“I was at a film festival a couple months ago in Missouri,” Farrier said. One of the documentary subjects, David D’Amato, is taking legal action against the filmmakers, accusing them of defamation and invasion of privacy. “What I do is no more related to porn or soft-core porn or any of the things it’s been called,” Clarke said.
All said the site was not sexual in nature and that it was “easy money.” Clarke also put “Nightline” in touch with several other tickling models who told us they had a good experience with Jane O’Brien Media. Jordan has since recanted his story in the documentary and claimed he was coached. He accuses the documentary producers of paying for interviews and coaching interview subjects.Ĭlarke posted an interview with one of the tickling models, Jordan, who appears in the “Tickled” film. Jane O’Brien producer Kevin Clarke said he shot videos of TJ and doesn’t condone what TJ says happened to him, but insisted he personally had nothing to do with it.Ĭlarke has launched a website rebutting the “Tickled” documentary point by point. It was an effort to punish him for dropping out and for not wanting to come back.” “He was a football player so they had sent emails to coaches that were looking at recruiting him,” Reeve told “Nightline.” “They sent emails to a school where he was coaching kids, suggesting that he was an out gay tickling fetishist, which I mean it wasn’t true. He said the company turned on him after YouTube took the videos down at his request, sending the videos to the high school where he coached. In the “Tickled” documentary, TJ tells the filmmakers he eventually had a change of heart while purusing a football career and asked Jane O’Brien Media to take down the videos featuring him. It’s now the focus of a bizarre controversy, with representatives of the tickling community attending the premieres and accusing the filmmakers of distorting what they do. Their new documentary “Tickled” debuted at Sundance and will soon be on HBO. The filmmakers said once they started looking into it, they opened themselves up to taunts and legal threats along the way. where once a month, fit young men from all around the world are flown to Los Angeles to take part in a tickling contest,” Farrier told “Nightline.” “I mean originally, when it was this tickling contest, I just thought this is the craziest story of all time.”Īccording to Farrier and his co-director Dylan Reeve, there is a menacing side the world surrounding this sport, too. One such video produced by the website Jane O’Brien Media caught the attention of New Zealand feature reporter David Farrier, but he had no idea it would lead him down a strange rabbit hole.
Not only is it a real thing, but there’s a market for videos of people being the ticklers and the ticklees, where one person is sometimes restrained while another tickles him.