Baby Did A Bad, Bad Thing: Our Exclusive Interview With Samantha Bentley

Pornstars don't really have theme songs, but the perfect theme song for Samantha Bentley would be Chris Isaak's "Baby Did a Bad, Bad Thing." Her personal website is badbentley.com and Samantha's attitude, both as a performer and as a social media presence, is one of a bad, bad girl. It may be disheartening, then, for many of her fans to hear that she's actually a very sweet, down to earth woman who, in her own words, doesn't "suffer fools gladly." Her outspokenness and general "fuck it all" attitude is what makes her such a powerful and magnetic performer, but it's her willingness to be both honest and bold that helps her transcend the "bad girl" label and become something much more interesting and dynamic. I recently had the pleasure of chatting with Samantha after a trip to Budapest, and I found her to be open, warm, and honest, with a wicked sense of humor that sets her apart from the pack. 

TB: In your interview with Cosmo UK about a year ago, you mentioned that your self-awareness has led to more insecurity in your off-camera sex life. Do you think that’s gotten better or worse as you’ve moved through your career? 

Samantha Bentley: It depends on my mood, and it’s the same with on-camera. Everything boils down to how I’m feeling on the day or who I’m working with or who I’m working for, because there are some companies that just make you feel amazing no matter what. If you’re not feeling good about yourself, or I’m not feeling well, as a girl having like a fat day or something, I’m just like, “Oh great, I have to go and take my clothes off” (both laugh). It’s daunting, but then I feel the same in my personal life and because I’ve just had everything about me sexually exposed, it makes me more aware. Whereas before, just as an example, I would do a lot of anal in my personal life, spontaneously, whereas now I’m like, “Spontaneous anal? My god, I have to clean!” (Both laugh). I’m more aware of things like that or things that I wouldn’t have before worried about, or even noticed, and now I’m very, very aware when I’m on set, whether it’s me or another girl, if something’s wrong, just like a hair is out of place, you see it because it’s there in high definition. 

So yeah, I think it’s actually gotten worse as my career has gone on.

TB: Oh no, really?

SB: Yeah, just because I work more, I learn more about my body every single day, every time I’m at work. I think it’s also, not exactly a striving for perfection, but just that kind of thing where I say, “How can it be better?” and it just sort of creeps over into your personal life as well. 

TB: Reading through your blog, first of all I love your voice, and I love all of your writing, 

SB: Aw, thank you

TB: It has such a wealth of great stories and anecdotes. Have you thought seriously about going into writing if and when you leave the industry?

SB: I would love to. There are plans for a book, but I don’t really see the point in writing a book at the moment because I wouldn’t really know how to end it. It’s kind of like I’m mid-career, I’m mid-relationship. Maybe when I retire and have babies is when I can be like, “Okay, here’s my sordid past.” But I would love to write. I got kind of scouted by Huffington Post.

TB: Oh really? 

SB: Yeah, well, I’ve only ever written one piece for them because (laughs) the pressure of writing for them I was like, “What can I write that’s going to be interesting?” I have all of these ideas and things that I want to write, so it’s just about getting down to it and doing it, but yeah, I would absolutely love to. I wrote a lot when I was in school and was always sort of very, very good at it, and my mum always says that I write with empathy but it’s also where I can make something normal sound quite funny.

TB: Absolutely, and I get that completely just from reading what’s on your blog, I really enjoyed it. 

SB: (Laughing) I’m also a very angry person and that’s quite a lot of fun. My Twitter is actually quite angry. 

TB: Yeah, I’ve noticed that (both laugh).

SB: Well, I don’t suffer fools gladly. 

TB: Hey, I think that’s a good attitude and I would think that it enables you to go into these situations with people having a better idea of who you are as a person. Whether you’re going into filming or doing interviews, let’s say, I felt like I had a complete picture of you as a person based solely on your writing. If I had just watched your videos or whatever, I’m only getting one aspect of you, which ties into my next question which is that a lot of performers come across in their written correspondence and answers to questions as though they don’t want people to know they’re a part of the adult industry or they censor themselves, but you’re really not afraid to be dirty and say really confrontational things. Is that just the way you’re wired?

SB: I think I’m a very honest person, in both good and bad ways. I don’t have a censor, and again good and bad, but it’s things like, I’d like to think that makes me a good friend. For example, if my friend texts me like, “Oh my god, I’m really, really fat,” I’ll text back, “Well, you’re not fat, but you have gained weight, so you could stop eating pizza and go to the gym.” I’m never gonna be harsh, but I’m always going to be honest with people if they need to hear the truth. 

