Uh, we don't get TV in this
house, um, we all have computers.
My daughter and my son are three and two
and they each have their own computers,
and they're lined up next
to mommy's computers, and,
um, my little girl is
really really super smart.
She can use a computer really well,
she surfs around this, online
and she uses photoshop
she uses word, I mean she's
only three years old
and she can read and write
and use a computer
just like an adult, she's pretty amazing.
I didn't plan to be a single mom.
I didn't plan to be stuck
in the middle of the desert
where I don't know anybody,
it's just kind of
all been thrown for a loop.
So at that point I said
we gotta arrest him,
so we arrested him,
and he cried like a baby, didn't he.
"I can't go back to jail! Ahhhhhhhh!"
and he just cried like a baby.
I said okay.
I gave him the opportunity
to make very small
reasonable payments,
he didn't make any of the payments,
I warned him if he didn't make the payments
I was gonna come and take his grandma's car.
That's what he forced us to do,
and the day that I took this car
his little 87-year-old grandma
or mother was out there with her walker
watching us take her car.
And it was one of the hardest things
I've ever had to do.
But you know what? Business is business.
So. Now the clay is pretty much
conditioned, it's ready to be worked with.
We're gonna give ourselves, a base, and
then uh, he will be put into action.
I would see if he can find a girlfriend.
Since he's gone throughout
this radical surgical procedure,
to have his
penis re-installed.
Imagine how happy he is when he wakes up
and finds out, he's got a dick again.
Wow, you know that's a, that's a big
day in the coyote's life. Huh?!
And I knew that, getting this opportunity
to be on a mainstream show,
I knew my whole life,
like, once I got out to LA,
once I could get on a reality show,
and get the opportunity to show people,
like, about me,
that that would be the big thing
I need to move forward mainstream. I just
need that one opportunity to get there.
No! What happens is it like, it like, like,
you're trying to put it in it like bends.
And you, it's better if it's like a
solid one. -That's reality right there.
No, I'm not kidding. But, like, one like
this, then it doesn't, it goes faster.
And he comes from, of course the uh, story
of the old testament, the story of Josean.
Um, and this is
kind of a modern day adaptation of that.
Currently, (unintelligible conversation)
That is amazing,
that is amazing
and God bless you and take care.
I'm definitely still growing spiritually.
I don't think you can ever quit growing.
There's always room to get closer to God
and things to learn about him and...
ways to change your life and to improve.
It is a mess.
- You're a mess.
It's a mess. But that's
the way gnocchies are.
A little bit of a mess.
It's like, a guy told me once,
when he was painting.
Is that how you,
how it was more basic and then he went in.
Well it wasn't more basic,
it was just a painting I did
and then one day I took it out and I just
started painting
all this other stuff in there
and just went in with this reds and...
I don't, I don't remember
what it looked like before,
I can't remember, I just, very hard to
keep a band together and I only wanna play
with certain guys
that I really love playing with.
Cause it all comes together, it's
like summer theatre you know.
Wow! I got a barn, and
I got to, I got to,
I got the instruments, we'll put our own
show on! You know what I mean.
It all still has that, that element.
This is uh, one of the Chinatown series.
From my home town. After the mill closed.
I mean, pretty much closed.
What'd you get last year, for
your birthday, from Aunt Lynny?
I think a Power Ranger suit. -You got what?
No, you didn't!
You didn't get a Power Ranger suit
that was for Halloween.
You got an electric guitar...
A 'lectric guitar...
A REAL electric guitar!
Why? Because you told aunt Lynny you
wanted to grow up to be a rockstar.
You know what, I just see a beautiful
girl and I just wanna hug her!
Well, I love this one right here,
so I telling you.
I currently reach out to women and men in
the sex industry and the porn industry
and I absolutely love pulling them
out of the pit
the porn industry pit.
It's 1800 square feet and, the guest
house is around 600 square feet.
That little garage area, I don't know.
Um, it took me about a year to really
get serious about studying,
and, it took me three times to
pass the test, but I did it and,...
here I am.
Got into real-estate, I've
been in it for five years.
Over here. -Yup.
- Dark and mild.
No, he likes the dark heavy.
Dark heavy.
When I'm at home,
I run around with no makeup on,
a pair of sweatpants, bare foot, a t-shirt,
and I'm usually out in the yard digging.
Because I like to plant things,
I like to grow things.
Or decorating my house.
I like to do crafty things,
like, you know, I don't,
I know I don't seem like
the domestic goddess!
But I, I,
I like to make things for the house
and I love to cook.
And, I'm a very good cook.
I had a little bit, of, a, some bad
terrible terrible news, uh, this April.
Um, I was diagnosed with uh,
stage three melanoma cancer.
So for the past four or five months I've
been dealing with that and on chemo.
They recommended complete dissection
of the lymph-nodes,
and then to be on heavy-dose interferon,
which would be uh, intravenous,
which I would get five times a week, for
the first month, and then after that,
three times a week, for eleven
months, for the rest of the year.
And um, it's, it's been tough.
It's actually great here, cause, how
many porno stars live here? I know...
There's some more uh, there's
some more coming in uh, Sunset,
uh, Houston, uh,
Taylor Saint-Claire just moved here.
What, whatever happened to uh,
she was really hot, but I loved her.
What happened to that um... oh
godammit, I don't know their names
I'm really bad with this, um...
You remember their tits. Yeah.
Oh god, she was um,
oh that doesn't make any difference.
She was living here for
a long time she was so hot.
(unintelligible conversation)
Oh yeah, she just moved outta town,
yeah, she just moved outta town.
And uh, that's the only thing
I missed out on in life.
I've done, pretty much everything I wanted.
I did wanna have kids,
didn't have the opportunity
to meet the right woman the right
time, so I do kinda miss out on that,
but uh,
nobody gets everything there's other guys
that have great kids
and they love every minute of it
they kinda wish they were me,
fantasy wise,
but um, nobody gets everything.
AFTER PORN ENDS
I started modeling in ninth grade.
My mom put me through modeling school,
I graduated from modeling school,
started doing beauty pageants, and
model searches, and bikini contests.
So, I was exposed, to,
not so much the adult industry
but just knowing that I could make money
with my body.
I had a roommate at the time,
um, that was a dancer, and she knew
an agent, his name was Jim Salf.
He said, "Hey, there's a producer
that saw your picture
and he'd like you to come do a movie
how would you like to do a movie?"
And I said, uh, well,
I've never done a movie before
but sure, I could do it, no problem.
I went down and I had
braids like Bo Derek
at the time and, and
did my first scene.
It was a three-way. I had never
even, been with a woman,
I didn't know what to do with a woman,
I had, no idea what I was doing.
But the minute those lights hit me,
I swear that was
where I was supposed to be.
Everyone said do it, do it, do it.
And the more you do the more money you
can make dancing on the dance circuit,
the more magazines you can do,
the more you're exposed, you can,
I mean gosh, I have a sex toy line, now
we wanna do an action figure of you.
Okay! I mean, all of it
was just like, cool!
You know, sign me up! Sure!
I was just having a blast, I mean,
there were fans
lined up for miles and miles
and miles that flew,
I mean some people came from
Poland and Berlin,
and come to think of it
when I went to Poland,
to um, sign autographs and whatever,
I mean, when I got off the plane
I needed a body guard!
I mean, for a porn star to be that big,
around the world,
I mean, it was un-believable,
I mean felt like a...
I was a true super star!
I mean people, were knocking
each other down.
Heeeere's Houston!!!!
Over the Dali Lama in the newspaper,
I was the headliner.
I mean, that's unbelievable.
I was still under contract,
I was with Metro Productions
for a few years,
and they're the ones that also produced
uh, the Houston 500,
the world's biggest gang-bang.
Um, at that point when I first signed
with Metro,
it was already known going in
that I was gonna takeover,
uh, Jasmine Saint-Clair's
title and do this gang-bang.
So, going into my contract with Metro,
I already knew that I was gonna be
doing that,
so, I wasn't,
I wasn't looking for things to,
oh I've gotta be more crazy and wild,
you know honestly
it just all came to me naturally.
Like, I mean, I had a labiaplasty,
and that was before
a lot of women even knew
that they can get their labia trimmed if
you have larger labia lips and you know,
when I did that it was like, oh,
it was just a no brainer
I'm gonna encase that in lucite
and auction it. The trimmings.
I mean, it's just things just came
to me, I was just a publicity whore.
I was good at it.
I had invested my money, uh,
I bought a home,
as well as, um, put a lot of money
in mutual funds,
and many years ago
when the stock market went kaput,
I lost, like, almost all my savings.
And that hurt me.
Um, but I did still have my house
that I owned in LA,
um, and then when things got rough
of course I sold it,
not for financial reasons but when I
wanted to get out of the industry.
I'm professor of communications
studies and psychology at UCLA.
I study a variety of topics,
but one of the major areas
that I study is pornography.
I'm Faith, and since 1984
I've done about 600 films.
About a thousand scenes, give or take.
Um, I've won
several dozen awards for acting
in sex performances
and fan favorite and this and that.
