10 Porn Stars Who Made National News

You didn't know their names but you might have been familiar with their work.

by Jay Anderson
Admit it - you're on the internet, so you've watched a little porn. No big deal. If you're of the right age and grew up online as many of us did, you fondly remember laughing at the "Adult's Only" age warning on porn sites while hastily clicking on the 18+ button, and you've probably even had a night or two with friends where you played a light-hearted round of "who can find the most messed up porn online." If that's not you - well, this article just might not be your cup of tea. However, if you're willing to stick around, some of these tales might just amuse you - while others are downright scary. When porn stars make the mainstream news, it's usually not for anything close to a positive reason. STI scares, drug busts, health problems, scandals, domestic violence - those are what we generally associate with porn stars, which is rather sad and stereotypical, because there's no question that some porn stars are intelligent, well-mannered members of society who just happen to like having sex on camera for a living. Of course, as a society, we put the spotlight on negatives far more than positives, so don't expect to hear any stories about porn stars donating to charity (but don't think it doesn't happen - in 2012, PornHub attempted to donate money to the fight against breast cancer, only to be rejected by the Susan G. Komen for the Cure charity. Hey, Susan G. Komen folks, you're fighting cancer! Who cares where the money comes from, it's cancer!). Let's get to it;

10. Michelle "Bombshell" McGee

We're not sure anyone would know or care who Michelle "Bombshell" McGee was had she not slept with Jesse James while he was married to Sandra Bullock. We're not sure we care about her now. Scratch that - we don't. However, she did make the news and therefore she gets included on this list. McGee was an alternative model looking for work when she hooked up with James, something she claimed began in 2009. She was covered in ink, so no doubt appealing to James, but even for those who don't mind a girl with some ink - she's got her freaking forehead tattooed! That screams bad idea! Of the three people in this sorry love affair, the only one we have any interest in is the woman scorned, Sandra Bullock - who is no doubt better off having moved on with her love life. She also put forth a fantastic effort in Alfonso Cuaron's Gravity, while most of us likely have no idea what James or McGee have been doing lately. In any case, it was back in 2010 that McGee hit the news for her affair with James, claiming she had texts as proof of their indiscretions. Bullock was coming off a win at the Oscars where she had thanked her husband (newflash: Sandra Bullock once thought marrying Jesse James was a good idea. Dear Sandra, you don't marry the bad boy, it's just a fantasy!), and was devastated. Eventually, a sex tape with McGee would make the rounds. It's not the best, not the worst, and had she not slept with a famous married guy, no one would care. Ironically, McGee would later warn Kat Von D against marrying James, calling him a cheater. We guess it takes one to know one.

9. Ron Jeremy

Ron Jeremy at this point is less of a porn star and more of a pop culture icon, providing inspiration to millions of chubby hairy guys around the world and bringing them hope that one day they, too can bang incredibly hot girls on camera for money. Okay, very unlikely, but Jeremy is something special, beloved and recognized more than almost any other porn star male or female. So when he landed in hospital earlier this year, it was big news. In late January 2013 Jeremy suffered an aneurysm near his heart that almost killed him, and kept him hospitalized for weeks. It was national - actually international - news, and fans worldwide kept Jeremy in their thoughts (and for once, that had nothing to do with something, or someone, he'd done on-screen). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xljA6zJn4I Luckily, the hedgehog made it through the woods and came out okay - by late February that year the 59 year old star had been cleared to return to uh, work. You can see him spoofing Miley Cyrus' Wrecking Ball above, if you dare (safe for work, possibly not safe for your eyes).

8. Melisa King

Miss Delaware Teen USA winner Mellisa King happened to have performed in porn for GirlsDoPorn.com - and lost her crown for her troubles, making headlines in the process. Not the first nor the last beauty contestant to make the transition to porn (or to appear in it before modelling), King wound up in the headlines primarily due to Donald Trump's involvement with the pageant. Trump would never have such filth associated with his product, because clearly no one who enjoys watching pretty girls in swimsuits would ever stand for a girl having sex on camera! Poor miss King - she would up a sacrificial lamb to hypocritical displays of morals, and to make matters worse, her appearance on GirlsDoPorn wasn't even that great. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yX1QgN4HvQ Here's to hoping she was paid well for it - maybe it'll take the sting off the fine she got for underage drinking in 2013. Because you can do porn, but you can't drink.