But I’m a very open person, I’m quite trusting, and I prefer for people to know that I’m just going to lay it all out on the table like, this is me, I’m a bit mental. I can get a bit angry, but it’s usually not at anyone, it’s usually that I’ll say the first thing that comes to my mind, and I always say what I think, whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing. 

TB: I think it’s a good thing, and I think that as society evolves, particularly—and I can’t really speak to this, but I’m sure you’ve experienced this—as a woman, having strong opinions on things has not always been the most socially acceptable thing.

SB: Oh yeah.

TB: So I think it’s good and it’s refreshing to see you just saying, “This is who I am and you can either deal with it or move on.”

SB: Especially in this industry, the old-fashioned stereotypical view of a girl in the porn industry is the dumb blonde. Most people think that we’re stupid, we didn’t go to school, we can’t do anything else except suck dick. So I’m like, well, yeah, I’m really good at sucking dick, but I also have numerous exams and a university degree under my belt, and I’m also quite clever (both laugh). 

I think that in this day, woman do actually sort of run the porn industry, people like Holly Randall or Dana Vespoli or Jacky St. James, they’re women on top of the industry. And yeah, you can’t make porn without the girls, but now it’s like you really can’t make porn without the girls because some of the best directors, the best producers, and the best people that own companies are girls. I think that this is actually kind of a new age of the powerful woman in the porn industry. We are entrepreneurs in our own right, in a way, and I think that is slowly, it’s gonna take a while, but it’s slowly changing people’s views on things. 

TB: Absolutely, I agree with all of that. How have your experiences been working on mainstream projects? Have you found the actors and people working in mainstream to be welcoming or do they harbor any resentment toward your work in adult?

SB: It’s been mixed. Game of Thrones was just a dream. I was treated with such respect. Everyone there was just polite and so accepting, and they treated me just like everyone else. I felt like I was, especially returning this season, part of the cast. They were like, “Hey! Samantha’s back!” That was just, that will always be a highlight. I’m so lucky to have done that. When they told me that I was returning I just sat and cried for an hour like, “I can’t believe it. It’s my dream.” And I mean, obviously it’s a very small part…

TB: Right, but it’s a fairly memorable pair of scenes you were in this season, certainly. 

SB: Yeah, when I read the script I was like, “Ah! This is amazing! I’m wearing a Daenerys costume! Everything’s awesome!” But yeah, I’m also obviously in the scene with the seven goddesses, so it’s two really memorable scenes from that same episode. Whereas last season it was a bit of a meh scene. I remember leading up to that, I’d not read my contract and I tweeted a selfie of myself on set, and I got an e-mail from someone at HBO saying, “Could you kindly remove that? You have a non-disclosure agreement, as you know, because you read the contract,” and I’m just like, “Shit, I’m sorry, I didn’t read it” (both laugh). But by that time, the selfie got leaked to every single Game of Thrones forum ever, and that’s how the story ended up everywhere before the season even started, and so I began to worry about the scene, because it wasn’t hugely memorable, so what if they just cut it? I was terrified. 

So that’s what was exciting about this season was that both of those scenes need to be in the episode, and obviously this season I kept my mouth completely shut, because I didn’t want anything to ruin it. But yeah, I have done other things where I’ve kind of been treated like crap, but I don’t think it was because I did porn, I think it was just more sort of that they were small parts, whereas on Game of Thrones, they treated me like a star.

TB: How did you get into podcasting, and what do you find that you’re able to do through that medium that you can’t do through, say, your blog?

SB: Well, obviously I speak a lot faster than I type, and also when I type I go back and change things, so with my podcast it is just my words on there. And especially with Alektra (Blue) because she’s so much like me. Basically, Dick Avery who runs Juliland started the podcast with me and Ash Hollywood, maybe two years ago when I first got badbentley.com, and I think my first season wasn’t hugely amazing because I wasn’t really in the swing of things, and I had some guests and I had some topics, and it was good but it wasn’t really amazing. Whereas this season, I was like, we should do some more podcasting because I had people saying, “Oh, I really liked the podcast when are you gonna do more?”