I think it might be up,
this year for best non-sex role
I've also moved into
the occasional character part
that doesn't involve having sex.
I write about the sex industry pretty much
from the fall of 1995
until the fall of 2007.
"The History of X:
One Hundred Years of Sex in Film"
is the name of my first book.
I've been in the
adult entertainment industry
for basically 35-36 years,
in every capacity.
I started as a writer, became an actor,
director, agent, and now
I'm sorta the, papa bear
to the adult entertainment industry,
protecting adult welfare,
which I run, and, watch over
the overaged juvenile delinquents
and what I refer
to as the playpen of the damned,
which is the X-rated industry.
What we give them in the adult
entertainment industry
for a brief shiny moment is
immortality, validation, and credibility.
Every one of us, no matter how
insignificant we may think we are,
wants to be recognized at one
time or another in our lives,
and when you went to those conventions
they lined up at your booth
like they were getting
signatures from professional athletes.
My parents divorced. My dad took us
far away from our mother,
and ran away with us.
He became an alcoholic.
Then I moved in with my mom and the
family relationship changed, um,
I felt kind of lost. I worked a
regular job, um, in an office,
for five years, but while I was doing
those things I also found um,
a modeling website and I put
my pictures on the website,
and then um, you know, I was still working
in the office but people were emailing me
about doing shoots.
And I thought it would be cool to do,
like, bikini stuff, or, even though
I never really even
walked around in bikinis I thought
it would be, kind of neat.
So, eventually, I did take a job, um doing,
um, you know they were only asking me to
do nudes and eventually I just did it.
I went to my first shoot,
in like a hotel room,
and um, it was just supposed to be
topless, and it, was, it was really scary.
Um...
It was weird.
Well ever since I,
since I got into the business,
I always got emails, that said that
you, you don't look quite comfortable,
and I think that it was the innocence,
that, attracted my, a lot of my fans,
is that I didn't look totally comfortable
in anything I did,
and even if I was speaking I didn't
look totally comfortable
and I never looked confident, I wasn't
very verbal, I wasn't, you know,
over the top with the noises
or anything, um.
I dunno, I just started feeling,
really depressed about it. Honestly.
And, then I hit rock bottom myself,
emotionally, where I um, got really upset
and I'd go in the bathroom and
I threw a glass
on the ground and then I um, just crying
and fall to the ground
and just started like,
pounding my wrists into the glass,
and blood was,
just started going everywhere, and...
I dunno, I just kinda lost that hope.
I did have a stalker, um, he started
off just sending me hate-mail.
He's an atheist, so he was pretty
much, putting down what I believe in
and trying to get me to debate him.
He, heh, became obsessed with me
and developed like this, crush on me. And
then I told him we would never date,
I don't know you I don't know where you
live, you're too young, blah blah blah.
And um, he flipped out.
The thing that pushed me to the edge was
he said he was gonna, um, he wanted
to bash my head into the concrete
until my brains spilled out.
And then kill my cat and stuff like that.
A few fans had emailed me the last year
or so and said they were praying for me
and that they were not
looking at porn anymore,
and, you know,
and then I had this other guy saying
you need to put a warning on your
website because kids can see this
my fourteen-year-old son found this,
and then...
Just all kinds of people were like, sending
me these emails, random emails and...
You know it uh, and of course I would,
I was always kind of sympathetic
to whatever they said but, um,
there was some,
you know I was still kind of hardened too,
at the same time, because I was like well,
I can't do anything else, this is what I'm
good at. This is all that, I know.
And, I kind of believed it at the time.
I didn't have anybody you know,
saying, you're better than that.
So, um...
Some adult stars do "find god" and leave,
but those are people who needed,
who needed to be gone anyway,
and did not have
the personal strength to do it
and so they do look outside
for something to help them leave.
Um, there are plenty of people in the
business who really shouldn't be here,
because they have conflict about...
if I was-, if I'd been raised
to be ashamed of my body,
and to feel bad about men
and their and the horrible desires,
but, did porn for other reasons eventually
those two things are gonna co-,
wheels are gonna come off the bus.
I can only deny it so long,
people try to deny,
they stuff their feelings with, with drugs,
and alcohol, or whatever it is
they stuff their feelings with
and after a six months, one year,
five year, ten years, whatever
it finally goes you know what?
I can't do this anymore.
Because for religion and especially
western religion, especially Christianity
says I love you, I forgive you,
you can come home now.
And I will not push you out.
And so that is incredibly powerful
and incredibly potent
to have someone finally say
I don't shame you.
I love you. You're welcome here.
Sign me up!
When you're involved in this
industry you lose your humanity.
You're no longer treated as a human being
by eighty percent of people out there.
You're now, now scum.
Like they maybe wanna,
do certain things with you.
But then, you're still scum.
And, like if, they may be thrilled
to have a roll in the sac with you
but when they leave, when you leave
they're gonna wanna burn the sheets.
Uh, ah, I got into porn by accident. It
wasn't something I planned on doing,
uh, probably mighta been the, the least
likely thing I thought I woulda done.
I was singing in bands after I, a
baseball thing didn't work out,
uh, I knew I could sing
so I started singing in rock bands.
And of course like all
struggling musicians you
gotta make a little extra
dough on the side.
It actually, my, my first naked job
I was a nude art model
for like you know college art
classes and stuff like that.
And I was really kinda shy
but not about my body
just about talking
I was kinda shy about talking.
But yeah I'd get naked in front of
people so I did that and a couple girls
in one of the classes asked to take
some pictures of me and they did and...
They came out pretty good and they said
can we send them to some magazines
I said I don't care do what you want.
And they sent'em out and and next thing
I know I got a letter from Playgirl,
and, but High Society said they
like to do a boy/girl thing
but I said alright.
So it was the first thing I ever did.
And they had a woman editor and at the
end of the shoot she goes you know uh,
I noticed you were taking care of
business pretty good,
did you ever think about doing a porn
movie cause I got some connections.
And I go,
I never really thought about it, no.
She goes well you know, I think,
I can get you 250 bucks.
Like, 250 bucks man! 1978
that was some good cash,
that's what I was making a week!
So I said uh,
alright I'll try it, you know.
So I did it and uh, guess I was good
at it cause they kept calling me back.
And uh, that's kinda how it got started.
I, I used to say it's like borrowing
somebody's body to masturbate with.
Uh, excuse me,
if you're not busy do you mind
if I jerk off in your pussy with my dick?
Uh, it's kinda like that,
which it's not bad,
I mean you know,
better than real jerkin' off, but...
When I first started producing up-and-
comers I get this letter in the mail
and I open it up, and I see this
unbelievably, good-looking,
very young looking blonde girl,
with beautiful natural boobs,
little baby face, and she wants to know
if I can help her get in the porn biz.
Girl's name was Jenna Jameson.
I remember saying this
I mean holy christ
if I get this girl to shoot for
me we're gonna sell some tapes.
I said well if you don't wanna do guys
you know
I'll let you pick whatever girl you want
if you wanna do that. And she liked girls.
So she picked this girl that
I happened to be working with
that day who was doing her first movie,
Kylie Ireland,
so Kylie and Jenna were doing
their thing together
and uh, everything was going good,
and they took a little break
and while they were lying there I...
I think I said something like,
man Jenna that's a
tasty looking pussy you got.
And I believe she said well why
don't you come in and taste it.
I was...
Okay, I was doing the camera but
I handed it to my assistant,
Bob hold onto this, start shooting.
So I get in there and
I start going down on her
and she starts squealing
that little squeal that she had
and um, I'm guessing she's kinda
liking it you know,
and seemed like she was getting off
and everything's good
and I said man, I am so fuckin' horny now.
I said would you guys mind maybe like,
giving me a double blowjob or something?
And they said sure, we can do that,
and I'm like... Thank you, thank you!
And they did and it went well and
a week later she kinda called me back
and said you know what you weren't
so bad I think I could probably do
a boy girl thing with you and the
rest is kinda history after that.
"It's a Daddy Thing" number three!
Old man, can make a comeback!
Yeah!
Still there baby, no viagra yet!
Um, and it, you know,
it's cool you do your thing,
you go home, you came,
you relax you know but,
I'm kind of an affectionate kinda guy,
and so I kinda miss that part
of it and that's why
I still like having a relationship,
when it happens, you know.
And uh, you know for example eh,
Tera Patrick man,
not only was she incredible in bed but
there was just, I just liked her.
And, that that, sense of humor
and the craziness,
a little bit different, you know.
So, I hadn't dated anybody in so long
when I met her
I forgot how to do it, and uh, I
did ask her out to dinner twice,
and we went out to dinner
and we had a good time but
I dropped her off at her place without
asking her if I could, come in.
And I don't know eh, I might have,
she mighta thought I was weird.
I already had sex with her
a couple of times, on camera,
and she mighta thought it was weird that I
didn't wanna come up and finish the date,
but I was kinda showing her that
I wasn't just there for the sex,
and, maybe it wasn't a good move cause
you leave a beautiful woman like that
alone for too long and
somebody else is gonna come along
and somebody else did come
along and that was that.