7. Belle Knox

Outed for doing porn to pay her way through school, Belle Knox is yet another victim of western culture's obsession with slut shaming and outing girls for being sexual or preforming in porn, while at the same time ensuring that porn remains a billion dollar industry. Knox (not her real name), a Duke university student, made the mistake of disclosing her porn star status to a fellow student - and of course, the entirely expected outcome is that said student spread the word. She then posted online about the experience, only to have it blow up - to the point that, cover completely blown, she came clean about her porn name, face, and eventually, real name. Here's what we have to say about porn: In short, if you don't like it, don't watch it - and if you do like it, and do watch it, why the hell are you attacking girls who are in it? Knox didn't do much that many a girl who stripped her way through college hasn't done, and we've all known a girl or two like that. Sometimes they fall in love with the "easy" money and keep doing it; many times they try to put their past behind them and move on, only to have it bite them in the ass later when news of their former careers makes it to their employer, or prospective beau. Knox seems to have a level head about her porn career, and beyond that has now written articles (under her real name) for publications like Time magazine. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yX1QgN4HvQ So in the end, it's Knox getting the last laugh. She's now uber-famous, while no one cares about the kid who spilled the beans.

6. Traci Lords

Traci Lords Porn star extraordinaire Traci Lords is one of the first cross-over success stories from porn to the mainstream, appearing in television shows such as Roseanne, Married with Children, as a regular on the sci-fi show First Wave, and later on Nash Bridges, Gilmore Girls, The Profiler and others. She has also made numerous film appearances, mostly in B-movies but also in Kevin Smith's Zack and Miri Make a Porno, Virtuosity, and Blade. However, she is most notorious for appearing in porn while she was anything but legal back in the mid-80s, both in movies and in Penthouse. Using a fake ID, she participated in over 100 films prior to turning 18 (though several featured recycled footage, and the actual number of shoots may have been in the 20s), beginning when she was 16. When American authorities found out (the how of this is a mystery to this day), they provided her a lawyer and ordered all copies of her work destroyed, something that cost the porn industry millions of dollars - although Lords herself believes they actually profited from her outing, as her films became more popular than ever with her notoriety, and were still allowed in areas where 18 was not the magic age to appear naked on screen. Given the fact that she willfully lied about her age, the scandal wasn't as major as it could have been, and in the end Lords continued to film porn for a brief while, creating her own porn company before making the switch over to mainstream films and television. Meanwhile, the FBI, annoyed with Lords' claim that she didn't know who she was involved with in the porn industry and her inability to name names (basically refusing to rat on those involved in her career), reportedly monitored her for three years in the hopes of gathering evidence against those involved, while the government labelled her a victim of a manipulative industry that "drugged her." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yX1QgN4HvQ Lords, for her part, blasted the porn industry after leaving it, but chose to make her stage name her legal name, and multiple stars including Chrisy Canyon and Ron Jeremy have countered the claim that she was on drugs, saying that she was perfectly coherent when they worked with her.

5. Cameron Bay

Cameron Bay was a semi-regular member of the porn community who wasn't really all that well-known until news that she was HIV positive broke last year. The actress identified herself after news broke of a porn moratorium in California as a result of an actress having tested positive. Bay's case became all the more disturbing as details of how she contracted the disease came out: during a porn shoot with several cast and crew members present, her partner began bleeding from his penis. Shooting was stopped just long enough to clean him up, but at no time did anyone require the actor to use a condom. Both Bay and the actor had passed recent HIV/STI screenings, and Bay stated that she "left it up to him" as to whether he wanted to use one. In the end, other actors, and Bay's boyfriend, contracted the disease as well, with the total number being either four or five (a fifth actor did initially test positive but later produced multiple negative tests). This led to lawmakers pushing for mandatory condom use on porn sets.

4. Jenna Jameson

Chris Rock once joked that 50 Cent was the only person to have taken more shots to the face than Jenna Jameson, but when you think of it, there's a question as to whether her former partner Tito Ortiz actually took more. Of course, his shots were punches and kicks in the octagon, not money shots on a porn set, but the comparison can still be made. In retrospect, Jameson and Ortiz were probably doomed to fail from the start, but at the time, it seemed like they were made for each other: the biggest porn star in the world, and the most infamous fighter in the UFC, complete with his Huntington Beach Bad Boy persona. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVAE1HRF36A However, the bliss that led to a family (the pair had twins) soon led to domestic disputes, custody battles, and accusations of drug use, with Tito Ortiz coming out on top and getting custody of the pair's children. You know there's something wrong when Tito Ortiz seems like the more responsible option for a parent.

