Porn Stars and the National Media

The porn industry has a way of staying out of the mainstream media, but every now and again, a story involving a porn star is just too big for them to ignore.

The recent case of Belle Knox, the Duke porn star, is only the latest in a long line of porn stars inserting themselves into the cultural zeitgeist. Rolling Stone (link below) recently covered eight of these instances, but they can't show the kind of pictures we can, so let's dive a little deeper inside these newsmakers.

Linda Lovelace

When a little porn flick called Deep Throat became a cultural sensation, playing in regular movie houses and inevitably becoming a term associated with the Watergate scandal, it showed that porn was more than a niche market. The film's star, Linda Lovelace, became an overnight sensation and the face of the industry. However, in her 1980 autobiography Scandal, Linda railed against the industry and was suddenly the poster child for the anti-porn movement all the way up until her death in 2002. Talk about a polarizing figure, no one else has ever been the face of both sides of an issue before.

John Holmes

To this day, the name John Holmes remains synonymous with big dicks. As the standard bearer for the industry, Holmes became famous thanks to his large member and his countless films as Johnny Wadd. By the early 80s, Holmes was washed up and had turned to gay porn to pay the bills. When he found himself in debt to notorious drug dealer Eddie Nash, Holmes soon found himself at the center of a multiple homicide at the Wonderland apartments in Los Angeles. Though Holmes was cleared of any charges, his ex-wife confessed in 2002 that Holmes was present at the murder scene and even helped the murderers gain access to the home. All of this is documented in the fantastic 2003 film Wonderland, starring Val Kilmer as Holmes.

Traci Lords

Nora Kuzma, better known by her pseudonym Traci Lords, became a tabloid superstar in 1986 when it was discovered that all but one of the adult films in which she had appeared were shot before she turned 18. Numerous arrests of producers and agents followed, and Lords emerged from the scandal relatively unscathed. She even managed to have fairly lucrative success in mainstream films and television, appearing in such films as Blade and Zack & Miri Make a Porno.

Janine Lindemulder

Every teenage boy in America had a photo of Janine Lindemulder in their bedrooms circa 1999, but not because they were into porn. Janine was on the cover of Blink-182's album Enema of the State, and graced numerous posters and music videos for the band. Ten years later, she found herself in the headlines for a nasty custody battle that erupted between her ex-husband Jesse James, who was married to Sandra Bullock and probably banging a dozen other women at that time. Lindemulder lost the custody battle and subsequently found herself in prison for tax evasion, and later for harassing James. As far as anyone knows, she's back to work and has been clean since 2011.

Joslyn James
A few years back, I purchased a dvd titled Tiger Woods: My Favorite 18 Holes. It turns out this was a golf video, but you can understand how I'd make that mistake. It wasn't that long ago that the greatest golfer of his generation suffered a personal and career meltdown of epic proportions after his wife discovered he was banging everyone from a Perkins' waitress to porn star Joslyn James. In 2010, Joslyn released a series of lewd text message exchanges she had with Woods which ran the gamut from "After i cum you better start sucking my cock to get it hard" to "Have you ever had a golden shower done to you?" Turns out our little caublanasian friend is kinkier than we ever could have imagined.

Bree Olson
Of all the indignities a porn star must be made to go through, I can't imagine a worse one than being tethered to Charlie Sheen's crazy ass for more than a minute. Yet Bree Olson was proud to be called one of Sheen's "angels" during the winningest phase of Sheen's career in early 2011. Bree was thrust into the national spotlight, and found herself being stalked by TMZ and doing interviews with ABC News. All the tiger's blood and Adonis blood finally became too much for Bree to bear, and she left Sheen by that summer. She quit porn, and tried to embark on a mainstream acting career, but thus far the only role that's come her way is in the upcoming Human Centipede III. Winning!

Belladonna

Belladonna went from chaste Mormon girl to porn star in the span of only six months, and her brand of sado-punk porn appealed to the generation coming of age right at the turn of the century. When Belladonna agreed to let Diane Sawyer and ABC News do an in-depth profile of her which consisted of a camera crew following her around for the better part of two years, she finally reached her limit. During the final interview with Sawyer, Belladonna had a full-on meltdown and left the industry soon after. She hasn't put porn behind her entirely however, as she now runs her own eponymous production company.

Cameron Bay

Former VH1 reality show star Cameron Bay went from being one of the biggest names in porn, to being the face of disease in the national media when she came out as being HIV positive in 2013. She and boyfriend Rod Daily were both diagnosed and a scandal erupted when they found themselves tied to Sydney Leathers, the former online mistress of disgraced congressman Anthony Weiner. Leathers was rumored to have filmed a scene with someone that Bay had just shot with prior to her diagnosis, but the story turned out to be false. Bay has now devoted herself to STD and HIV education and prevention in the adult industry, and has hopefully put this sordid mess behind her.