She made it today, this
is Tera Patrick. Hello.
And uh, Tera is reasonably known in the
business and hasn't even worked that often.
Apparently. Um.
I was just trying to pace myself right now.
- One of my all time favorites.
Most of the people
who seek it out don't have
means of making that kind of money
by other means.
I mean very few women say hmm,
I'm going to become a surgeon
or I'm going to become a pornography star.
This country does not raise people
with a very good work ethic.
They don't know how to do anything else.
They don't know how to do retail,
they don't know how to do
Excel spreadsheets.
Many people who
make their way to adult entertainment,
like rock-and-roll,
are not suited for nine-to-five work.
I, ran away from home at sixteen
and was living on the streets at seventeen.
Uh, everything I owned
was in two garbage bags.
Um, my parents were saying
I hope you just kill yourself
and make life a lot easier
for the rest of us.
Uh, it was just on and on and on
so there I was out on the streets
and then, when I got taken in with a
foster family, um, I made sure that
I kept finishing school with good grades
because that was gonna be my future
that was gonna be my ticket outta there
and then when I went to college
on full academic scholarship.
I never actually went to classes.
I said okay I've got free room
and board, I need to make money.
I need to get some sort
of security and stability
in my life so I don't have to
turn tricks to get food to eat.
So I took up stripping,
I went to all the local strip bars,
and from there I started doing
magazines in New York City.
I would take a train to New York
City on weekends and do magazines.
And then, uh, a photographer said
he knew a director in California
named Bud Lee who could direct me in
some movies if I wanted to do that.
So um, I packed up my suitcase and
a teddy bear and went out to LA.
Made a movie for Bud Lee, married him,
didn't come back.
The reason that I wanted to do porn,
even though I was so smart,
Miss MENSA and all that is
uh, it's precisely because
I wanted to stop being known
as the nerd the geek the,
the one that you come over
and you be nice to me just so you
can copy off of my tests, you know.
I would hang out with some of my
misfit friends and they had,
they had adult magazines hidden under
their bed and they would look at them
and I would be peeking over their shoulder.
I wish someone
looked at me like that.
And that was just like my
wildest fantasy that
someone would think that I was
pretty and sexy and, woo!
All my life I'd just been
the nerd and the geek.
So it was like a fantasy
come true for me that
someone wanted to see me on the cover
of a magazine.
When I got to porn it was like
wait, I get to pick which one of these
good-looking guys I wanna sleep with?
And uh, you're gonna pay me for it
and then you're gonna put me on a box
cover and give me tons of money?
It was just uh, a really big step
up from where I was coming from.
Porn wasn't all that much of a mental
challenge for me shall we say, um,
standing there and saying
my silly lines just,
it didn't take up a
whole lot of my day
so meanwhile you got a lot
of time to sit around and wait
so uh, I just kept myself busy
by learning every single job on the set.
Um, I... I would get the grips
to take me down to the grip truck
and show me the names of everything on
there and teach me how to do everything
by showing up with my little grip belt and
my shorts and my gloves and no shirt on.
And I would ask very nicely if they
would teach me their job and they did,
and, much the same way I learned editing,
directing, producing, scriptwriting,
um, every job on the set I've gotten.
If you look on IMDB my name has got all
credits next to it I did everything.
I even designed my own box covers.
Um, what made me different was
I was the first half-asian
to become an A-list star in the business.
Um, before I'd started
there was the white girls
and the black girls and the asian girls
and each had their own separate genre,
and, they didn't mix, you, you don't put
an asian girl in a white girl movie.
It's just the way it was.
And then when I came in
and I was only half-asian
the features were soft enough that
they could still put me on a cover
and I could still be a white girl, or and
asian girl, they could play me either way.
Or they could play me as an Indian
or a Gypsy, or, Greek girl!
They gave me all the different roles.
So they just, they wound up using
my look as very versatile.
And so I became the first "cross-over"
star from a minority,
and then uh, I guess
they did pretty well with me
cause after I left Vivid they got
Koby Tie, who was full asian, so,
I kinda opened the door
for the minorities to become A-listers.
I, I hated doing live appearance.
Oh I'm getting sweaty just looking
at this picture. Yeah.
I spent like all year long
dreading the CES Show.
I would just have to keep telling myself
they're more scared than you are,
they're more scared than you are.
Cause I'd smile and I'd say "So what's
your name?" and they'd go...
they'd just look at me.
Okay what's your name?!
If you see my very first interviews from
when I was nineteen, twenty years old,
I said I'm gonna retire when I'm thirty.
And people would laugh and say oh
you've got it all planned out.
There really wasn't any question about it.
I had, gotten married, and, then divorced.
And I met someone who had adult bookstores.
So I basically got my introduction
to the adult entertainment world
through working in adult bookstores,
and then consequently owning adult
bookstores and I saw the women
that were doing movies at the time and,
I was just,
amazed, because,
they had pimples on their rear-ends,
they had on no makeup,
their feet were dirty,
their hair was dirty, and I thought my god,
this is not a really good
representation of women.
I wanna do that.
I mean I had done, um, a few magazines
and a few uh, like, 8 mm loops,
and then I came to California, and I
picked up one of the free papers and,
there was an ad.
My family was very, very okay
with what I did because
I did tell them what I was about to
do before I actually did anything.
I mean I'd done a couple of photo shoots,
and decided that I needed to tell my family
before it got out there
because I didn't want
them finding out from someone else.
And they're like well do, you
think you can make money at it?
You think you can have a good career
and be happy doing this?
And I said yes I do, and they said good,
go do it.
We had a very small community of people,
of players, that we all worked with.
And we all worked with
each other quite a bit.
So the community was small, we were
familiar with one another, and, we actu...
it's like when you, have a, a new boyfriend
or new girlfriend or a new husband or wife,
it takes a little while
before you know what
pushes their buttons, what turns them on
what makes them feel good,
and then it starts
to become very intimate,
and, you can actually,
have an intimate relationship with the
person you're working with on screen,
and be fond of them
after the movie is over.
Um, but they're just
generally sweet nice people.
I was being offered parts in movies,
in, or photo shoots or what have you,
and they didn't want to pay me
the amount of money I wanted,
and I said no. I just, I held out.
So, um, and subsequently
I started stripping,
going across the,
basically across the world stripping.
And uh, doing photo shoots
with Club Magazine predominantly.
And um, so they didn't see me in front,
people didn't see me in front of the camera
so they thought okay, she's retired.
I've been retired and come back
so many times
I can't keep track anymore. I've
also been dead a few times.
I saw an add in the paper it said
"Nude fun, big bucks."
and uh, it was an audition
for an X-rated movie.
Two days later I get a call
from the producer,
they wanna give me a part in the movie.
I hadn't planned on that.
At the time, I had applied to the
Hebrew Union Seminary in Cincinnati,
where they uh, train
people to become Rabbis.
So I'm trying to measure,
do I wanna do this,
or do I wanna be in a porn movie
because it seems
if I take the part in the porn
movie I maybe,
um, cutting some of my options off,
for future life.
And the uh, seminary in Cincinnati
said we'll take you
but the first two years you have to go to
Jerusalem and study Aramaic, which,
I would rather go to Cleveland
and study their sewer system.
Um, no interest there.
So I decided I would make the porn movie.
And, in any case the kind of Rabbi
I would become,
would be the kind that
could've made a porn movie.
And uh, I went ahead and did the job.
I think I had to become a sex
star just to come back to normal!
Cause I'd been so humiliated
by being the fat kid!
I had the largest breasts
in the seventh grade!
The guys would make fun of me
and point at me and tease me!
Do you know how deep those scars go?!
That's ugly shit!
Those are the people that
become centerfolds!
Cause they got something to prove.
I was lucky enough to uh,
be in the era when they were
actually trying to make movies where
you needed to remember lines.
And I had the, I was good at that.
So, I got hired for my acting ability,
which being a good actor in porn,
is like being the wisest man
in the kingdom of the fools.
He promised that I could fuck you next.
- He what?!
Gah!
Ow!
Let him alone! I
said let him alone!
Ow! Ah, oh uh!
Get the fuck outta here!
- My ankle! Ow, my ankle!
I was terrible at the sex.
Just rotten!
I was just so traumatized by it.
But I eventually did learn
how to have sex on camera.
I was on the beach in San Diego
and uh, I was by myself.
And I'm sitting there, and I notice
there's a really beautiful woman,
laying on a towel and so my gaze drifts
over to her and her boyfriend looks at me
and sees her... and I look away.
And then eventually I'd drift back
and I'm looking at her again
and the boyfriend sees me looking
at her again and I'm like shit.
Well the guy gets up, and he starts
walkin' over towards me
and I'm going Oh no! Here we go.
You know, this is gonna get ugly.
And he gets close to me and I, I'm just
clenching my fist ready to defend myself.
The guy's a monster, I'm gonna get killed,
I know it, and he leans in and he says
"Were you in Insatiable?"
And I went YES! YES!
I was so happy that's what it was,
he recognized me from the movie
business and he wasn't gonna kick
my ass it was a true delight.
