Some of the top adult stars you may know the names of best, haven’t even worked in porn for several years.
And despite their huge fame, they may have only worked in the adult industry for a short period before quitting.
Of course, the most notable in that case has to be Mia Khalifa. She was the most searched actor on Pornhub for a number of years, despite only acting for roughly three months before she left.
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Then there’s Lana Rhoades, who has spoken out about being ‘taken advantage of’ at her young age. A number of these top adult actors, from Joshua Broome to Lisa Ann, have been relatively open about their experiences, revealing their reasons for calling it a day on working in the porn industry.
Joshua Broome
Working under his stage name ‘Rocco Reed’, Broome filmed over 1,000 X-rated movies and made ‘well over a million dollars’.
But he decided to quit in 2012 and released a statement: “I would like to state that my time in the adult industry in every aspect has now come to an end. I would also like to state that I am not or never have been gay, just an adult performer.
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“I am retiring not because of any other reason than it's time to move on.”
He now says he is a ‘preacher’ and shared anti-porn content.
In a 2021 video for Fight the New Drug, Broome said within four years of the business he decided he ‘hated’ it and ‘every day it just got worse and worse’.
“I was ashamed of who I was,” he admitted.
By the end of his career, Broome said he ‘did not have any clue who I was as a person’ and he became a ‘hermit’, impacting his mental health.
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“I left porn because I was suicidal,” he added. “So I ran home to mum.”
Lana Rhoades
Real name Amara Maple, Rhoades shot her first adult video back in 2016 at the age of 19. She ended up working as a porn performer for roughly eight months but continued to win awards for her work in the years after.
Rhoades has since claimed she was ‘taken advantage of’ during her career and that she makes more money in content creation that she did as a porn actor.
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But it wasn’t the finances that necessarily led her to quit rather some ‘traumatic’ scenes she filmed.
During an episode of her 3 Girls 1 Kitchen podcast, Rhoades explained: “There were three to five that were really traumatic for me - whether it's being sent to a set with someone who was way too old, or being pressured into doing something that I was scared of doing because it was too extreme, that can definitely be very traumatic.
“I would say that's the 100 percent contributor to why I left the industry.”
Lisa Ann
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Easily one of the most famous porn actors in mainstream pop culture, Lisa Ann became known as the world’s most famous MILF.
Best known for her political parody Who’s Nailin’ Paylin?, she was active in the industry in the 90s with a brief hiatus before returning in 2006 until 2014.
She told LADbible that things ‘became aggressive’ in the early 2000s and found that it was ‘all about the shock value’.
Ann only stuck around longer because of her Sarah Palin stuff as she didn’t ‘want to do anything violent’.
And after doing VR for her last scenes, she left the business and retired.
“I've outgrown it, I've loved it for everything it's done for me and still so happy to be invited to events and still be Lisa Ann, but at the same time it's grown to be something different,” Ann explained.
Mia Khalifa
Like Rhoades, Khalifa has spoken about being taken ‘advantage’ of while working in porn. Her career of course skyrocketed her to international fame with a controversial scene.
In her first work, she appeared wearing a hijab while performing sexually explicit acts - leading her to be vilified by the Middle East as she claimed ISIS sent her death threats.
Khalifa has been very open about her experience in the industry and during an appearance on the Diary of a CEO podcast, she was asked if there was one specific moment in which she knew she wanted to get out of it.
“I think it was how overwhelming everything became so fast. It was a reality check, like when they turn the lights on in the club at 4 in the morning, the floors are sticky and nothing looks the same,” she said.
“This is not what I signed up for, it's not what I expected, I f****d up.”
Crissy Moran
Crissy Moran (now Crissy Outlaw) has tried everything she can to erase her past in porn.
The star was making about $15,000 a month from her website, raking in cash from extra ‘shoots’ and selling ‘stuff’.
Moran's totally changed her approach to porn since becoming Christian and has claimed there is link between porn and sex trafficking.
She now shares content as a ‘woman of God’ and in a previous appearance on The Lucas Miles podcast warned against working in the porn industry.
“Once you get into that industry it's just going to break you down,” Moran warned. “You're not going to be treated with dignity. You might not even know what that is like right now, but God created you in his image and he made you perfect just the way you are.”
Topics: Adult Industry, Lana Rhoades, Mental Health, Mia Khalifa
Jess Battison