PHOTOGRAPHY NATALIA MANTINI @nataliamantini
INTERVIEW BECK DIAZ @hypebeck
STYLING KAT TYPALDOS using primarily sustainable designers and vintage pieces @kattypaldos @cartelandco
HAIR AMBER DUARTE @amber_duarte @ateliermgmt
MAKEUP ZENIA JAEGER using submission beauty glitter @makeupbyzeniajaeger @streetersagency
PRODUCTION NADJA LA COUR @nadjalacour
STYLING ASSISTANT ANTONIO SOTO @tonyso84
MAKEUP ASSISTANT VIOLET RUBY @violetrubyy
SPECIAL THANKS TO OZZIE JUAREZ AND TLALOC STUDIOS @tlalocstudios
I start the interview with your typical, albeit boring, background questions – how old were you when you started filming and what do you remember about your first scene? She answers less than enthusiastically, “I was 18, and uhm what do you mean? I remember everything about it I guess.” I ask her how she felt afterwards wanting to go deeper. “I remember thinking “wow, that’s crazy, I can’t believe I just did that.” I was super shocked, but it was really fun and I just wanted to do it again. For a second I was like “Oh my God, everyone’s going to see this” and was kind of freaking out about it, but I didn’t really care because I actually loved it.” I’m a little nervous, but in an attempt to give her a good question I ask her what her friends and family think about her profession. There’s a slight pause, maybe even a snide laugh, and she says “I mean, this is so hard for me to even answer, because I feel like I’ve answered these questions so many times. It’s just repetitive for me. I don’t feel like talking about this stuff honestly. I’ve done a million interviews where they asked me the same questions.”
Everyone wants to ask the porn star how her family feels, but why? I feel instant shame and regret. After fumbling out an apology and telling her that she is in fact one of my personal favorites, I ask her where she wants to start. Does she want to talk about porn? Is she over it? How does she feel about her industry? For a second she doesn’t know where to start, but soon she says “I haven’t shot a scene since the pandemic began, but as a whole, I’ll always stand by everyone in the adult industry. I feel like it’s always really inclusive and we have to deal with a lot of social stigma that comes from being in the industry, so we are all really strong. We have to put up with a lot of judgment. Hopefully, overtime, people are more accepting and just see us as human beings. That’s what we are. We don’t deserve to be looked at as less than because of our career choice.”
It’s hard to hear the struggle that Abella and her peers go through on the regular, all because of their day job. What should be seen as a healthy, educational, and safe experience for the viewer is marketed as a dirty, underhanded victimization of women. The common narrative? The female porn star is either a victim of men and performing against her own will, or a victim of her lack of self-worth. It’s easy to target the adult industry, and if we go one step further, it’s almost rational. With alarming statistics like 81% of women have experienced sexual harassment in their lifetime, 1/5 of American adults have been sexually harassed at work, and 45% of EEOC’s harassment claims have been sex-based, the adult industry seems like the prime breeding ground for that kind of over-sexualization and misconduct. However, sexual misconduct can happen in any industry. The biggest differentiator is that harassment doesn’t stop at the workplace for these performers. Constant fan harassment of female stars, negative reactions from family and friends, and complete strangers inundating their DM’s with insults is the very real reality that most of them share. Even when on set misconduct does happen, the most common response is usually along the lines of blame for the victim. Its “their fault” that they’ve chosen this line of work. It should be expected.
Instead of placing blame on adult performers, like Abella, us viewers should be taking accountability. “I think porn is so empowering. I can understand why people might think it’s anti-feminist, but I don’t agree. We, porn stars, do whatever we want. We’re taking control of our bodies and doing whatever we want with them. I don’t get why people always try to play us like we’re victims when we’re so in control.” In the year 2021, we have access to so many ethical studios that ensure proper treatment, pay, and handling of talent. By doing so, more performers are able to feel in control, and confident in their day to day. When I ask Abella about her personal experience with misconduct in the workplace, it’s clear that she has already put in the effort to work with ethical studios. She says “The thing is that there’s a script. Yes, there have been scripts I didn’t want to do. I remember once they wanted me to be picking up my boyfriend from jail and then start stealing with guns, and I said I didn’t want to do it. I didn’t want to be portrayed as a thief, so they changed the script. They changed it because if I don’t want to work with them, they know I’ll just go somewhere else. They’ll try to push the script they want, but ultimately if it’s not what I want, they’ll change it.”
I’ve always heard that actors have problems watching their own movies. Apparently, it has something to do with raw emotion. A scene that might be bringing us to tears, or making us double over with laughter, might have been shot five, ten, twenty times. I ask Abella how she feels about watching porn. “Oh girl, I literally only watch gay porn. I feel like I know everyone in straight porn. I used to watch a lot of lesbian porn when I was younger, I used to watch my own scenes. I loved masturbating to my own stuff. Reliving the scene and remembering how good it felt was my favorite. It’s like if you were to make a sex tape with your boyfriend. I’d only watch certain ones that were really really good though, ones I couldn’t wait to relive again.”