A true delight.
We became friends at that point.
I hadn't told my parents that
I was doing this.
I told them I had, was doing commercials
and low-budget nothing, and,
well, that I,
I knew that they weren't gonna be.
I didn't suspect they would be very
approving of this kinda stuff.
I made the original call prepared to
become the black sheep of the family.
It didn't happen.
I'm sure they were less than thrilled.
When my mother would be at the grocery
store the next day and they say
"Good to see you, how you doing?
What's going on? " " Well! My son
the doctor's coming back from Israel,
and my other son,
he makes shmackle movies in California!"
Well I think people may have a negative
reaction to someone who's a porn star
for a combination of reasons.
One is, somebody who seems to indiscriminately
be willing to sleep with anyone,
whether it's on film or not,
is, no matter what people say,
still not somebody who's
particularly admired and,
again may pose a threat
to many relationships.
It is legal work, but it's fucking.
With pictures.
People say
"you should, should go into politics"
There's too many pictures
with dicks in my ass,
it's like, it's not going to happen.
It happened by happenstance.
I came up with some friends
and I went to a club
called The Rainbow, and,
I met there Althea Flint,
the wife of Larry Flint,
and a photographer that
she had in tow, and they approached me
and invited me
to their table, and asked me
if I wanted to go to a club
and have some drinks and I did.
And she was, doing an interview for Sting,
and we were up there looking
to meet some rockstars,
you know, we were just girls.
Doing our thing.
And she took us in her limo,
she had this black limo that
had this Think Pink
on the license plate and this,
I think it was a naked lady
on the side of it.
And I was so impressed by that.
She said what do you do and I said
I'm a model and she said -Wow!
I sh... you know, I, I own Hustler Magazine
and we're gonna put you in Hustler.
So, that was that!
Um, I went into Hustler and um,
started doing magazines.
My brother found out and, he had tried
to talk me into it many times,
because everybody always said Hey Buck!
Can you get your sister to do a movie
oh my god!
And, um, you know,
we never worked together,
on set, but, we always
championed each other's careers.
And so my brother said to me,
um, I want you to do a movie.
And he set it up with Sin City,
it was actually done for Sin City
and it was called Babewatch,
and it was for my brother's
Babewatch series, cause he said
if you're gonna do movies for anybody, you
have to do, you have to do one for me, sis,
so I said okay I will.
And the sex was real, you know,
you'd say, how do you want the blow-job?
And he'd say, how do you like the blowjob?
And that would be it, you know and
that, we would build off of that.
You know, I was the kinda person,
it, I lived a life of excess,
and people would invite me to
parties, and they would think Wow!
If I offer her some party tools, then,
I'm gonna have my night set up,
I'm gonna wind up getting laid all
night by this beautiful porn star.
And then as my addiction
went through another door,
they'd hand me the bag of coke and I'd
wind up in the bathroom all night
you know, and you wouldn't be able
to drag me out of the bathroom
and I'd be like don't touch me!
And oh!
And all of my life
started to kind of spiral.
I wound up getting arrested, um,
on the highway,
and the police knew exactly
who I was, when I got arrested,
and, they wanted to make an
example of me with the court system.
They knew that I was, you know, a big
porn star, and um, the gig was up.
And I had to face it.
And it was the greatest thing that ever
happened to me when I look back on it now,
because it really brought me into reality.
For the women,
they're much more damned by society
because no matter how
sanctified they are,
they're still considered to be whores, and
it's getting worse and worse and worse
because a lot of them have turned to,
what I am vehemently opposed to,
the escort services,
to further their career.
In many ways,
it has a dehumanizing quality,
because what you're responding
to are a set of, physical cues.
You are responding to the body,
and you're responding
to the sexual acts per say
in a way that is quite animalistic.
And, having a more full depiction
of the person
may even detract from the
ability to use it purely
as masturbatory or other
kind of sexual stimulation.
You can take every other category,
every other idea, every other thought.
Basically happiness and success in life
all boils down
to what are the quality of your bonds
with other people.
Having anything to do with the a
dult industry hacks away those bonds,
so you're isolated, alienated,
um, pushed away to the margins,
and not treated as a human being.
That's a recipe for disaster,
for me and for anyone else.
Um, when I was in college a couple of us
on the dance team worked at Hooters
so I was working at Hooters,
I love doing that,
a lot of the girls at Hooters were telling me
how I would make a lot of money stripping
and then I had a boyfriend in college
who brought me,
I went with him and his friends
to a strip club one night
because they always used to go
watch amateur night.
He's like I think you could win,
I think you could beat these girls
at amateur night. So I entered and I won,
I got first place out of twelve girls
in the amateur contest,
and I got $500.
So I was like this is a really cool job I
get to drink, and dance and make money.
This is way better than
anything else I can imagine.
When I was twenty-one I used to watch
a lot of those cinemaX movies
and so I went to uh, Blockbuster
and I got the address off the box
of a cinemaX movie and I mailed
some Polaroids of myself
and a a few headshots I had taken, um,
like, and just pictures and I mailed it
and I wrote this letter about how I think
I'd really like to be in the movies.
And I heard nothing
and then three months later
I actually got a call from Playboy.
Coming to this industry I pretty much
came into it thinking okay
I'm going to somehow be one of the
most well-known pornstars of all time.
I wouldn't wanna come into it and just be
another girl that was around for two years
and then have to go be a hooker. You know.
After I did the Hus-the Playboy thing,
um, I shot for Hustler,
the next month I came out to LA,
um, within three weeks after
shooting for Hustler,
um, his wife and his dau-uh his sister,
or, his daughter,
told me how much they loved me
and they ended up taking me
on the Larry Flint Freedom Tour.
They chose four girls to go
with Larry Flint
to like different Hustler stores
on the freedom tour and they chose me
and then Hustler had me, my very
first day being on the show um,
a Hustler chose me to sign at their booth,
cause they don't have contract
girls they pick girls.
And then a month later there was
a Magic Convention
which is a clothing convention
and Hustler was launching
their clothing and Hustler had chosen me
to be the model of their clothing
and they made, you know,
pictures of me modeling it.
So I really didn't think about
life after porn
because I just couldn't believe how
like, all these things kept happening.
I mean just the things that
happened to me as a new girl
in porn don't happen to most new
girls I mean, I met Larry Flint um,
pretty much my
second month in the business.
So I didn't think about life after.
I just said... I just always said
I'm gonna get married and have kids.
I used to say by twenty-seven.
Now I say I wanna get married by
thirty and have kids by thirty-two.
While I was married
I only did girl-girl.
I left my husband and did boy-girl.
Um, when I got back with my husband
at kickass I only did girl-girl again,
we split up,
I did boy-girl, heh!
Then I took like a hiatus for
about six-seven months
and didn't shoot anything. And
that's when I met this guy,
um, who's my, ended up becoming
my fiance, but we were dating,
and I didn't do boy-girl when I was
with him for the first six months,
and then he was like, don't you think
you should go get a new porn contract
because that's extra income
we can have every month.
And I was like well, you want
me to have sex with other guys?
And he was like well,
it's only six times a year
you're gonna do it, and it's with
a condom. I was like okay.
Then of course, like,
two days before the movie
my ex was like, I don't want you
having sex with other guys.
Arrrrg! Arr!
- Let go of me!
Your derri`ere may be pretty,
but that don't mean
it's bull-worked from
a promiscuous lashing.
Every two-and-a-half months
I'd have to shoot a boy-girl scene
and er-usually about two days before
he would start being really mean to me,
and calling me names,
even though he was the one
who wanted me to do the movies.
Then, on the day when I'd go
to shoot the movie
he'd go out with his friends
and get really drunk,
then he usually would not kiss me
or anything for two days later
and then when my check would
come in he's like that's my check,
since I let you have
sex with other people.
And then when I would be asleep sometimes,
I'd be asleep and I'd hear
him watching my movies.
He'd go and put it in like slow motion
and make sure the guy wore a condom
and I wasn't lying about it.
Um, let's see.
The most I ever made in a month was
probably when I was running for governor
because my website was making
around twenty-thousand a month
and then my online store
selling t-shirts and buttons
made about ten-fifteen thousand a month,
and, I felt really bad cause I didn't
have time to mail'em all out
so I just ended up not
mailing people their orders.
I feel really bad about that.
Um, and then my contract was
six thousand a month
and I was feature dancing, at that time
feature dancing used to pay a lot more.
That was like, six thousand for like,
three weeks.
I dunno how much that is, maybe
like 50, 60 thousand in a month.
That's probably the most.
And then I won a game show
around that same time.
I won a game show Who Wants to be
Governor of California?
I won another twenty-one thousand.
Um, that was great.
Um, I guess the most in the year would
probably be around 300 thousand.
I mean I don't think I thought
I was set for life
I always used to joke
with everyone that um,
I'm either going to,
just make a lot of money
or I might worst case scenario
I'll marry a rich person.
That's what I always said.
No one comes into this business to
wanna be normal on the back end of it.
Nobody thinks that it's gonna end.
