Nicole Bass, in a photo for Diana The Valkyrie.
A dispute over a Howard Stern appearance as part of a six bondage video deal has driven a wedge between sexy female wrestler Nicole Bass and Extreme Associates - with one video left to go on the bondage video deal. Bass - a hit with fans when she appeared at January's Consumer Electronics Show and AVN Adult Video Awards - has appeared several times on The Howard Stern Show in the past. She also wrestles in Extreme's Xtreme Professional Wrestling series. But she claims she made no deal to promote the bondage videos on the Stern show as part of her Extreme deal. Extreme chief Rob Black says otherwise. Herewith the details, as told to AVN's Gene Ross - Editor.
CHATSWORTH, Calif. - Nicole Bass claims Rob Black reneged on a deal. But, in all fairness, Bass also points out that she was paid in full for the first five shows she did at $6,000 per video. But, when you get to the core of the problem, it seems to boil down to appearances on the Howard Stern show, or lack of them.
Bass who's been on the Stern show a number of times, apparently didn't go on Stern to promote the bondage tapes, and, therein lies the rub. Extreme claims that a Bass appearance on Stern was an accepted part of their deal with her. Bass said she made no such promises. First, we'll hear from Bass.
Bass: "Yeah, he [Rob Black] screwed me over - Mr. 'I promise I'll never screw you over.' He promised me six videos. The first video went good. The second video went good. Then he said they weren't selling.
"I can call up any video store in my neighborhood and find out how sales are going. Sales are going very, very well. It gets rented a lot in my neighborhood. I don't know if that's because it's the people in my neighborhood or because it's a new adult video in the adult section. I would assume it would be both.
"But Rob told me people don't like them. This new character they got [at Extreme Associates] - Lazie? A real wiseguy. First time I went out there I was treated very well. The second time I was out there I was treated very well. The third time we go out there this Lazie guy starts appearing. The fourth time is kind of strange. The fifth time? Before, I would be doing all the scenes in one day. This time it took three days with 12-hour days. I was exhausted after three days. I asked for a day off. Lazie said, 'that's it; we're even - I don't owe you nuthin'. You don't owe us nuthin'.
"But that fifth tape is going to suck. It's so bad; it's so stupid, it's not funny.
"If I wanted to be a ball buster, I could, because from what I've been hearing, a verbal contract is binding. Then Rob promises me I could buy tapes [at $8 a pop]. It's not like I'm buying a hundred tapes - maybe 10 tapes, five tapes. They're for my clients and it's another market that he can reach too. But that man [Black] fucked me. You know what he tells me? 'You promised you were going to get me on the Howard Stern show.' I never promised that. I never promise that to anybody. I promised nothing.
"Rob won't even talk to me. One night I couldn't sleep. It was like three thirty in the morning. I called up and he answered the phone. He told me, 'you motherfucker.' I said, excuse me? He said that's the way I talk. I said don't talk to me like that. You don't talk to people like that. You treat them with respect. You think if given the opportunity I would go on [now] and promote his tapes? Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! And guess what? Howard wants me on there. I won't go. Why should I? This man [Black] went back on his word. He's a real piece of work.
"Rob owes me for a sixth tape, and they were treating me like shit. Bob was shocked. For six months I worked for him and nobody else. That man had a verbal contract with me. He was saying I'm not getting publicity out of the deal? I'm a name. I was in Screw Magazine. Who would imagine that Nicole Bass, a bodybuilder is in Screw Magazine, fully clothed and gets a damn good review?
"And I would not set back on his wrestling world for any amount of money. I would not wrestle for the man. [The last time Bass appeared in XPW was March. - G.R.]. And they're advertising me. You're not allowed to do that. Bob called them up and supposedly they put a stop to that, but who knows?"
Bob (Bass's husband): "I told them not to use her name or her image unless you're going to book her. The only thing that I'm really upset about? If this guy said I don't want to do a sixth video, sorry it didn't work out, that would have been fine. I released him from the sixth video, anyway. I'm not looking to play games. I like Lizzy Borden and I like Rob, but when Shane [Douglas] came along with Sunny and Chris Candido, they wouldn't talk to us.
"It was like they didn't need Nicole no more. They stopped using Nicole. They stopped talking to her. They didn't return her phone calls. The only thing I asked for ten days ago, because she wrestles privately with clients, is for videotapes. If a guy wants to buy a videotape of her and says, sorry, I can't sell you one, that's not fair. Rob promised us that we would be able to purchase videos at $8 apiece. Ten days ago I got on the phone with
Lazie. Lazie says no problem, I'll put you on the phone with Derek. Derek says to me, okay, I'll put them in the mail, you'll get them in ten days. I haven't seem them as of yet because they haven't sent them and don't intend on selling them to me. That's the part that's really burning my ass.
"We do have one good thing on them. He's selling videotapes of everybody wrestling. You need a release to do that. I never signed a release for him to sell [wrestling] videos of my wife doing pro wrestling. Vince McMahon, that's a part of the contract.
"If Rob turns around and says to us, 'look, I'll do a sixth video, will you do the Stern show for me?' I would guarantee him. We would go all out and do the Stern show for him. We would put him over big.
"But the guy wouldn't even spring for an outfit for Nicole at CES. We saw outfits that looked like Xeena. The stuff was beautiful. Rob said wear a pair of jeans. C'mon, Rob, put a little money into it. Get Nicole an outfit where she looks like Xeena.
"And we were very critical about the tapes. The first one, Pain and Suffering, we laughed thinking that this tape sucks. Want to know why? She actually held back. After seeing that, she started beating the shit out of these people.