So when I was out in LA, I was talking to Dick about it and he said, “I know exactly what we should do.” And I had never met Alektra before, ever, and she’d got over to his house the night before at like midnight, showed up drunk and was like, “You’d better shoot me right now!” (Both laugh). So he said, “She’s so like you, I think that you two together would just be hilarious.” I’d actually been a fan of hers for so long, I love her. She’s like me, she’s a bad girl, she’s a rock chick, she’s got attitude, and you know, she’s Bad Girl Blue and I’m Bad Bentley, and so putting us together really worked because I think our personalities are so similar, we hate all the same things.

So basically I think it hasn’t got a huge reach, but maybe it reaches people who maybe can’t be bothered to read my blog posts, so if they go to my website, they can just listen to my podcast, it’s easier. I want to do the third season as a video podcast, where I’d do episodes and then put them on youtube as well, and potentially have a youtube channel, because I think that’d be quite funny. 

TB: Yeah, that would be great because then that reaches a whole new audience. What do you think is the hottest scene you’ve done, or maybe Top 3 if you have a hard time narrowing it down? 

SB: Oh my god, a Top 3, okay… My number one scene of all time is my scene with Rocco and Hennessy, the one that just won the AVN. Everything about that scene, to me, was perfect, you know? It just blew my mind in so many ways. I’d been such a huge Rocco fan for so long that when I met him, I had such high expectations that I was like, “Please, don’t ruin my image of you” (both laugh). 

And it was better than anything I could have ever hoped, and I just remember going into that scene and being like, “This is going to be the best scene of my life ever, I don’t care, come hell or high water, he’s going to remember me,” because so many girls he works with and then forgets the day after, and I was like, “Fuck. No. I’m leaving a mark!” (Both laugh). I remember hearing from my agent on the phone the day after that he was like, “Bentley is fucking incredible!” And so when he recommended me to John (Stagliano) for the “Voracious” scene, that meant so much to me.  And I think the “Voracious” scene would be next, though I don’t want to put two Rocco scenes in my Top 3.

TB: Well, I mean, if it’s true, there’s no reason you shouldn’t.

SB: Okay, so yeah, the “Voracious” scene for similar reasons, but also because it’s probably the most hardcore I’ve ever gone or will ever go. It’s just ridiculous.

SB: And then, it’s really hard because there are three scenes which really, really stand out… Well, there’s millions that really stand out actually, but I’d say the scene between me, Mischa Cross and Nacho Vidal for Legal Porno which is like boy/girl/girl anal pissing scene, which is the first day I ever met Mischa and we realized that we were soul mates.

SB: Also my gang bang for Kink which is the only scene I’ve ever, ever tapped out on a scene ever. I thought I’d nearly broken my neck and I remember Princess Donna asking me if I wanted to stop and I was like, “No, give me two minutes, I’m coming right back in,” and she was like, “Oh my god, this girl is hardcore.” And then the final one, and these three are a tie because I couldn’t choose, it hasn’t been released yet but it’s a girl/girl anal scene with Mischa for Christopher Clark and Evil Angel that we shot last week which was just raw. It was amazing.

TB: Awesome, that’s a great tease. Is there anyone you haven’t worked with yet that you’re dying to work with?

SB: Yes. Dani Fucking Daniels. We’ve been really, really good friends for four and a half years and we have never, ever worked together. Ever. It’s ridiculous. I believe we are actually provisionally booked together in July. 

And James Deen, I’d love to do a “Sex and Submission” with James Deen. That would be amazing. And Prince Yashua. And Annika Albrite. Actually, no, there’s a massive list, but Dani and James would be the two that I’d really want to work with. 

TB: So my last question is just if there’s anything else you’d like your fans to know or perhaps anyone who’s discovering you for the first time?

SB: I have a lot of announcements coming up, which I’m really excited about, but I can’t really say any of them. I’m thinking of directing year, that’s in the cards. I have some plans to direct, just because I think that Euro porn needs to step its game up. I just don’t understand why, in Europe, nobody gives a shit about anything they’re just kind of like, “Okay, well what can we do that’s the cheapest rate, the cheapest girls, and get it done quickly?” So I want to make something that’s more like what I do in America. So that’s the plan this year, and yeah, just keep following my shit (both laugh).

Visit Samantha's Website: badbentley.com
Follow Samantha on Twitter: @Bad_Bentley
Listen to Samantha's Podcast: Shut Up Bentley!
Read Samantha's Blog: The Official Blog of Samantha Bentley