3. Max Hardcore

Raided by the FBI for obscenity in 2005 in a keystone cops re-enactment that included one agent accidentally discharging a weapon, Max Hardcore became something of a folk hero in the hardcore porn community, despite being despised by many of his peers for the extremely rough content he shot. Hardcore filmed and distributed his own line of porn flicks, online and through the mail, that featured adult actresses dressed up like young-ish looking girls, and featured a wide variety of "extreme" acts such as rough anal, humiliation, vomiting, urination, and other acts considered too taboo to be legal by many jurisdictions in America. His more explicit titles were sold as European only versions to get around obscenity laws in conservative America, and he had once been charged with child pornography for dressing an adult up as a child, though before the case went to trial, the law against adults portraying children or teenagers in sexual acts on film was found unconstitutional, and the charges dropped 2002. The government certainly didn't forget about Hardcore, however, and executed the questionable raid in October 2005. He was charged with five counts of transporting obscene matter by use of an interactive computer service and five counts of mailing obscene matter, relating to scenes involving fisting, urination, and vomiting. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=He7sBq5ScIk He was found guilty on all counts, something that was upheld on appeal - a mind-boggling outcome given all parties were of legal age and consenting. He was imprisoned between January 29th, 2009 and July 19th, 2011, spending the last five months under house arrest. He has since re-entered the porn business, though he keeps a much lower profile.

2. Sasha Grey

Reading to kids and becoming a cross-over star: Sasha Grey is probably one of the most successful, well known, and yes, respected porn actors around at this point, simply because she speaks her mind, is open about her sexuality, and manages to get roles in notable projects like Entourage and The Girlfriend Experience. In her porn career, Grey did some incredibly hardcore scenes, getting right deep down into areas of bondage, humiliation, and rough sex beyond where many "mainstream" porn stars were willing to go. And frankly, she seemed to enjoy them, which is great - we all want to see the old "doing porn because there's no other option" stereotype die. She's made news several times over the years, but the most amusing was the furor her appearance at a kid's reading program caused among the "general public" (whoever they are, given most of them watch porn). Grey appeared with a class of third graders and read to them. Of course, the kids didn't know of her porn career, and were likely only told of her "real" acting credits, and did it matter? She was a nice lady reading a book to them. Though parties involved initially denied it, photos surfaced of her reading to the kids, and she even confirmed it on Twitter, stating "Spent the am with Read Across America Compton, reading to the sweetest 1st and 3rd grade students @ Emerson Elementary." Read Across America attempted to deny any link to the actress, showing that America is still in the dark ages when it comes to sex, while Grey came out looking a lot more intelligent than most of her critics, replying that "I believe education is a universal right. I committed to this program with the understanding that people would have their own opinions about what I have done, who I am and what I represent.€

1. Christy Mack

Christy Mack has been all over the news in the past week, unfortunately. Long time girlfriend of MMA fighter War Machine (he legally changed his name to that years back), who has fought in both the UFC and Bellator MMA, Mack was involved in a domestic dispute involving the fighter and a male companion of hers several days ago that landed her in hospital with approximately eighteen broken bones and numerous other injuries. The male friend has since been identified as former VH1 reality star Corey Thomas, who suffered a broken nose. Now ex-boyfriend War Machine (their are conflicting reports as to just when exactly they broke up, with some including Mack saying Spring but others having spotted them more recently) had apparently turned up at the home of Mack to surprise her with an engagement ring only to find her with another man (Thomas) - implying that Mack was unfaithful, at least according to posts he has made on Twitter where he professed his continued love for Mack while on the run from the police, who had warrants out for his arrest. According to Mack, War Machine stumbled upon the couple fully clothed at her home at 2AM (there is no mention of how the fighter got in the home at that hour or whether he had a key left over from their relationship) and proceeded to beat Thomas, beat her, and attempt to rape her. Mack's injuries are beyond question, and absolutely shocking - though the circumstances around them have been challenged by War Machine, who claimed he was attacked, and by his agent, who claims that the fighter's blood will be found at the scene, proving he was acting in self-defense. Though how Mack's injuries could ever be considered self-defense is absolutely mind-boggling. With War Machine on the run, TV bounty hunter Dog Chapman threatened to track down the fighter, reminding us all that he's still alive and needs publicity. However, on August 15th, War Machine was arrested in a California hotel, after about a week on the run, bringing an end to the sorry situation. Overall, it's a horrible incident and one Mack can hopefully overcome.
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Primarily covering the sport of MMA from Ontario, Canada, Jay Anderson has been writing for various publications covering sports, technology, and pop culture since 2001. Jay holds an Honours Bachelor of Arts degree in English from the University of Guelph, and a Certificate in Leadership Skills from Humber College.