You jump on a merry-go-round
you hope the ride never ends.
I don't think many of them can spell
the word future.
I don't think they did this as a short
term investment in their own future,
but they burned out.
Hookers are hookers.
I mean hookers are people
who are looking for a quick buck
with the least amount of effort
so they turn tricks.
And, uh, being a porn star is just like,
uh, you know the,
the world's oldest profession
so, it's, it's not that complicated,
uh, reality is hard.
A lot of people blame,
blame the industry for their problems
but, uh, then they get out
in the real world and find,
lots of problems in the real world too.
I grew up in Pensilvania, um,
in the steel-mill towns.
Worked in the steel-mills, I drove cabs,
it was sorta typical things, uh, people do.
There I did some
illustrations for magazines,
in New York and eventually,
started playing uh, music.
Did that for a while.
And then I came out to California and
end up getting into dirty movies.
Just met some people.
Actually I was gonna do a uh,
a photo spread,
I was gonna do some photography of
some girls who were in the business.
I had an idea I would do a photo shoot
of them and then a little interview.
And, some people I knew from
illustrating magazines in New York said
yeah, we'll see what you come up with,
if it's good we'll pay you and everything
so I met the... these two girls,
and, before I knew it, uh,
I was, in the movies!
So that's sorta how that started.
But you know when I was working it was,
it wasn't like it is today, it was,
I'd maybe work forty days a year and
maybe 15 to 20 days were sex days.
And today they work every day of the week.
Maybe twice a day.
You know, viagra shootin' up their cocks
and stuff like that
I mean it's just they're
ruining their sex life
for the rest of their lives,
I'm telling ya!
I just think there's too much going on,
I mean just your personal appetite of it.
I mean, if you're working as a performer
and you're working that much I mean,
sex loses it's mystery in it's sense
and it's, I mean I remember being turned on
to a point some times, certain situations
where I would actually shake.
I mean I'm sure everybody's
been in that situation
and now that, I hate to see that go away.
I remember one time my dad
picked me up from the airport,
and I was coming in for the holidays
and he's, and he-
I had, my pictures
were in Hustler magazine eh,
they were on, about a movie
and, and I think I was
I was giving some girl head!
And my father says,
"I saw that picture in Hustler."
I said uh, yeah, picture, that,
wasn't so good of a picture.
And that's all was said!
They never wa... It was not something
I wanted to expose them to because it wa...
you know it it, it's embarrassing for them.
We were so proud of what we did in
some of these movies we did that were...
that were, that got really big play,
that I actually took her to screenings.
We had these screenings in these theaters.
And I'm taking my wife there watching
me have sex with these people
And, she was, it was difficult
for her but, she appreciated
the work we were doing,
but after one or two times
it was like... or we did that, I
said hey we don't do this no more!
She didn't wanna see any
pictures of me or anything.
Although she understood what
I was doing and knew
it was the thing that was not gonna be,
a situation.
Can I ask you something? Those cops,
they're hung pretty good, huh?
Bet they ain't got what I got.
Nobody's got what I got.
So, yeah, I'd like to retire and paint.
If I had a game plan. I saved some
money but I wasn't that good.
No... I didn't make
that much money though.
Come on, what'd I make? I mean
I, didn't work that much.
You talking about when you were acting?
Save money when he was acting?!
He just didn't have any bills.
I didn't have any bills. See I told you
I didn't have any bills...
And then he got me! Ha ha...
Then she showed up!
- I'm a high maintenance, baby.
Then she showed up...
Even if it's not particularly
glamorous that day,
you go to work and you get fussed over,
and if it's a big enough production
there's a makeup artist there,
and there's, and there's attention,
for people who like attention, um,
and then they get paid! The
very same day! Woohoo!
Now, my great friend Lee Carol once said
as long as you got a cunt,
you'll never starve.
But, as a danger to that,
because, it wears on your mind.
My parents didn't take,
really an interest in my life
and I was also sexually abused
at nine-years-old.
I had a teenaged boy and his sister
who was my classmate
introduce me to sexuality and uh,
for the first time in my life
and it horrified me.
Yeah, as soon as I barely graduated
high school,
which, I had to cheat my way through,
my dad ended up coming to me
and saying listen,
you're outta the house, and literally
kicked me out on the street
with no food, no money.
And so I'm literally sitting out
on the curb,
on Sherman Way, that big tough rebellious
teenager was balling her eyes out.
And all of a sudden, this um,
beautiful black man
came over to me and says, are you alright?
What's wrong,
why are you crying sweetheart?
"I have no money and I have no
food and my dad kicked me out."
He put his arm around me and I-
I still to this day
can tell you what that embrace felt like,
and he just said baby I can help you
and I thought Jesus has come to rescue me.
You know I really thought
he was gonna help me.
And he said there's a man
in the apartment complex
who would love to make love to you.
He lured me in. I went...
You mean have sex?!
He goes yes, but he's really gentle,
really nice, and you'll get $35.
So, here I am a single mother,
I've done prostitution and stripping,
now for six years I've had, uh,
I've been at gunpoint,
I've had stalkers try and kill me,
cops try and bust me, I mean I've been
in the mafia basically for six years.
So, someone came to me says,
girl, why don't you do porn?
I said porn? What's that?
It was a lot worse than prostitution,
like, there's a whole crew around,
they're all stroking themselves going...
It was just totally degrading
and I went oh my gosh
this is bad, this is really bad.
And then all of a sudden like,
I can't explain it but all the rage
I ever felt from,
what my parents did,
from childhood, from like,
all the things that men abused me
with in prostitution
I just like, let it out, on the screen.
He just said roll it and it's like here
I am the newbie
but I like, took over the entire scene,
it was weird.
I just went-Rrrraw! I'm Roxy!
The porn star! Like I was pissed!
But at the end of the scene it just ended
and I had um,
bodily fluids on my face,
and they just kinda went
here's a rag and they just threw it and
me and I just grabbed the rag and went.
And I didn't want them to see me cry,
so I just kinda turned my face
and I was like,
oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, don't cry,
Shelley, don't cry, don't cry, don't cry.
Then now all of a sudden
I'm involved doing like anal, um,
gang-bangs with five or six different
performers and I'm thinking oh my god.
Now I'm bringing big jugs of vodka!
And everyone's egging you on telling you
no, girl we love you, we're your
family now, you're awesome,
and then, and there is a family
atmosphere that they offer.
Porn star karaoke, everybody hangs
out at the same parties, wooooo!
Girl, I love you!
Everyone's very affectionate,
and the reason why they're so affectionate
is because that's their family.
Um, they're out, especially in my day,
we're outcasts.
In fact I still have scars from
suicide attempts.
And I...
I said I don't care,
I don't wanna live anymore.
And I took like thirty prescription pills,
and uh,
I didn't die, but I knew I wanted out, bad,
and I remember crying to God,
drunk off my ass on Jack Daniels,
thinking if you get me outta this
I'll serve you with my whole life
I swear to god I'll do whatever you want!
Just get me outta this.
I mean, people who are well adjusted
and have good life skills
and who are doing something
meaningful and constructive
with their lives,
they're not
in the industry to begin with so,
the people who are in the industry
are really broken twisted souls
without a lot of great job skills and
uh, you know they're turbulent souls.
So, they're always gonna be
twisting and turning in the wind.
We'd spent a lot of time in church.
I actually convinced my mom to send me to
Christian School when I was 14,
she found a way to gather up the funds,
and I went and I was very involved
in my church, without her.
You know, it was just, it was me
and my friends and that was how
I grew up and you know, that all
changed when I was sixteen.
I spent the night at a girlfriend's house,
and she, was a teenaged mom, and married,
and her husband, drugged me. With acid.
And I... At that time I had,
I hadn't even stayed up past ten.
So, uh, I didn't, I wasn't really
well versed in the drug world.
And that changed everything for me.
I did the best I could to
graduate high school
as fast as I could and, and move out.
I was outta the house by seventeen.
I knew some people in the adult industry
and I hung out with them and
I'm still friends with them now,
I don't blame them for hanging out with me
when I was young cause
they were young too, so...
Met a few porn stars, and,
just... Fell in love with them.
I hung out with them until I was
over eighteen, did my first movie,
and, you know, it
was on from there.
Well, the first year that I was
in the adult industry,
and was doing movies I worked for
every company under the sun.
You know the dirtiest of the
dirtiest kinds of companies,
that do crazy stuff.
I worked for anybody, I could,
to make a buck.
I told my mom and she flipped out.
She wasn't happy about it but eventually
when I, you know, formed a career,
and I signed with Vivid, and
the pictures were prettier,
and the footage was less disgusting,
ha ha ha ha!
Um, she came to terms and you know,
what's she gonna do?
It is what it is.
Being a Vivid girl is, you know,
it's what every adult industry actress
wants to be.
You know Vivid's the biggest best and
most well-known company in the world.
They have the most beautiful girls,
they have the best photographers.
Um, they have the best press.
And,..., it's yeah, it's,
it's a high class slew of girls.
I would think... I mean, of course you know,
it's as high class as it's gonna get.
