See that? That's a woman known as "hot blond Tina" on YouTube. The R-J reported last week that she was suing Langley Productions and Turner Broadcasting Systems because they used video of her from 2008 when she was in the booking pen at the Clark County Detention Center following a drunken driving arrest. She was very inebriated, trying to flash her considerable boobs and carrying on about creme brulee. Tina Vlijter, 32, says she doesn't recall signing a release form letting Langley use the material on various TruTV shows and sites and, thus far, Langley has refused to produce the release despite her lawyer asking several times.
Still, there's more to the story, as I broke on AOL News this weekend after the first media interview with Tina at her attorney Easton Harris' office. How and why do reality TV cameras get such unrestricted access to suspects in sensitive, usually off-limits locations? You know they wouldn't let an R-J or KSNV reporter in there to just hang out day after day or even hour after hour fishing for sensational footage. They surely wouldn't want to waste the police manpower supervising the journalists. But Langley gets to do it? Why?
As I reported, the Vegas sheriff, Doug Gillespie, got at least $35,000 from Langley entities in his recent, successful re-election campaign. Is that why? Hard to know, since he refused to answer my calls asking him to explain how he decides what media gets to go where. Is there a policy? Are there contracts? What are the limits? Do they get to preview the material and cherry-pick what gets used?
By the way, Gillespie received only about $20,000 from various Harrah's-related entities. So Langley, who is not actually located here, is a more generous supporter of this sheriff than the world's largest casino company. That's odd, right?
People certainly seem titillated. The version of Hot Blond Tina's video that we at AOL News linked to had about 10,000 views on Friday. Now it's at more than 360,000 and climbing. Here it is, for however long it remains available. It's from a segment from the TruTV show "Inside American Jail."
Also, this has been the case for two days running now...
Should be fun to see where this goes this week.
6 comments:
Great story, great questions. Btw, blond doesn't equal hot.
SG
She may have a point about political favors for access. But that is not why she is doing this. She is seeking attention, blaming someone else, and changing the discussion from the fact that she acted like a drunk, attention-seeking woman who was caught on film.
If she was driving drunk with kids in the car, she needs to be focusing on getting her shit together.
1. I think simply "blond Tina" would be a MUCH more appropriate name for this, um, lady.
2. People who appear on reality TV get exactly what they deserve.
Link's been pulled, just as an fyi.
Maybe he didn't answer your questions because Bill Gillespie isn't the sheriff.
Are you SURE that's an actual woman in the photo? She looks uncannily like one of my wife's Collector's Edition Barbie dolls.
David McKee
Post a Comment