The plot thickens in the McSteamy nude video scandal – just the way we like it.
Now dethroned Miss United States Teen Kari Ann Peniche (stripped of her crown for baring all in Playboy) claims that her “Celebrity Rehab” roommate, country singer Mindy McCready, swiped her hard drive, which housed the compromising footage of her, Eric Dane and his wife Rebecca Gayheart lounging about naked and apparently stoned.
Peniche tells TMZ that the strung-out trio shot the footage more than two years ago in her Studio City apartment, and that there was absolutely no sex involved.
But after getting into an argument with McCready over money, Peniche believes the singer took her hard drive when she moved out.
However, McCready tells a different story.
“Kari Ann was the one that stole my hard drive and copied it to two mini-drives,” the singer told the Daily News. “She also stole money from me. I think she probably wanted to sell my music. I was the one trying to keep Kari Ann out of trouble — steering her away from drugs during the taping of the show.”
She added, “I was the one trying to help Rebecca and Eric get their material back. There was a bunch of high profile people on those mini-drives.”
Peniche, 25, filed a stolen property report with the LAPD, fearing the salacious content on her hard drive would fall into the wrong hands.
It appears that information was more sensitive than the police expected!
In the scandalous video posted on Gawker.com, the threesome lounge about naked and pass the camera around while discussing what their pornographic names would be.
Gayheart picks “Nina” as her handle, while Peniche opts for “Fifi.”
The ever-raucous Dane, accustomed to raising pulses on “Grey’s Anatomy” as Dr. Mark Sloane, toys with “Peter,” “Cocaine Manner,” “Tristan Daily,” and famous bull riding champ “Tuff Hedeman.”
Last month, the threesome and McCready reportedly hammered out a deal with their reps as to who got what on the hard drive.
Dane, 36, won full rights to the video, but it was leaked on the Web yesterday, anyway.
Now Dane and Gayheart, 38, are threatening to sue anyone who exploits the video.
Attorney Marty Singer, representing the couple, said the tape “is simply a private, consensual moment involving a married couple, shot several years ago, which was never intended to be seen by the public.”
He added, “Although the participants are nude, the tape is not a ‘sex tape.'”
Singer also said Peniche told him she’s innocent of the leak.
“I have no idea,” she told him. “I have nothing to do with it.”