Um, it's a steady income,
so I don't know if
I necessarily thought I was better
than anybody else,
but I knew I was getting
the press that I wanted,
so, I was happy. You know.
I took my movies very seriously.
I studied my scripts.
Half the time I wasn't stoned,
when I did the dialogue
but I took my acting very seriously
because it was the only time
I was ever gonna get to do any acting.
So, I took it seriously!
And I loved it!
And um, I thought I was good at it but,
you know...
It just sounds so cliche for me to say
I took the acting
in my porno movie seriously.
But, but I did.
And that was my favorite part,
was the acting.
And sometimes the sex.
You can use drugs and party and drink,
no matter what career choice you have, but,
, yes, you're opened up
to the party lifestyle a lot more.
I mean, you hang out with rockstars, you,
you know there's always
porn parties to go to, um...
Me, struggling as an addict, of course
took advantage of everything that was there
you know, all of the alcohol,
all of... all of the drugs, I did 'em all!
Um... It's not a safe business to
be in if you wanna stay clean.
It's not safe.
Um, and I'm not telling you this to
make you feel sorry for me or anything
but I had an extremely tough childhood,
and um, I think I got very lost
for many years.
Um, I didn't know who I was,
like many people.
Um, I had a very warped understanding
of what love was.
And um, I think because of
a lack of love in my life or a,
an inability to determine
what love really is
I saw sexual attention, as love.
And when you've suffered a lot of
sexual abuse in your life
it's understandable I think
why you would feel that way.
Trying to tell you... at what
point I made the decision
to be Tiffany Million is not something
I could answer really
in just one neat sentence.
It's kind of a combination of things.
Essentially the whole reason that
I even got into that business
to begin with was because I was a single
mother, like many people, and um,
I was living in Southern California,
I had no family,
I didn't know that many people, her
father wasn't helping me with her,
and it was pretty scary being
a single parent honestly,
and so, I mean I figured,
you know I had a choice:
I could work eight hours a day,
and commute an hour or two
each way on the freeway,
to make, seven eight dollars an hour,
only to pay out half of that in taxes,
and child care, and my daughter's with you
know heaven knows who during the day,
or I could re-enter the
adult entertainment industry
'cause I'd been a stripper years before.
And then I thought, cause I'd always
been kind of a fan of adult films,
and I'd so many times I had looked at
those movies and uh, I'd thought
man, you know what
I could do that and I could do it better.
You know. And so I thought
well heck, why not?
I mean I didn't have
a man in my life anymore,
I left her father, and uh,
I definitely needed the money,
but really it just afforded me a way to,
work as little as possible
to get as much money as I could
to be with my daughter cause
that's all I really wanted
I wanted my daughter to have a great life,
and a safe home, in a good neighborhood,
with good childcare, and I wanted to
spend as much time with her as I could.
And working in the adult film industry
allowed me to work a day or two a week
and be with my daughter the rest
of the week and make more money
than people than worked, you know,
five days a week, eight hours a day.
What you do in porn films is not sex.
I mean I know you're being penetrated,
but it's like this, you know.
It's like this. I mean
that's what it feels like.
It's just something occupying um,
a chasm in your body.
Really... It's like this.
It's like this that's
what it might as well be.
Uh, there uh, there's no emotion there,
there's no feeling, um, you know,
you know, I gotta tell you
this funny little story!
I would have so many fans come up
to me at autograph signings
whatever and tell me that I
was their favorite porn star,
because all the other girls were faking
it and I was the one that they knew,
man, that I was for real.
And uh, and I can tell when a
woman's faking it and I'd be laughing!
Watch my face. Watch my face.
'Cause I'd be like...
I'm the biggest damn faker you ever met!
I mean I'm good, that's why
I get paid the big bucks.
Even when I was in the business,
I didn't partake of all of the
extraneous activities.
Um, I think I went to several parties only
because there was free food and boozes,
and I would go and I would eat and stuff
and then everybody would go
to the after-parties and I'd be like nah,
I'm going home and going to bed.
I've always been early to bed,
early to rise.
I never wanted to be a part of
that scene and um,
even when I was working in the movies I
always kinda felt like a fly on the wall.
Like I know my body was involved,
because, obviously, I was there.
But I always had this strange feeling
this real feeling of disconnect.
Like I was up here looking down.
When my father died in 94, uh like I
said he left me a whole bunch of money,
and I suddenly realized that I'm free.
I don't have to be her anymore. And
I walked away. And that was it.
No one puts a gun to anybody's head
to do this.
If you're not warned about
what's gonna happen
then the person who didn't warn you
is the person who's guilty
in that respect, but they're doing it
for the one thing that they cannot deny.
That absolute death-wish, for the
recognition, validation, and credibility.
And they're welcome to it, but eventually
their past will catch up to them
and they have to be aware of the fact
that X is forever.
When I got into the business, um,
I, did have a goal.
It was my "cracked out" goal.
But I did have a goal to, be out,
and retired, twenty-six,
at the latest twenty-seven.
And I was out, by twenty-four.
I didn't leave the business because uh,
I wanted to.
I left the business cause I felt I HAD to.
That it was the right thing to do.
On November fourth, 1984,
was the first headline,
in the San Francisco Chronicle,
regarding the heterosexua
transmission of AIDS.
A good friend of mine,
who was a mathematician
had read the same article I did
and he came over to my house
in the afternoon and he said
"I've done some calculations
based on the numbers,
reported here in the story.
And you're in the wrong place
at the wrong time.
I want you to stop."
I had three jobs lined up for December,
my wife said I don't want you to do them.
And my thinking was look,
they're just trying to sell newspapers,
that's what newspapers do, they scare
you, and so I don't think the danger is
that real, and I'm gonna go ahead
and do these jobs.
So I went off and I did the three jobs.
And when I came home, and we're about to
go to bed, that night, she said to me
"Do you think we should?"
Should? Should what? Have sex?
"Yeah, do you think we should have sex?"
And I said, what are you talking about?
And she said, and I can quote you verbatim,
I remembered this all this time.
She said "Don't you think
it would be prudent,
if one of us remained alive,
to raise the kids?"
Pchew!
That was the brick wall.
Somebody had offered m
e a DVD deal, and I...
I knew CD-ROMS didn't do good, I
knew the laser disks didn't do good,
and I thought, uh, this DVD thing,
whatever it is, won't replace video,
so I signed it without having a
lawyer look at it or anything,
and by the time DVDs
started taking over from videos,
I looked at the contract and found out
now they have my DVD rights,
also had internet rights, and
the company wasn't very good.
And once I realized I wasn't gonna make
much money
I stayed with Evil Angel my distributor,
for as long as I could, then when they
stopped doing videos that was it.
The ones that do well, are out
because they wanna be out,
not because they had to get out.
And, they have made their peace
with what they did,
and that shows in their bearing, and
the way that they are, in the world.
The money that I did save up
went really quick.
Um, and then I was just, scraping by.
And it was, um, it was
the Christian community that
really came alongside me and helped me out.
There would be times when I was, didn't
know how I was gonna pay my rent,
and, somebody, it was just people
I don't even know,
just people who've read my story,
who wanted to help.
When I left the business
I sold my house in Los Angeles,
um, I first-I retired, and then, um,
I decided, I need to get out of L.A.
I needed to get out of L.A.
I mean, everywhere I went,
McDonalds drive-thru,
um, nightclubs,
the movie theatre, the park,
Universal Studios, I mean, you name it,
I could not, go anywhere.
I..., I don't know how these
big celebrities deal with it all.
I mean they must ha... They have
to have bodyguards of course
and stuff like that cause I did not have
bodyguards and I could not handle it.
It's impossible to lead a normal life
after you get out of it.
This is forever.
This is the scarlet letter.
And it, it never goes away,
you'll be dealing with the,
with the implications of this forever.
What..., what tends to
happen is that it isolates you.
And so you, develop a, a fear of, being
rejected again and again and again
and so you put up walls
between you and other people,
and you isolate yourself
and you don't join communities,
and, when you're isolated you're
less likely to suffer rejection.
But you're also isolated and
living on the edge
so, um, you can never get away
from this, there's no solution.
To go from being uh, a movie star,
to zippo the pinhead overnight, was
just like, devastating to my ego.
If you're looking for a long career
in the porn business
you're probably looking in the wrong place.
Uh, the average girl, might be good for,
two years?
Two to three years tops
for the average girl.
If you're lucky and you're one of the
few superstars, not very many of those,
okay then you get uh, you know,
six seven years. Eight years.
And if you play your cards right,
and do your financial thing right,
then you can, you know,
make some money and set yourself up.
Overall I guess I'm happy I did it.
I mean the only thing I don't like is
that, it,
the main thing I really wanted to do
is act and be in comedies and tv,
and I feel like it holds me back.
But I don't know if I would have just stuck
with the normal route if I would've
uh, ended up making it to tv at all,
who knows I'd probably, maybe still
be in Florida going to castings,
maybe I never would have come out here.
So, and I've gotten to do a lot
of Cinemax movies
which are really fun too,
and all those things I've gotten to do
because of probably the porn.
