The infamous safe that was stolen with Tommy Lee and Pamela Anderson’s notorious sex tape inside has sold at auction for $2,560, with the proceeds benefiting MusiCares.
The safe was part of Julien’s Auctions’ recently completed “Played, Worn & Torn” event that featured items from Lee, Metallica’s Kirk Hammett, and U2’s Adam Clayton, among other musicians.
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Lee himself had some fun with the auction item, signing the black safe with the words, “This is the unsafe that ruined my life! Tommy Lee.” However, that extra detail didn’t help the bidding fetch its $4,000-$6,000 estimate, as the winning bidder got the piece of rock history for the aforementioned reasonable price of $2,560 (not including the small fortune it will cost to have it shipped home).
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As for the story behind the safe — which was detailed in the 2022 Hulu mini-series Pam & Tommy — the then-couple discovered the safe missing in January 1996, and it was later determined that a disgruntled electrician by the name of Rand Gauthier stole it out of revenge for the way he was treated by Lee during his work on the Mötley Crüe drummer’s mansion. Inside the safe was the sex tape, and from there, through a series of multiple developments, the explicit video became a worldwide phenomenon, and the rest is history.
Meanwhile, other items in the “Played, Worn & Torn” auction fetched big bucks, including a Keith Richards’ 1960 Gibson Les Paul guitar that went for $192,000; multiple Kirk Hammett guitars that garnered between $75,000 and $160,000 each, including the Gibson SG he played at the “Back to the Beginning” concert this past July; and a handful of Adam Clayton basses that each brought in more than $50,000.
Among the nonprofit organizations benefitting from the various sales are MusicCares, Teenage Cancer America, Gibson Gives, and St. Jude’s.
In other news, fans can catch Tommy Lee with Mötley Crüe on the band’s recently announced Summer 2026 North American tour, featuring support from Tesla and Extreme. Tickets for the 33-date outing are available here.
See a close-up image of the Tommy Lee-Pamela Anderson sex-tape safe below.
