Wisconsin La Crosse chancellor Joe Gow fired after filming porn videos with wife

The University of Wisconsin chancellor who previously paid a porn star thousands of dollars to speak to students on campus was canned Wednesday — after it was revealed he films his own adult content with his wife and posts the X-rated videos online.

The Universities of Wisconsin Board of Regents decided unanimously to fire longtime UW-La Crosse Chancellor Joe Gow, citing his “abhorrent” conduct in a vague statement.

“In recent days, we learned of specific conduct by Dr. Gow that has subjected the university to significant reputational harm. His actions were abhorrent,” UW President Jay Rothman said in a statement.

Gow — La Crosse’s second-longest serving chancellor — appears in various online porn videos with his wife, Carmen Wilson, using “Sexy Happy Couple” as their public account name.

The films, which sometimes feature well-known porn stars, appear on sites like OnlyFans as well as Pornhub.

UW System Regent President Karen Walsh accused Gow, 63, of showing a “reckless disregard for the role he was entrusted with.”

“We are alarmed, and disgusted, by his actions, which were wholly and undeniably inconsistent with his role as chancellor,” Walsh added.

As a tenured faculty member who has served as chancellor since 2007, Gow will be placed on paid administrative leave as he transitions into his faculty role.

However, Rothman said he filed a complaint Wednesday evening with interim Chancellor Betsy Morgan asking that Gow’s status as a tenured faculty member be reviewed.

An outside law firm has been hired “to undertake a fulsome investigation of the matter,” Rothman said.

The former chancellor claimed that although his face was shown in the videos, he never revealed any connections to his prestigious university position.

“There’s nothing said about the University of Wisconsin; there’s nothing said about the chancellor (on the videos),” Gow told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel after his firing.

“So someone else would have to make those associations. And then someone would have to say those are problematic.”

He pointed out that no school funds were used to create the content, which explores consensual adult sexuality and falls within his right to free speech under the First Amendment, he said.

Gow also claimed he was not contacted ahead of the Wednesday meeting and questioned whether the board afforded him due process.

Earlier this month, Gow and his wife launched a YouTube cooking channel dubbed “Sexy Healthy Cooking” in which they invite adult film stars to cook vegan meals — occasionally ending with Gow and his wife walking suggestively offscreen with their guest.

Their X account more blatantly directs their followers to view their LoyalFans and OnlyFans sites “for fully explicit scenes.”

One of their videos features adult film legend Nina Hartley, who landed Gow in hot water in 2018 after he paid her $5,000 in discretionary La Crosse funds to give a 90-minute speech assuring students it’s “OK to like porn.”

After severe backlash, Gow apologized and promised to reimburse the school from his own bank account.

“She seemed like a person who had a life experience dramatically different than the rest of us,” Gow said of Hartley at the time.

But the educator apparently has had a good amount of experience in her line of work.

Gow and Wilson — who met after she chaired the search committee that selected him to lead the university — wrote two books together detailing their untraditional relationship in the porn industry, though they were written under pseudonyms.

They published “Monogamy with Benefits: How Porn Enriches Our Relationship” in 2015 followed by “Married with Benefits: Our Real-life Adult Industry Adventures” in 2018. 

In one of the books, the couple note they were “fairly certain a scandal would ensue if our peers were to know about what we’ve been doing.”

Gow told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel he previously hid this part of his life but made a recent decision to reverse course and “be a little bit more open about these free speech issues.”

The former chancellor had announced in August his plans to retire at the end of the 2023-24 academic year and return to the faculty as a communications professor.

At the time, Gow told the student paper, the Daily Cardinal, he was looking forward to spending more time with his wife and working on a cookbook and “video” to “maybe put up on the internet.”