.

So, where is Girls Gone Wild creator Joe Francis today? His most recent in-depth interview took place at his home in Mexico with BuzzFeed’s Scaachi Koul, who lends her voice to (and serves as co-executive producer on) Girls Gone Wild: The Untold Story.

While Francis declined producers’ invitation for a follow-up conversation, the new docuseries (which dropped on Dec. 3) chronicles the legal challenges that preceded his move to Mexico.

An Explicit Empire

Girls Gone Wild: The Untold Story features the accounts of women who were filmed for the franchise. Court documents contained allegations that multiple teenage girls were minors when they took part in sexual acts on camera. (In 2006, the company pleaded guilty to failing “to create and maintain age and identity documents for performers in sexually explicit films,” per the Department of Justice.)

Several women interviewed for the docuseries allege that though they were legal adults, they were pressured to film explicit scenes on the Girls Gone Wild bus while intoxicated. One interviewee recalled feeling like she couldn’t refuse to “comply,” or else “things could go really badly.”

In 2008, Francis pleaded no contest to prostitution and child abuse charges connected to filming Girls Gone Wild in Florida, maintaining that he “never committed any crime,” per the Los Angeles Times. But he only entered the plea to get out of jail.

Joe Francis Today

After Francis was convicted of assault, false imprisonment, and dissuading a witness following an incident in his home in 2011, per NBC News, he was sentenced to 270 days in jail. Instead of serving this time, according to The Untold Story, Francis moved to Mexico with his partner, Abbey Wilson. The couple welcomed twin girls in 2014. However, Wilson and their daughters have since moved back to the United States.

“I miss my kids. I don’t miss LA — I miss my kids,” Francis said in audio featured in the docuseries. “I miss them every day.”

When asked if having daughters changed the way he feels about Girls Gone Wild, Francis said, “It has reaffirmed my belief that all women are independent in their thinking and all women make their own decisions. Women in Girls Gone Wild, they choose to be in Girls Gone Wild.”

The controversial company filed for bankruptcy in 2013, and its archive was later purchased by an internet porn company, per the docuseries.