Update*: Following the news that the band YACHT decided to sell a supposedly personal sex tape made by its two members after it reportedly leaked on the internet, the band has officially come clean, releasing a statement admitting that the tape was indeed an elaborately planned hoax, as some suspected. According to the statement, the band — comprised of Jona Bechtolt and Claire Evans, who have been together professionally and romantically since 2006 — intended to fake a leaked sex tape, fake selling it, fake social media posts about both, and then fake a server crash all to promote a relatively SFW music video for a song called “I Wanna Fuck You Till I’m Dead,” which was released on Pornhub this afternoon. The stunt was meant to be commentary on “science fiction, the attention economy, clickbait journalism, and celebrity sex tapes.” The band did not intend to “make light of victims of any form of sexual abuse” and added, “we realize we’ll need to try much harder to fool you.”
The news comes after many publications (Vulture included) reported on YACHT’s story in earnest after the band initially announced on Facebook that “due to a series of technological missteps and one morally abject person, a video that we made privately has been released to the public.” In the initial post, YACHT also added that they intended to “take legal action,” against the supposed leaker, and decided to sell the sex tape themselves for $5 online as a way to take control of the narrative.
Read YACHT’s final statement on the stunt in full below.
And here’s YACHT’s original Facebook post:
* This post has been updated throughout to show that YACHT’s “sex tape” was actually a publicity stunt for a music video.
