CHATSWORTH, Calif. – Joey Buttafuoco is looking healthy and happy as he arrives at the AVN offices with his wife Evanka. They're here to give the rundown on the release of Red Light District's DVD Joey Buttafuoco: Caught on Tape which hits store shelves today.
Buttafuoco, who has been a tabloid celebrity for over a decade, and Evanka lay the responsibility of the tape's existence to Joey's longtime friend, porn auteur Rob Spallone.
"Good old Rob Spallone threw a party," begins Buttafuoco. (Evanka interjects, "YOUR friend Rob Spallone.") Buttafuoco continues, "I've been friends with Rob for 15 years and he's the last person in the world I thought would ever have done something like this. But he DID…and now my wife Evanka's gonna tell you a little story."
Buttafuoco's better half laid out the details of what happened that fateful day.
"Joey had just gotten home from jail about a month earlier, so we went to a party at Rob's and we were going to stay overnight and we weren't assigned a room yet," she says. "The party was dragging on and on and on. It was a pool party; an all afternoon party and I got a little frisky, so I took Joe by the hand and said, 'C'mon, let's have a little time to ourselves.' I randomly picked a bedroom. Joey said, 'No, we can't do this," but I said, 'No one's going to miss us for an hour or two."
Buttafuoco put the events into a time frame. "I got out April 28," he says, "the party happened in May, "
Evanka continues, "And all these months later, the tape's out."
Asked about the ever-sticky detail of signed releases, Evanka explains, "We had to sign a release for being at the party because they were filming at the pool, and that was the end of it." Buttafuoco adds, "I never thought our room would be cammed though. Ever."
Evanka, who seemed less forgiving about the incident than Joey, notes, "It's not as though I can hold Rob accountable. He's allowed to do what he wants in the privacy of his home. I just randomly chose a bedroom."
The Buttafuocos claim to have learned about the tape's existence through secondary sources. Buttafuoco says, "We had been getting a lot of phone calls from different people saying, 'Hey, there's a tape of you guys out there!' I kept saying, 'There's no fuckin' way!'
Evanka notes that things really started to heat up in December. "Someone said they had seen clips and someone else had seen pictures and the rumors just kept escalating. And I'm looking at Joey saying, 'I'm going to have to bust your ass on this. You'd better find out what's going on.'
Buttafuoco interjects, "I was like, 'I didn't do it!'
Asked if the surreptitious taping caused a rift between the two men, Buttafuoco notes, "Well, it did, but I'm very forgiving. I don't want to see anything happen to him because he's a good friend."
Evanka is not so forgiving. "I want to push him
[Spallone] off a cliff," she says.
Buttafuoco is more philosophical about things. "I'm at the point where this stuff is already on the Internet, pictures are out there, let's just get the lawyers on top of it and make a deal and that's where we're at right now," he says.
Evanka adds, "We're at the point where it's going to cost us a lot of time, money and aggravation and we all know that once it's out there, it's out there. It can go black market, underground, whatever…but it's going to be out there. Let's save ourselves the hassle. It happened. I can't take it back. I'm ashamed. I'm embarrassed. But that's behind me, so let's move forward. Right now the attorneys are trying to reach a settlement. Shit happens in life."
At the mention of "shit happening," Buttafuoco says, "You're talking to me about shit happening in life? Puh-lease! I'm the king of shit happening. But it's just something else we'll recover from."
And recovery is something with which Buttafuoco is well acquainted.
"I've been in recovery for 20 years and three months," he says. "I work with methamphetamine addicts, cocaine addicts, alcoholics…I'm in the recovery business. I'm going to school to be a certified counselor. But I've been working in recovery. I've been in personal recovery for over 20 years. I've been clean and sober."
Evanka notes her husband's adherence to clean living. "Since he's come home from jail this last time, he's been doing an Internet radio show, 'Let's Talk Recovery', and they're on the cusp of going terrestrial. He's also going to be doing speaking tours at colleges and universities as well as recovery centers."
This is a point of pride for Buttafuoco. "Can you imagine that?" he asks. "Going on a speaking tour? All the things that have happened over all the years, and now it's going to be part of a speaking tour from the West Coast to the East Coast on college campuses."
Evanka is equally proud of her husband's efforts. She notes, "He's the right person to do it. He's been clean and sober for over 20 years now."
Buttafuoco adds that despite the release of the sex tape, things are great between him and Evanka. "I've been with Evanka for 10 years and we've been married for three," he says. "We have a good life."
Of course, Evanka has the last word. "We do have a great life," she says. "Just keep Rob away!"
Joey Buttafuoco: Caught On Tape is available now. For more information, go to JoeyCaughtOnTape.com or visit ClubRedLight.com.
