2008-04-21 08:40:39 - By Mark Bellinghaus, Ernest W. Cunningham and Jennifer J. Dickinson. Marilyn Monroe's legacy was involved in a roller coaster turn of events over the past week. On Monday, the late screen legend was ranked in history as having a dirty sex tape, and the headlines, even from the major news sources, were practically in an unofficial contest to outdo one another with the most obnoxious headline and article. Seeing all of the negative headlines and Google Alerts about Marilyn Monroe throughout the day was very disconcerting for the three of us, who are true defenders of her legacy. We knew we had to take matters into our own hands, and immediately went to work. By Tuesday evening, we accepted the offer from Defamer, which had decided to feature our story as an exclusive, and us as guest writers. By Wednesday our article was the hot topic of media outlets around the globe. We were being contacted by journalists worldwide, and Mark Bellinghaus was invited for an interview with CNN International. And after the topic was heavily discussed with the various news sources, the sensational media turn of events took place, the Google Alerts had changed, and by Friday, many major news sources were now confirming what we originally reported - that the Marilyn Monroe Sex Tape story was an elaborate work of fiction.

We didn't realize the impact that our exclusive story on Defamer.com defamer.com/380219/exclusive-debunking-the-marilyn-monroe-sex-ta .. would have on turning the tide of this media frenzy about the Marilyn Monroe Sex Tape. But suddenly our piece was the talk of the internet and we watched the number of viewers to our article climb to over 86,000 views, and to additionally be syndicated or referenced

by hundreds of internet news sources. We questioned the so called ‘facts' of this case with some very logical points based on the discrepancies that we noted in regards to Marilyn Monroe history and this whole sex tape deal amarilynblog.wordpress.com/ .

The media suddenly did an about-face and realized that we were right and soon followed with their own reports. These sources included Radar Magazine: radarmagazine.com/exclusives/2008/04/marilyn-monroe-keya-morgan- .. , The Smoking Gun: www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2008/0418081monroe1.html , and the international press overall: markbellinghausnews.wordpress.com/ . Suddenly Marilyn Monroe went from being portrayed as a stag queen to being exonerated of these horrendously untrue rumors that were previously reported about her on Monday. In 1952 Marilyn Monroe had to testify in court herself because of similar accusations - and her testimony held up in court that she was not affiliated with pornographic images - and an underground scam was uncovered in which two men were charged for plotting the pornography ring scheme, which falsely involved Marilyn Monroe's name and image. Granted Marilyn Monroe had posed naked during her career, but she never associated herself with anything pornographic. And when she had attained fame and the word broke that she was the young unclothed model stretched across red velvet on a then obscure calendar, she didn't want to deny it, even though the studio bosses told her to do so. This was the kind of person that she was - not afraid to hide from the truth, and the truth helped her, even to stand up against the liars - and her legacy still shines through like that to this day against liars who still try to taint Marilyn Monroe facts to further their own agendas.

Less than a week since the sex tape scam against Marilyn Monroe began, it is now being labeled on her Wikipedia Article en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marilyn_Monroe as was exactly extracted from our Defamer headline: a hoax.