Joe Francis claims to have been victimized by underage girls filmed for Girls Gone Wild

Girls Gone Wild founder Joe Francis made claims about the underage girls featured in his films. Francis is the subject in the latest Peacock original docuseries, Girls Gones Wild: The Untold Story, where he gives his first-person interview about the controversy, over a decade later.

The founder sat down with journalist Scaachi Koul for the docuseries. He also answered the question of whether or not he "feels bad" for the underage girls who were plied with alcohol by his cameramen to film nude scenes for his movies. Francis answered with a claim.

"No, because I don't believe they were victimized. They victimized me," he said.

He was referring to the 2003 incident where his crew filmed several women during the spring break in Panama City, Florida. Some of the women posed topless and engaged in s*xual acts, but it later turned out that four of the women in the video were underage. Reporting the incident led to an RICO case against Joe Francis, followed by several more charges.

Francis stands by his claim that he was the one victimized by the whole controversy. When Koul reminded him that some of the women in the 2008 case were "pretty young," he shot back, saying:

"No, they were 17, just shy of 18. They were the ones that victimized us."

He claimed that those girls showed fake IDs and also made allegations that the Panama City Police put up those girls and that what happened was "all an operation."

"I believe that was quite orchestrated. I walked into a f**king snape pit, okay?" he added.

Joe Francis is currently living in exile in Mexico after his active warrant of arrest was issued in 2014.

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Joe Francis says that his Girls Gone Wild series "loosened everything up" for a "more fun generation"

The Girls Gones Wild: The Untold Story is a three-part docuseries pulling the curtain back on the controversial series using first-person accounts from founder Joe Francis himself, his former employers, and the survivors. Koul was asked what he thinks the lasting impact of Girls Gone Wild was,

"It loosened everything up. I think it just made for a so much more fun generation. I think it created the ability to have, obviously, the Kardashians, and it did so much more," he replied.

While he maintained his stance that there is "no difference" between an 18-year-old and a 17-year-old except that the former "can go in the video," he said that he didn't want minors in his films. About the issues with Girls Gone Wild— the filming of underage girls— Francis said that he was "totally misunderstood."

"I was the owner of a company. You can't hold Jeff Bezos responsible for what one of his hundred thousand Amazon delivery guys does," he added.

In the Peacock docuseries, Joe Francis also claimed that his controversy and the FBI investigation on him was a distraction from the war in Iraq, although Koul told him that there was no proof that his legal issues were related to the war in Iraq.

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All episodes of Girls Gones Wild: The Untold Story are now streaming on Peacock.