The cover of "Jimi Hendrix: The Sex Tape" from Vivid Entertainment is shown in this undated publicity photo released to Reuters April 29, 2008. [Agencies]
Vivid Entertainment is releasing a sex tape allegedly starring Jimi Hendrix. The Los Angeles-based adult entertainment company said they obtained the sex tape from a memorabilia collector.
The 11 minutes of footage, reportedly shot in a hotel room about 40 years ago, features Hendrix — or someone who looks like him — engaged in various sexual acts with two women.
The company said they consulted with experts to authenticate the footage. But Charles R. Cross, author of the Hendrix biography "Room Full of Mirrors," has seen the film and doubts the man is Hendrix.
Cross said the face and nostrils of the man depicted in the video don't match Hendrix. He also said the man in the tape is wearing more rings that Hendrix was known to wear.
"This is somebody that looks like Jimi or is pretending to look like him, but it certainly didn't look like a dead-on match to me," Cross told The Associated Press during a telephone interview Tuesday.
Hendrix, who headlined the legendary Woodstock Festival in 1969, died of a drug overdose in 1970.
Seattle-based representatives for Hendrix's estate declined to comment about the tape.