In his own words: The truth about Joel Dommett’s leaked sex tape

Been watching I'm a Celebrity? Then you'll surely be enjoying professional funny-man Joel Dommett. One week in and he's already got down to some serious campside flirting with Carol Vorderman.

But the course of true love never did run smooth for Joel, after getting caught out by a leaked sex tape.

Need to immediately know more? Well luckily for you we do have an account of the 'incident' from the man himself.

Enjoy.

This year, I learnt that I’m something I’ll call ‘Internet Naive’, and susceptible to a classic bit of erection-based blackmail.

Three years ago, just a few months out of a two-year relationship, I decided I was finally ready to venture into a new, rapidly changing dating world. A day later, as if the heavens had aligned, and a small naked flying baby with a bow and arrow had heard my request, a lady with an excellent looking head added me on Twitter. Her name was ‘Staci Taylor’. Staci with an ‘i’.

Intriguing, I thought. Then, to add to the excitement and intrigue, she almost immediately DM’ed me. For those of you more Internet Naive than me, ’DM’ is short for ‘Direct Message’. Not to be confused with ‘Daily Mail’, ‘Directional Microphone’ or ‘DM waste disposal in Seattle’. We immediately got on well. We had ‘top bants’, as the d**kheads say.

Then came the next step in our relationship.

“Joel, would you like to have Skype Sex?”

I thought for a second, then immediately typed… “Why not?!”.

For the Internet Naive peeps, ‘Skype Sex’ means… Oh Christ, just Google it. Or go to the library. Or whatever you do to find information.

'Wow,' I thought. The dating scene has really stepped up a notch since I was last on it. Independent, single women are so beautifully confident and commanding these days. She then replied, “My microphone is broken so I wont be able chat, we will just be able to see each other. That OK?”. I said “yes”. Possibly out of politeness, possibly out of the terrible randiness-to-reason-ratio that we all suffer from at times of heightened sexuality.

We then did Skype sex. If Skype sex was on the field of bases (snogging being one, fingering two, blow jobs three and sh*tting on a coffee table four), it would be behind the back stop. It’s something that seems instantly exciting because it has the word ‘sex’ in it, but it’s only afterwards you realise it really had nothing to do with sex at all. I would jump at the chance to do the washing up if it was called ‘Plate F******g’.

I messaged her afterwards.No reply.

I messaged her the next day.No reply.

I messaged her a week later.No reply.

I didn't mind. I just thought the new dating world was forward, futuristic, yet fleeting.

Cut to two years later. I was added on Twitter by an account called ‘@CelebbustedUK’. In the biog it says, “If we follow you, we have naked pictures of you”.

‘Why would anyone have naked pictures of me?’, I thought.

Then I thought for three long seconds, and shouted "STAACIIIIIIIIIII" to the sky.

The biog continues, “Follow us and DM us to stop us from releasing them”. The DM story comes full circle. I immediately looked at the 84 other ‘celebrities’ and realised what level of celebrity I am.

Levels of Celebrity:

It was featured in the papers. The good ones like The Daily Star, The Mirror and The DM (Daily Mail). The articles name a few of the celebrities, and I’m offended and relieved in equal measure I’m so low down the low level that they didn't even name me. It also says they stole a profile picture from another person, and the video was actually of someone else, probably a porn star, but nobody noticed it was different. So stupid. So it turns out I wasn't having Skype sex at all, instead someone was basically watching me watching porn. Like a perverted Goggle Box.

I really didn't know what to do. Do I indulge their wishes and message them, or just ignore it and hope it just goes away? I did the latter. Then a day later when I was telling my friend, “If they release a picture it’s not so bad!”, he responded, “What about a video?”

I paused, then immediately added @celebbustedUK on Twitter.

One.Two.Three.'PING'.

They messaged me.

“What would you like to know?” they asked. “Is Jon Snow really dead?”, I hilariously replied. We are talking about Game of Thrones by the way for the I.N. (Internet Naive) people.

I added, “Just kidding, I want to know if you have a picture of my d**k”. She replied “Yes”. I asked, “So what would you like to know?” She replied, “How much are you willing to pay to make me not release the photo?”

I obviously knew that no matter how much I pay it wouldn't make anything go away. We are past the days where you go to Boots to develop your photographs; there are now limitless copies on your laptop. In a strange circle of events, I used to love playing the prank of taking a picture down my pants on my friends cameras, so that when they got them developed, Boot’s staff would think they were a disgusting pervert. If this person knew that there were already hundreds of pictures of my penis amongst old photos in people’s garages all over Bristol, maybe it wouldn't have happened in the first place.

I contacted the police. They said they would investigate, in that same way that you say, “let's totally meet up for a drink”, to an old classmate you bump into on the street. I tried to find a hacker to find them, but it turns out they covered their tracks pretty darn good (either that or hackers are not as good as they are in the movies, when they just tap on a keyboard and say ‘I’m in’). I was stuck. I was at a catfish cul-de-sac.

I then thought, why don't I stop trying down the same road? Let’s go back to the start and try and find a different outcome. I looked at the original profile picture. Who was this? Who was the real lady behind this face? I did a reverse image search on it. I got an immediate match - an Instagram page of Natalia Noir. Arguably a name that sounds more fake than Staci Taylor but nonetheless was the real owner of that head. I messaged her.

“I just wanted to let you to know, someone is pretending to be you on the internet.” That was all I indulged. I expected nothing.

Then, three days later, I got a reply.

“Yes I am aware, they have been doing it for years, I’ve shut it down twice but they keep coming back. They even steal photos from my private Facebook page.”

“Wow,” I replied. “That’s horrible…. Do you want to meet up and discuss it?” I meant this in the most innocent of ways. Well maybe not entirely, but I thought if I could get a photo of us together then I could send it to Staci to say, “Look I’m with you!”… or something more clever. I asked her where she lived and it seems the little naked flying dude with the unregistered weapon was around again because SHE LIVED A MILE DOWN THE ROAD.

Coincidence? Fate? MAGIC? Maybe even more miraculously, she said yes to meeting up. We met at Soho House, a members' club in London. I wanted to appear classy and intriguing instead of creepy and… even more creepy. We met. The real face was attached to a real person. We got on well. The real her had ‘great bants’ too. She is Russian but lived in Swansea for seven years so her Russian accent adorably switches from Vladimir to Valleys in a heartbeat. We had a few drinks, talked about the Staci lady, I told her everything (which she seemed strangely relaxed about), I took a photo of us together and she left. Professional.

I would love to say the story ended there. BUT IT DIDN’T READER. If you have read this far I am absolutely amazed. So let’s quicken this up. I love it when movies end with white writing on a black background detailing what supposedly happened to the characters after the film finished. So I'm going to finish this ridiculous modern-day true fairytale that way. I really do promise you it's true. Here goes…

A week later Joel asked Natalia Noir on a proper date. She said yes. They went on three more dates before he finally plucked up the courage to lean in and kiss her outside a Pizza Express in Greenwich.

They dated for a month before it ended amicably, when she moved back to Wales.

They kept in touch and eventually after a few weeks apart, ended up having real actual Skype sex.

(I KNOW RIGHT?!)

What happened to the d**k pic? Joel messaged them again a while later asking why they haven't released it due to my lack of payment. They replied “you just simply are not famous enough…. yet”.

THE END

Originally published 19 August 2016.