LOS ANGELES — Adult star Vanessa Veracruz told XBIZ her official website is not only a culmination of four years of work, it’s also about her fans.
“They’ve inspired me so much in different aspects of my life,” Veracruz said.
“I’ve been really touched sometimes in how much they believe in me and how much unconditional support they’ve shown me. It’s surprising how much your fans would do for you and support you.”
So VanessaVeracruz.com, which launched today, is her love letter back to them.
“It was definitely not an easy process,” she said. “I never really thought that I would have a website or a clips store but my fans kept asking me for videos. Finally, I said you know what, why not, I’m going to go ahead and do it.
“I thought I had a strong enough fan base that I would be able to make something work. This was 100 percent created for my fans.”
Once she made the decision to move forward with a site Veracruz did her homework.
“I started looking around at other companies, like the studios that have different girls and create websites for different girls and I really thought that wasn’t ideal for me. I wanted something that would be really personal, something my fans knew that I took the time to do for them,” Veracruz explained.
“I also I was tired of using different platforms and directing my fans to different platforms for a Skype show or for a custom. I wanted something that would be one place where you can order my customs and get exclusive clips that aren’t shown anywhere else.”
Veracruz said for the first time she also would be writing her own blog.
“I’m going to be updating my blog every Thursday or Friday and I’m really excited about that. I’ve never done that before and it’s always been something I wanted to do,” said the first-generation Mexican-American beauty that was born and raised in the San Fernando Valley.
Veracruz also emphasized the importance for new girls to take ownership of their porn identity from the start.
“I was obviously like a lot of the girls that come in, I didn’t know much information. No one ever told me about certain things,” Veracruz said. “It was definitely a lesson I learned. It’s something I consistently am always telling girls — own your name and your URL.”
Veracruz’s site reflects her personality — from her watermark to the color scheme it’s all Team Veracruz.
“I’m 100 percent independent and it’s all personalized,” she continued. “I’ve been involved in every part of the process. It’s crazy... I never knew much about the production side and this gave me a newfound respect.”
With her creation, Veracruz said she decided to open up to fans in a way she's never done before.
“A lot of the stuff that I’ve shot has been in my house. I want them to get to know the more intimate me. A lot of the stuff too has been with my natural hair. As my fans know it’s really wavy.
"There’s just stuff like that they haven’t seen."
VanessaVeracruz.com will not be a membership site.
“I decided against that,” Veracruz said. “I just didn’t think it would be the best option for me with the way that everything is right now.”
But fans will have the option to purchase select girl/girl and solo clips individually on the site.
“A lot of people are excited,” Veracruz said. “One of the big things I’m excited about are some collaborations and some people that are going to be supporting my website. I can’t say much about it, but I feel really proud and honored to have certain people believe in me and my site. I have some really exciting news to announce within a couple months.”
Before she started her adult modeling and performing career, Veracruz worked as an office manager for an urgent care facility.
“I was a medical assistant and a full-time nursing student,” she said. “I think I honestly… I got into the business because I knew I was bisexual.”
She was 23 when she made the move.
“I got into the business a little bit older than most girls. I just thought it would be crazy fun. I thought I would just be doing it for a year,” the star admitted.
“From the very beginning of my career I was very selective with what I wanted to do. I knew what I was comfortable with and I knew what I wasn’t comfortable with.
“It wasn’t until two years ago until I really was like, ‘OK, I’m going to go with this and put my everything into it and try to give it my all.'”
She continued, “Being in the business isn’t always easy. I ended up hurting relationships within my family. For me it’s really important for me to be able at one point to walk away being proud of everything I’ve done, and building my site is one of those things.
"I just got in because I really love being with other women and I enjoy doing my job. It’s been four years now and I’ve just been really... I get taken aback sometimes with the amount of support within the girl/girl community. For me it’s a pretty strong little clique of people.”
Indeed, it’s a challenge for a model to carve out a career doing only girl/girl, solos and photo shoots in today’s industry, but she has done just that with more than 100 movie credits alone for several top studios.
Veracruz recently rose to the occasion in the high-profile series “The Business of Women” for the Girlsway network that is now available on DVD through Girlfriends Films.
“The thing that I love about ‘The Business of Women’ is it really gave me the opportunity to completely turn into this different character,” said Veracruz, who plays an “over-the-top” bad girl in the series.
“It was a lot of fun to completely forget who you are and lose yourself in the character. They’re a great to company to work for.”
Bree Mills, the creative director and head of production for Girlsway who wrote the character and directed the series, called Veracruz a “fantastic performer and one of our favorites.”
“One of my favorite things to do, especially with Girlsway Girls, is to write roles that will really challenge them as actresses... and give their fans something they've never seen before,” Mills told XBIZ.
“Since Vanessa usually plays such sweet and innocent characters for us, making her the super villain in ‘The Business of Women’ was probably one of the best casting decisions we ever made... because she jumped on the challenge!”
Mills continued, “From the moment we started working together on the script, I could tell how much she loved the role and, all through shooting, my main goal as her director was just to keep feeding her inspiration: make it more evil, more campy, more over-the-top.
“I even blitzed her phone with Cruella De Vil images to pump her up! Of course, her spending hours in nothing but jewels and a fur coat also helped. In the end, I truly believe her turn as ‘Ms. Veracruz’ will go down as one of the top performances of 2015 and I was proud to be a part of it. It may have been my character originally, but she truly brought it to life.”
Another big part of Veracruz’s repertoire is web-camming. She revealed at press time that she had just signed a four-month, exclusive deal with FreeWebcams.com, where she is online five days a week.
“I’m really excited about just working with them and building something with them," she said of the two-year-old site.
“As a girl/girl performer you’re not getting work all the time and it’s important to do other things to make up for that. For me it’s always been camming.”
Veracruz said she’d continue to cam for as long as she can.
“Everything I do I always try to give 100 percent,” she said. “Right now my focus is on my brand, my website and camming. There are a couple of companies that I love working for and I will continue to work for when they want to book me.”
This story also appears in the October issue of XBIZ Premiere. Photo by Rick Shameless.