"We could have gone on the Stern Show and she probably would have done a sixth one. We're the ones who told Extreme to send Howard the tapes, that I think this is good and we can get a lot of publicity for the Stern show. I told them that when we were into the third video. They sent some videos up there. Stern didn't believe that it was real. I had to tell them that it was real. They loved it. I would have gone with this except for one thing,
Jon Blatt said we're going to have to sit you down and tell you what to say. I said what do you mean? Leave it to her and it'll go over big. He [Blatt] said I'll give you phone numbers and Websites; you're going to have to say that it's sold as adult entertainment. I don't want you mentioning your Website. You should have seen the shit this guy was telling us we had to do and could not do. I said I'm going to put my wife through that? This is a half hour that you couldn't buy. It would be repeated over and over again. Now she doesn't want to do it because the guy [Black] cursed her out; told her off, called her a motherfucker.
"Then, when Nicole called Rob [the last time], he said it was late, 'I'm not feeling well; I got a doctor's appointment. For sure, when I get back I'm going to call you.' We never heard from the guy."
Bass: "The only time Rob calls you back is when he wants something. That's the only time.
"He also started using the excuse that they couldn't find people [to be in the videos]. I would send them people, but they wouldn't call them back. How funny is this. How about beating up a cripple? A real cripple? Want to know what they did to this guy? They put him in an office at 10 o'clock then sent him home at 6:30. Sorry, we can't use you today. Then they rehired him and told him to be there at twelve o'clock. He waited till three or four and said I'm outta here. But this guy wanted to be beat up by Nicole Bass. I've heard all the excuses Rob gave. Rob says to me, 'I blew all my money on you.' I was the one who said I charge $3,000 to do a tape and Rob said, 'I'll pay you six.' Now I'm getting yelled out because he feels he got ripped off? Because I didn't jump and go on The Howard Stern show? Everybody's going to use me to go on The Howard Stern Show?"
Extreme's Jon Blatt, however, remembers the Bass deal differently.
Blatt: "Nicole didn't do any of the advertising she was supposed to do on Howard Stern. We paid her all this money, and she didn't do any p.r. for it at all. Her name doesn't sell THAT much in the bondage world. Know what I mean? Nicole doesn't understand how the adult business works and how all these things are. I told her when you go on Howard Stern, don't give your Website, give my phone number not your website number. She did some movies and got a good deal out of it. She should be happy she got what she got.
"We just didn't want to continue because it didn't do what we thought it would do, I suppose. We thought she would advertise it and really pump it up out there. It didn't happen. She'd tell us I'm going on there [Stern} a Monday or a Tuesday. I'd call my customers and let them know. This happened two or three times, and I wound up looking like an asshole. I hate looking like a liar to my customers. Now we're getting pieces back. They're saying Nicole Bass, big deal. Stores are saying they don't have enough people walking in and asking for it. There was no publicity, no hype. And we paid her what nobody gets paid. Besides that, Nicole and her husband were put up in a hotel here and their food paid for. They didn't hold up their end. She called in on Howard Stern once - it was the ugly woman competition. She called in and got on the air. But she didn't mention anything about the bondage. She could have mentioned something to show good faith but she didn't. But that's where we're at. We've moved on from this. We'll do a bondage line but not with her."
Rob Black adds a few comments.
Black: "The deal was she was supposed to be on Howard. That's the bottom line. I would I pay somebody a bunch of money? You want the publicity and stuff. What the fuck. It makes common sense. Every time she's been out here I've paid for her fuckin' hotel room; I've paid for her fuckin' husband Bob to fuckin' eat. I probably got like $50,000 into the fuckin' project. After the last movie I said we're not doing the sixth movie until you go on Howard. That's where it stayed. Then they called me up the other night at like two o'clock in the morning my time. They woke me out of bed. I went off on 'em. I said you guys fuckin' used me to the hilt. And no Bob's saying if you send us the money for the sixth movie we'll get you a Stern date. I'm like, you think I'm fuckin' stupid? Go on Stern and we'll make the sixth movie. Don't go on Stern we won't make the movie. That's it. You can never say I didn't pay her. She got paid astronomically. Nobody gets that for a bondage money, but I did that figuring she'd be on Stern. We would get the mileage out of it. She's saying that was never our agreement. I'm like, 'Nicole, ugggggh, I don't know if you guys are drunk calling me up or what.'
"I gave her six grand to do a movie; then she would wrestle and she'd make another fuckin' two or three thousand on top of that. Then with the fuckin' food, all this stuff I would never have done. Tommy and Jon were telling me to get rid of her. This is bullshit. She can't say she got fucked out of money....the videos weren't doing what they were supposed to do. If they were, I'd be number One in the [AVN] specialty category on the fuckin' AVN chart, wouldn't I? That's my story."
(Nicole says when Shane and Candido came in, they were like your new toys.)
Black: "Ugggh. Nicole Bass cost me more than Tammy [Sunny] and Chris Candido put together, and she wasn't drawing. When we first started we needed to get all the star power. But now we're established everybody's got to pull their weight. She didn't pull her weight. It wasn't cost effective. I'm a businessman, not a fuckin' mark. At least in LA everybody fucks you and they move on. The people in New York they're like, 'I fucked you, but let me tell you why I should still be fucking you because in the long run I won't be fucking you; but if I still fuck you, you deserve that I fucked you.' That's how the New York philosophy is. Maybe I've been away too long.' When they [Bass and her husband] were saying give us the money up front for the final movie and we'll go on Stern, I said why didn't you go on before? They said, 'well, a lot of people have fucked us before.' But I've paid you every fuckin' month! How could I have fucked you? You fucked me!! I paid for your fuckin' husband to eat fuckin' dinner!! What's this about?!"