It’s so interesting how the art is not lost on her. She’s been in the kitchen while the sausage has been made and still craves it just as much, if not more than the rest of us. As someone who has shot for damn near every studio under the sun, and also has an enormous following on social media, does she feel more connected to her fanbase as someone that enjoys watching herself just as much as the next person? “I feel like my popularity transcends porn. Most people know me from porn, but other people also know me from other things that I’ve done. It’s not like everyone’s ashamed to say they know me, or come up and ask for pictures. It’s funny because it’s like “you know me so you probably do watch porn and have jerked off to me”, but it could also just be people recognizing me from Instagram or something. I’ve definitely experienced people looking at me and then not wanting to come up to me because it’s awkward for them. But for the most part it’s pretty chill.”
Walking down the street and being recognized for your latest sex scene is a wild reality to live. Yes, Abella is a porn star, but that doesn’t mean she signed up to be overly sexualized at the grocery store. Once her scene is over, and the clothes come on, how does she feel about the way she’s seen? “To be honest, I don’t mind being sexualized. I like other people looking at me, I’m a sexual person. It’s also like, celebrities are sexualized too, not just porn stars. I like people to look at me and think that I’m sexy, it doesn’t bother me at all, I think it’s great.”
It’s a radical thought. Not far-fetched, but somehow slightly taboo… I myself can identify so strongly with what she says, but why doesn’t it feel okay to say out loud? Abella has had to embrace it. She’s embraced her body, face, profession, and channeled the sexualization into confidence. I ask if she has a problem with self-love. “No, I love myself so much. I love myself too much I think. I love myself, and I love women, and I feel like we are so special, I always want to uplift other women and make them feel important. We are so great.”
Someone as confident and self-assured as she is, is such an inspiration. In this day and age, you gotta take advice as it comes. In an attempt to snag one of her secrets, I ask her what she loves about herself. “What do I love the most about myself? I guess my empathy. People always tell me I’m so nice, and I know I’m really giving. I would literally give the shirt off my back to someone if they needed it. I think that’s what I like the most about myself – how I treat people and strangers. Everyone is equal to me, I don’t ever think that I’m above anyone, I genuinely don’t. Doesn’t matter how much money you have, or don’t have, or anything. I think since I know how it feels to be judged, that it would be hypocritical of me to do the same to other people.”
It’s all at once clear and tangible. She is a good person, and her goodness only adds to her physical magnetism. When I ask if she has experienced any hatred with such a large following, it takes me by surprise when she admits to being a victim of social media. Even this strong, confident woman who enters into such a vulnerable state on the regular, is not immune to strangers words. “I had to hire my best friend Tiffany to go through all my comments. Her job is literally to take all the people who are saying mean things to me and block them and delete their comments. I was doing it myself at one point because I felt like, if you’re saying something bad about me, you shouldn’t be allowed to follow me. You shouldn’t be allowed to see me. Over time though, a lot of the stuff I was reading was really hurting me, and I was like “Fuck, this is toxic I can’t be reading this”. Even the other day, I was on a boat with all my friends, we were having so much fun, and I caught myself. I had just posted something and was looking through all the comments and was literally stuck there. People had so much bad shit to say and I regret looking at it before Tiffany. Instead of being present and hanging out with my friends and having fun, I was looking at what rude losers were saying about me on the Internet.”
If this powerhouse of beauty and confidence could get that rattled by online trolls, I couldn’t help but think about the younger generations growing up with social media, possible victims of the same trolls hiding behind screens, chipping away at the self-love of their targets. She relates it back to her younger sister. “Nowadays, everyone has a few thousand followers so everyone gets heat. It’s something most people can relate to. I have a younger sister and I’m always hyping her up, always trying to empower her. I got bullied a lot growing up, so I know how much it sucks. Especially when you’re young and you don’t really have a lot of confidence. That’s why I try to be the one that instills it in my sister, but it’s something she has to believe in herself. I could say not to listen to the haters until my face turns blue, I could say you’re beautiful and this and that, but it won’t mean anything until she believes it herself.””
At the end of the day, it really does come down to self-worth. Most people think about self-worth as a muscle that’s tested and grows over time, but do we ever think of how to grow it? How to strengthen it? For Abella, one of those ways is through her beauty routine. “I really don’t wear makeup at all in my personal life, but I’m a huge skincare person. When I get my makeup done for shoots and stuff, it’s always slightly different. I have my own makeup that I’m obsessed with, but I really try not to wear it as much as possible. For my skin, I use a cleanser by Peter Thomas Roth in the morning, then I moisturize with his moisturizer. After, I use a Sunday Riley vitamin C serum, and then the SPF CeraV with moisturizer. At night time, I do the same morning cleanser, then vitamin C, and then a retinal. I’ll also get a hydra facial every few months, and I do weekly masks. I love skin care so much. I used to have such bad acne, and I still get random pimples here and there, but it’s really so hard to be confident when your skin isn’t where you want it to be.”
I ask her one final question. After all of this is gone and over, what is it that truly matters? “The most important thing that I could possibly say to anyone is to not care what anyone thinks about you. It’s so cliché, but don’t care about what strangers think, or how something is going to look, what matters is what you think and feel when you look at yourself in the mirror. When you look at yourself, ask yourself if you’re a good person, if the people that are close to you feel happy when they’re with you, if you’re loved. That’s what matters, not the opinions of millions of people on social media, not the opinions of random people on the street, but yours. You just have to love yourself because “If you don’t love yourself, how the hell are you gonna love somebody else?”
