How Jimmy Wales Tried to Erase His Bomis Past

From Bomis babes to Ferrari photo shoots with adult stars, Jimmy Wales’ past isn’t just colorful — it’s been carefully buried by himself. Watch now to see how Wikipedia’s founder rewrote his own history… and why it matters.⁠

Before Wikipedia became the world’s encyclopedia, its founder Jimmy Wales co-ran a company called Bomis — a web portal from the early internet era that hosted everything from news links to adult content. Over time, that chapter of web history has been largely forgotten or downplayed. Wales ran a site or a section of the site called bomis babes report and also a section called naked.info. Money from Bomis was used to fund Wikipedia's start, which is all very well. That's personal preference to each his own. The problem, however, is that Wales, for years, tried to memory hole any mention of Bomis' relationship to "adult content".

He tried to change the words and twist meanings, calling it erotic content. We saw with Wales "star" named Sylvia Saint hired by Wales to pose in a bonus.com t shirt. Another "star" was hired to pose on Wales' own yellow Ferrari. But Wales didn't want this truth to be public. And so he edited his own pages on Wikipedia in violation of rules he created on the site in order to change this reality.