Riley Reid explained how adult movie career impacted dating life before meeting her husband
Unless you've been living under a rock for the last few years - or just don't want to admit it to your other half - you will have heard the name Riley Reid.
It's the pseudonym that Ashley Matthews has been using since the early days of her career in the adult industry, even though she hates her friends and family using it.
But if you brought up the moniker to a group of blokes, you can bet your bottom dollar that their eyes will light up.
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Although becoming extremely popular is the aim of the game for porn stars, Reid reckons that her notoriety had a very negative impact on her dating life.
This obviously isn't an problem that still plagues her, as the US model got hitched to Pasha Petkuns in 2021, before they welcomed a little girl into the world the following year.
However, Reid previously revealed that her X-rated career had seriously hampered her love life before she met her husband.
During an appearance on What They Don't Tell You With Jordyn Jones in 2021, she opened up about why she found romance 'really challenging' in her younger years.
"People have this persona of you, and so it's hard to meet someone who didn't know who I was," Reid explained. "So there was always that like fandom...and they met me first in their mind as Riley.
"It was really hard to reverse [that] and teach them that I'm Ashley. We're also in LA, which is like a complicated city to date anyway."
She said that although she understood that some men wouldn't want to 'take her to meet their moms' because of her line of work, she was still left disappointed that people didn't see past her career.
"It just sucks that I kind of came with this blanket on top of me that had a definition of who I was - which is not real," she said.
As well as this, Reid realised that being an 'active performer' and dating new people doesn't really mix very well - so she made a major career move.
The 33-year-old continued: "I didn't like retire, but I just stopped shooting boy-girl porn and everything over a year before I met [Petkuns].
"It was like a choice that I made on my own, but I made that choice because I was lonely and I wanted love and affection.
"I was like, 'I'm not going to be able to find this while I'm performing because it makes dating really hard, so I'm choosing to do this for myself - but also for my future lover'."
She explained she had been entangled with a lot of guys who forced her choose between porn and their relationship - and when they gave her this ultimatum, she would 'cut them off'.
"I never wanted to like quit my job for someone," she added. "I always want to quit for myself, so I made that decision and then I was able to meet Pasha.
"But I don't know if our relationship would have been successful, or sustainable, if I was an active performer."
Reid said that her job could easily cause things to get 'really rocky' between her and her significant other, due to their 'insecurities' about what she gets up to at work.
And on top of that, she says it is also 'really difficult to find someone who's that open-minded and understanding' in the first place.
But she insisted that despite her past partners presumptions about what shooting an adult film is really like, the reality of it is 'not very sexy'.
"Until they get that experience, they're not gonna see how how kind of boring and clinical being on set is," Reid went on, before revealing that Petkuns even thought it was a bit of a letdown.
"Pasha's come to set with me doing a girl-girl scene, and he was like, 'It's not as hot as you think it is with two girls being all hot and sexy'," she said.
Reid explained that she had 'fully established' herself in the porn industry when she decided to dial it back, which is why she had the courage to put her love life before work.
"I feel very fortunate that I waited until I was older and ready for love," she added. "I'm not like 24, quitting my career, throwing it away, to just be in a relationship."
Reid says that her husband is 'not a judgmental person' and has never 'shamed' her for her past, before adding: "There's no animosity or any dramas towards my job."
Kudos to Petkuns.
Topics: Adult Industry, Jobs, Riley Reid, Sex and Relationships
Olivia Burke