LOS ANGELES — If you’re a part-time porn star, quitting your day job may not be an option.
Tough economic times and shrinking studio budgets have forced performers who were used to making big money doing the nasty — some female stars earning well into six figures — are now taking on “real jobs” to make ends meet.
But when employers find out, the pink slips fly.
Recent revelations have spawned a rash of news about porn performers getting ousted after having their avocations discovered.
It’s not like the pre-Internet days when a porn career could be kept in the dark. With instant porn fame comes instant infamy. And with the ever-increasing acceptance of porn in the mainstream, it’s nearly impossible to keep adult’s dirty little secrets.
Latina porn star Cassandra Cruz has revealed that she was canned from her job at the Walt Disney Company after they discovered she was offering happy endings outside of the happiest place on earth.
“Even though I never mentioned it, Disney didn’t think it was cool that I loved having sex and making dirty movies so they fired me from their marketing department,” Cruz said.
It didn’t help that she also went public with her personal life. She said, “Plus I was going through a breakup which ended up on TV’s Divorce Court and also on the show Intervention when I wanted to get my husband help so he could get sober.”
Kevin Hogan, a well liked Boston teacher and chairman of the English department at the Mystic Valley Regional Charter School has been put on paid leave while being investigated for allegedly appearing in three gay films — including “Just Gone Gay 8” — within a year or two of his September hiring at the top-ranked Malden high school.
Even though some angry students started a Facebook page called “We Want Mr. Hogan Back,” a group of shocked and angry parents want him out.
Another high school teacher, Benedict Garrett, aka Johnny Anglais was suspended from his U.K. teaching position last summer for moonlighting as a porn star but given a slap on the wrists by the General Teaching council in Birmingham and warned that he can only keep his job if he refrains from his adult career for two years.
But not all part-time porners are innocent victims.
Male porn star Voodoo, aka Alex Torres, took off in a tandem sex-while-skydiving stunt in October with a co-worker Hope Howell at the Los Angeles Skydive Taft jump facility.
Torres filmed the action and was fired.
And even if you don’t blatantly advertise your extracurricular libido as a performer, your porn guilt-by-association can still get you into hot water.
Ernie Koneck, the 21-year partner of gay website operator Jake Cruise, aka Ric Alonso, was forced to resign his post as executive director of the Southern California Scholarship Association — a sponsor of the Miss Hollywood pageant, a preliminary event to Miss America Pageant — after being exposed for his involvement with the porn sites.
Of course there are the exceptions, like crossover stars that become media darlings, but they’re capitalizing on sex so their actions transcend the stigma. Take Sasha Grey for example, who has become part of pop culture. She landed some key roles in mainstream film and TV because of her porn career, not in spite of it.
Of course, it didn't hurt to have major Hollywood director Steven Soderbergh behind her — just in case the studio boss found out.