So overall I guess I'm happy I did it.
Uh, part of the reason we're here
in Utah is because porn is illegal here
so uh, it really helps keep me from
being recognized.
That and the forty extra pounds I gained!
But um, now that I'm losing that weight,
well I also cut off my hair
so that helps too. But um.
Yeah, everyone's been really cool
about, when they find out who I am.
They've been really good about it.
When I took Katty to her new daycare
and they asked, if I had um,
reference names for like,
who to call if something happens to Katty
I said I don't know anybody here,
I have no references, sorry, and she
thought that was a little bit suspicious,
and so she looked me up online,
I had given her the name Asia Lemon, um,
and from that name she managed
to figure out who I was
and so the next day she goes, uh, you
know I did a little Googling on you.
And I was like Ugh!
Miss Mormon Mommy of four
who did a little Googling on Asia.
I was like, so,
you still gonna watch my kid?
Well you know, unfortunately like uh,
one of the reasons I like...
the fact that Vince Neal
has me playing his charity tournament
for his daughter
for children's cancer and stuff,
and I played in the Country uh,
Academy of Country Music Awards
charity tournament this year
and a few other charity tournaments
cause it's one of the only ways,
that porn people can give to charities,
unfortunately in this hypocritical world,
a lot of charities
don't want to accept money
from people that are in the sex business.
"Eww, the sex business we can't do that."
Politicians, on the other hand,
who make us look clean as hell,
no problem taking their money.
Uh, unscrupulous business men who's
ripping everybody off, no problem!
But because we have
a little sex once in a while, naw,
can't do you and that pissed me off.
I had one interesting moment in
baseball with my son in little league.
I had told nobody about my career,
and uh, one day the manager,
who was this big black guy
who was a Stanford graduate,
he comes up to me and he goes,
"Gonna be some trouble today."
And I said what do you mean?
He says:
- One of the mothers knows who's you are.
He looks at me and he's says
"You know I knew who you were
the minute you came on the field."
And he said I'll tell you the truth.
He said
"Anybody that's been in Nina
Hartly's booty is okay with me."
He says "I will take care
of this." And he did.
MENSA's a high IQ society.
You have to have an IQ
in the top two percent, to get in.
I got in, with a notarized copy
of my SAT scores.
MENSA didn't want link
to my website even though
they linked all the member's websites,
because uh, of who I was, and adult star,
um, so, that was their excuse,
and so I made them a special
little webpage of Asia
just like, happy Asia,
college pictures and smiling Asia
and, just innocent stuff
and it's two pages,
and that's,
so that's where MENSA links to now,
instead of my regular site.
And they finally acknowledged me in
their MENSA celebrity issue which was,
a really big moment for me. That was cool.
Wait, how do you say it?
Unprecedented? Unprecedented?
It sounds weird. Okay.
I've done something unprecedented that
nobody else in the adult industry
has ever done.
Um, and that was you know
running for Governor of California,
actually two times.
And um, it was amazing,
when I first started out,
the owner of my company
and I thought that it was gonna be
just like a little fun joke,
see if I could get some press,
maybe get on the avn.com,
so when I went down to the
courthouse to get my paperwork
when we said I was gonna do it,
um, Howard Stern Show sent a camera
crew down, Channel 7, Channel 5,
all the news shows showed up,
Associated Press, writers,
and that's when him and I are like
Okay, I gotta get on that ballot
because this is gonna be huge.
I'm going to get rid of the car tax and
put a tax on breast implants instead.
I will legalize gay marriage.
And I will make sure everyone who files
for unemployment gets jury duty.
In other words, California,
I'll be a kickass governor,
so vote for me, Mary Carey,
on October 7th.
I mean, of course, some of my platforms
were very tongue in cheek,
and funny but, you know,
when I was getting towards the end of it
I realized that you know I really
wanted to make a difference
and I felt like I really was making a
difference because
I was getting a lot of people
who normally wouldn't follow politics
to follow, because of me. And um, you know,
and then I was like what if I win?
But, you know, coming
in tenth place is pretty amazing
out of a hundred and thirty-two people.
When I was eighteen years old, um,
I went to uh,
real-estate school, just everything
about real-estate just I really liked,
so I figured that I would always,
do something with that.
I was working for a builder, uh, a, a
home builder, here, and,
corporate, came to my community
and shut the doors
and said we need to talk to you.
Someone recognized you,
We know who you are,
and you are too recognizable and it's
a, we're too conservative of a company,
and we're gonna have to let you go.
And so that was right before,
that was a week before I got
diagnosed with cancer.
And the ones that got out of this business
and now are being blighted
by the society that jacked off to them.
Well the society are the ones
that's guilty for that.
They're damning them for something that
gave them pleasure, but they refuse
to admit that they got
the pleasure from them.
And that's a very very
sad state of affairs.
Now I was starting to direct,
and I was hired, uh, a couple months later,
to go to Germany to work.
I'd make about eight grand
or something like that.
Work eight days or something.
And I didn't wanna do this
any more at this time,
I didn't wanna do it any more.
So I left, said goodbye to her,
stood in line for two hours,
and as I'm going I'm saying I don't wanna
go, I'm saying to myself I don't wanna go,
And it just built up and built up until I
got, finally got to the point of where,
"May I help you?" they said,
you know, ticket counter,
I said uh, no, I'm not going.
I took my bags, I call up Kathleen
and I said baby I'm coming home,
I don't wanna go,
I don't wanna go to Europe.
I'm thinking about the trip and
everything, I don't wanna do this,
I wanna stay home with her. So, that
was pretty much the last thing I did.
Really what got me out of
it was my husband.
Because, when I met Ron, he had no idea
who I used to be. Ron loved me, for me.
And you know he could had
a much younger woman,
he could had a much better looking woman,
he could had a woman with a lot more money.
But he fell in love with me.
He didn't know anything
about that part of me.
And the fact that he accepted me
for who I was
and loved me for who I was...
Taught me how to love me.
Really.
And his love for me has reconnected me
with the person that I was before
I EVER, did any of this crap.
All of a sudden Mr. Right came
into my life, and I hated him.
Ha! When I first met him.
His whole life he was raised
in Christian school
from like, he went to the same school,
the same kids
from like kindergarten
to like twelfth grade.
He was like most valuable player,
he did sports,
his mom had all these trophies.
She has a book this thick just
on newspaper clippings on him.
So I was like jealous already
I hated his guts.
He would like knock on my door
and I would answer
and go what do you want? and he
goes "I'm here to clean your house."
And I'd be like, what are you doing?
He goes "You're filthy."
Like, cause I didn't cook,
and I didn't clean
and I was, and I was,
I was falling apart.
So he literally cleaned my whole house.
With rags for me, and um,
I just stopped working.
Didn't wanna prostitute anymore
and lie anymore
and we just hit it off
and the next thing you know
we're snorting meth, and next thing you
know we're reading the bible together.
And we're like.... dude!
Did you see like how like God used Joshua
like to conquer all those cities dude.
And he'd be like...
yeah and (inaudible)...
and like I, I mean
we're were just like so into the Bible!
And we realized that
he had went to Christian school
his whole life and was
the pastor's son so he had
a really great Christian foundation and,
I didn't as much as him but,
he was so sweet
and he never once pursued me sexually,
so, um,
we ended up getting married
on Valentine's Day, 1995.
I met my husband in a pool,
in Hollywood, Florida.
At the Diplomat Hotel.
And he was married at the time
and I had a boyfriend at the time.
And, he was in the middle of splitting
up and I was kinda done with it.
Little Trist.
And, I told him I was in the middle of uh,
putting a webpage together,
and, he said oh okay,
and, it had to be maybe three months
after I got my first website up
that I got an email from him.
We went out once, that was it.
We haven't been apart since.
Um, my husband died in a car accident
driving home from Las Vegas.
I had asked him not to do
this whole gig actually,
um, I was eight months pregnant and I
didn't want him away from me that long,
and uh, he's like "I gotta do it honey",
but he tried, he cut it down to two days
so he was really happy coming home on the
second day that he was all done with this
and he came racing home to be
with his pregnant wife
and he flipped the jeep
and didn't ever make it home.
Suddenly he's gone and now here I am, no
more income and all these bills to pay
and it was just like one thing
on top of another.
And so I, I just,
I put up a plea on my website
asking, uh, for donations.
I didn't know what else to do.
No insurance, no money, bills, and my
fans donated, enormous amounts of money.
Um, the kids were completely spoiled,
they got toys and books and presents
and stuff with pictures on it
and just it was, unbelievable
it would make me cry all the time I would
open all the mail from all these people
I'd never met and it was just, it was
really wonderful having fans
turn out to help me. Because you know,
I'd been online for ten years,
they'd watched grow up
and I'd never asked for anything before
and here I was I needed help.
And they helped me.
I faced those up and,
up and downs many times.
Certainly with my real-estate practice
and the market and
when the market dropped in real-estate,
and now that the market and, you know,
is dropping all the way across the board
I mean the country is in crisis.
