Rob Lowe: Jodie Foster Supported Me During My Sex Tape Scandal
And the surprising actress who supported him almost 30 years ago.
— -- In 1988, a sex tape involving Rob Lowe and two girls, one who was only 16, surfaced and his image took a very big hit.
Almost three decades later, the actor is opening up about the incident he said took place during his "pre-sobriety days," where a big part of his life then was dedicated to getting "laid by a beautiful woman."
Lowe, now 51, did not face criminal charges for the incident in Georgia and checked himself into rehab a couple years later. He's been sober ever since.
"I’ve been fortunate that I’ve always, always, always worked. Even after the sex tape was made public, it was like: You’re still a professional baseball player, but you’re playing for Double or Triple A," he told GQ about his recollection of the incident and his career arc. "If you are in a transitional period, a rebuilding period...go to the opposite end of your range. For me, that was comedy. Lorne Michaels and Mike Myers put me in 'Wayne’s World' and 'Austin Powers.'"
For Lowe, what really sticks out about that time is the friends who stood by him right after the tape was made public.
“Only two people called [after the sex tape]. Jodie Foster and Don Simpson [the producer]," Lowe told the magazine, while promoting his new show, "The Grinder." "Jodie and I had done 'The Hotel New Hampshire' together, and she sent me a note with a recurring line from John Irving: ‘Keep passing the open windows.’ She was saying, ‘You’ll get through it.’"
He added, "Oh, and Hugh Hefner took me aside at one point and said, ‘You had to do it. The technology existed.’”
But Lowe has always stayed positive and actually thinks the tape scandal helped him grow as a person.
"For someone in recovery like me, the single greatest hurdle — the number one with a bullet that will make you drink — is resentment. You can’t have it. People always say, ‘How have you been sober 26 years? What’s the secret?’ Well, that’s it," he said. "If somebody else is achieving more than I am, that means I can do it, too. Everybody has the ability to raise themselves up, and my life has been marked by that.”
