A porn company has paid a five-figure sum to acquire a sex tape featuring late trans activist Alexis Arquette, and destroy it.

The actor – best known for roles in Last Exit To Brooklyn, Pulp Fiction and The Wedding Singer –passed away “surrounded by love” at the weekend, as her family “held her and sang her David Bowie’s Starman”.

xHamster paid $25,000 to a former lover of Arquette, who died last week of AIDS-related complications, according to the Daily Mail.

The former lover of Arquette had started trying to sell the tape just hours after she died, it is reported.

Made around two years ago, the tape featured Arquette in a “compromising position”.

But all copies have now been destroyed, xHamster confirmed, in a bid to stop the man who sold it from “smearing her memory”.

Alex Hawkins, a spoksperson for xHamster said: “Ms. Arquette was an icon and activist in the trans community and we could not see someone smear her memory the way the selling party was trying to do.

“We acquired the tape and subsequently destroyed all copies of it.

“We hope people will remember Ms. Arquette for the activist that she was and that her memory will continue to live on.”

Some reports suggest that Arquette had identified as neither male nor female in the years leading up to her death, others suggested that she had been living as male.

Her family released a moving statement on Monday praising her for her contribution to trans visibility.

Arquette was the sister of actors Patricia, David, Rosanna and Richmond Arquette.

She played a gender neutral singer in the 1998 film The Wedding Singer.

Later, in 2007, Arquette appeared in the documentary ‘Alexis Arquette: She’s my Brother’ premiered at Tribeca.

Back in January, Arquette lashed out at Jada and Will Pinkett-Smith after they announced their plans to snub this year’s Oscars ceremony.