Our whole country is in crisis.
It would be really easy for me right now,
to want to reinvestigate, you know, porn.
I definitely wanna have kids.
That's something like, I was actually
very depressed recently because
I, I'm realizing that I'm twenty
years old and I'm not married
and I have no kids.
And I really want kids.
And, I'd like to have at least two.
Maybe three.
Because being an only child I always
wished I had a brother or sister.
I still wish I had a brother or sister.
Like, you know I just, that's
something I've always wanted so.
I have a gorgeous family.
My son is amazing. He's my angel.
My daughter is the best thing
that ever happened to me.
She saved my life.
I want my daughter to have
a completely different life.
I want her to, go to college is number one.
She's a great student, she's a track star,
she's had to deal with my porn life.
She, um, hates it.
She's embarrassed of it.
And, um, she won't let me,
she doesn't want me
to go to her track meets, sh...
because she feels
someone would recognize me.
We're going to church now,
I go to church and I um,
have a strong faith,
and I have changed my life
and I want for her everything that...
I, I don't want her to ever have
to experience what I experienced.
In the moment? Thank you!
For being who you are.
Cause you're a pretty cool dude.
- Oooo!
Ooo, can I get that in writing?!
- Sure! I can give it to you in writing!
You're welcome.
It's interesting.
I mean, what I'm sitting here thinking is,
I wonder how many other people
out there can have this kind
of conversation with their parents.
I mean most people can't sit around and
think about their parents having sex, or,
especially fucking somebody other
than their mother.
I mean that alone would I think
irritate a lot of children.
But, it's very, normalized, in that sex
is a goody that should be enjoyed.
Um, and when you can
differentiate between sex
and love and everything
that happens in between,
um, it's a huge gift
that you can give yourself,
and lovers and partners
and friends and family.
And I'm grateful that that's,
that's my world.
Wow.
I'm impressed.
She, is my role model. She is my hero.
And, I think I learned a lot from my mom.
She's gone through a lot
and I even tell people that
she's my hero and she's my role model.
She's just like whatever,
I did it for my daughter
and now she's doing what she wants to
she owns her own business,
and no matter how many people talk
down about her she's still does what
she wants to do and she's successful at it.
So, I guess she's just a good example of,
don't let other people bring you down,
just keep doing what you're doing
and you'll be successful
in what you wanna do.
So. I'm very proud of you!
Just so you know that!
Please don't start crying
cause then I'll start crying!
I'm not gonna cry!
I will start crying.
And since my husband died
there wasn't a lot
for me to look forward to
so it was kinda nice to have that.
Mom, your husband died?
Daddy. Where's Daddy?
Where's Daddy?
Up in the clouds.
There comes a point in our life
when family becomes first,
the first thing and the question,
the answer to the question,
it just doesn't even take a beat.
Sometimes...
And we have the opportunity to see
our friends and family.
I think Chuck would really
appreciate, that we're here today.
There was something uniquely
vital about Buck Adams that
could brighten up the darkest moment,
and put a grin on the face
of the bleakest situation.
With a body that appeared to be hewn
from a granite block of cement,
and an intensity that provided his fans
with a vicarious sustenance,
Buck Adams will always be remembered as
the guy who got it up when it counted.
You know like I said,
if you knew it was gonna happen...
what would you have said?
And you don't always get that chance.
Um, but right now, in my life,
I, regret doing porn.
I regret doing porn and I never thought,
ever, that I would be, who I became.
Houston.
I never thought I would be so big
and so recognizable
and just, I just never thought that it
would turn into what it did, for me.
And God just says, Shelley,
I'm telling you, you need
to... you need to trust me,
I've got something better for you.
I love you.
I didn't save your ass all these years
not to give you something better.
Well, like, looking back, I didn't,
honestly I can't really like go,
on my computer and,
and look at stuff that I used to do anymore
it just makes me, I just, I'm so different.
I feel so different now like,
where I am in life.
It's really hard for me to believe
that I was that girl.
So yes, it has changed me.
For the better I believe.
The porn business has afforded me
a very comfortable life
it has allowed me to educate myself
in ways that I probably wouldn't
have been able to do before.
It's enabled me to travel
all over the world and,
meet new and interesting people.
And it's allowed me to, have the,
have the cajones, if you will,
to try new and exciting things that I
probably wouldn't have done before.
I would have been afraid to do.
I have no fear, to do anything.
You know because as people we have to fully
and freely accept ourself for
everything we are
and everything we're not
cause if we have compar...
If we compartmentalize,
we're never a whole self.
You know. Especially in like relationships,
we don't get to bring our whole self.
What I am afraid of the most is because
I've lasted so long
and this industry is now heading
towards its fourth decade
of presence on this earth, that the
people who created this business,
the Eric Edwardses, the Jamie Guillesses,
the John Lesleys,
the great pioneers of this business,
are not gonna be with us, forever, and,
I'd hoped to be around long enough
to honor them
but I don't wanna do it
fast and furiously because
when they start to fall by the wayside
somebody's gonna have to remember them.
It's based on a line that,
"there is no future
if in the present we fail to pay
homage to the past."
But a lot of them are now
in their fifties and sixties,
some of them in their seventies,
and somebody is
going to have to be there
to tell their stories.
Eventually this woman is gonna like say,
wwheeeeuuuheehehehuh.
And then when you're eighty-five
and you can't walk no more
and you're in a wheelchair she's gonna say
"You remember when you
wanted to have sex all day?
Yeah, what do you mean, you want what?
Bap! What do you want? Bap!
No no no, now I'm getting back at you."
I miss many things about the business.
But, I guess the clearest way
to say it concisely would be,
the biblical phrase occurs to me,
"when I was a child I spake as a child,
and when I was a man,
I put away childish things."
I'm trying to think of like Joe Nameth.
Joe, do you miss football?
Sure he does.
But he can't play like he used to play.
He's, sixty-five years old now.
I'm in the same place.
Am I happy I did porn? Uh, yeah,
I really don't have
too many regrets cause I,
it's so much stuff came out of it
that was positive.
I got to travel around the world, uh,
I met a lot of interesting people,
I'm way over my quota sexually, uh,
I think uh, people ask me and I,
I guess the estimate's, I've been with
like 3000 women or something like that,
most of them were awesome to work with,
still friends with a lot of 'em, so uh,
yeah, overall it was
a hell of an experience.
Essentially I am living my life right now
the way I wanna live it for the rest
of my life, and I wanna,
I wanna die doing what I'm doing right now.
How many people can say that?
Well I am, that I live here
and I have a place that I love this much
I think I'm as lucky as
anybody could be on earth.
Far as, I mean,
I dunno what the hell t'ask for.
I'm happy.
I'm not in a dark place,
I'm not suicidal, I'm not doing drugs.
You know I'm not self-destructive.
Um, but the last two years
has been a journey,
cause I was very
self-destructive before and,
I'm not saying it changed overnight,
I still have self-destructive thoughts,
but, um, I'm just in an,
healthier place all around.
You hear some people we talk to
who are leading normal lives,
and are doing pretty good, like how
the hell would you really know,
like, how would you know what really
goes on in their life at two a.m.?
The torment, the, you know,
how would you know that
they're gonna tell you about all the times
they've been rejected and isolated and,
and the horror and the shame that,
that their children confront and that,
their spouses confront, and the shame that
they've put their families through and,
and the relationships that have been
permanently broken.
I mean all the,
all the burned bridges behind them
because they've done sex work.
You know most families aren't proud
when their daughters become hookers.
I think the difference between me
and the other girls in the industry
was that I've really, enjoyed being there
and um, not just the sex
I mean I, used it to better myself
as a person.
I never let the industry
take advantage of me in any way.
I always took advantage of the industry.
I made phenomenal amounts of money
I've produced movies, I wrote movies,
I starred in them, hell people
were paying me
hundreds of dollars an hour
to sign autographs?
Woo hoo! I'm up, I'm with this!
Um, I just, I-I...
The other girls leave with a bad taste
in their mouth
and they-and I just, I have nothing
but good memories when I look back.
And right now
if I wanted to go back into porn
I could probably go get a contract
almost at any company
and still just do straight boy-girl scenes.
And if I really wanted to when I'm 32
if I wanna go back to porn
and because I'm really broke maybe
let's say, hopefully it won't happen,
I would tell a porn company guess what,
I'm gonna come back and do
two guys and do anal.
If I'm thirty-five and really poor
I need to do porn,
I'll tell 'em I'll do, you know,
a black guy. Heh!
There isn't that much of a future
after the x-rated industry because somehow,
somewhere, somebody will find you.
The famous line I used to say to anybody
walking into my office
when I ran the biggest agency,
what are you gonna do ten years from now
when your kid brings home a magazine
with you laying in the middle of it
with a candle shoved up your ass?
You gonna tell'em you were playing
the part of a birthday cake?
It doesn't go away.
My husband and my son changed my life.
And my son saved my life.
And looking at him every day,
reminds me how precious life is.
And how throwing it away
on drugs and alcohol,
just this stupid crap that's out there,
god, it's just so not worth it. You know?