Cherry Kiss was en route to Exxxotica New Jersey when she learned she had received her green card. Fittingly, she had just landed at an airport in New York — home to Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty. After successfully navigating the naturalization process, which she describes as “hard work,” she felt grateful for the friends who helped her with all the paperwork, and has since been trying to pay it forward by helping other friends with their U.S. visa applications.
Originally from Serbia, Kiss moved to Los Angeles in 2023. At first, she recalls, she flew back and forth quite a bit because she felt homesick.
“I don’t miss the cold weather in Serbia, but I miss my family and friends a lot,” she tells XBIZ. “Some of them have come to visit me here, like my mother, but my father and sisters still need to get their tourist visas, which is such a process. Hopefully, they’ll come next year.”
In the meantime, she has settled in and grown more attached to her adopted city.
“What I love about LA is that you can do whatever you want here,” says Kiss. “The city is what you make of it.”
Naturally, there are drawbacks as well.
“I lose a lot of time in the car here,” she admits. “Wherever I want to go takes an hour, minimum. That’s why it’s so difficult for people to get together here. You can’t just ‘go hiking.’ With the traffic, it takes the entire day to go hiking, so we can’t work that day.
“In Europe, we walk a lot, because everything is nearby,” she adds. “I miss walking because I miss using my legs. But my friends keep me active — and when they’re not around, I dance.”
She also attends various classes at the gym, from weight training to biking and Pilates, and she has even learned how to box. During our interview, Kiss seems to be literally bursting with energy, pacing back and forth in her pajamas, never sitting still.
“I don’t like to stop moving,” she laughs.
‘A little bit of everything’
Kiss decided to make the leap to the U.S. market because she felt like she had achieved everything she could achieve in Europe and was hungry for a new challenge. She found that challenge — and it keeps her running. Her shooting schedule became even more demanding once she signed with talent agent Mark Schechter of ATMLA, shortly after arriving in Los Angeles.
“After that, everything was different,” she attests.
Since then, Kiss has continued to be a prolific performer, shooting for numerous companies while also adding significantly to her resume as a director.
“I like to mix it up, so I do a little bit of everything,” she notes. “That’s how I keep my mind busy.”
She’s especially proud of a scene she did earlier this year for Tushy, with Dan Damage and Milan Ponjevic.
“I don’t like to brag about my scenes, but this was very good,” Kiss confides. “Those guys really love what they do. And the movies I do for Evil Angel always turn out great. I’ll always love them because I starred in ‘Solstice,’ which was the first production they ever did in Serbia with Proxy Paige. It’s funny that they still produce DVDs!”
Another responsibility requiring Kiss’ attention is her OnlyFans page, on which she has been focusing more of late.
“I’ve been getting to know my fans there, and it’s been fun,” she says. “I’m able to pay more attention to them over there, and they deserve it.”
Are her fans in the U.S. different from the ones back in Europe?
“Men are going to be men no matter where in the world they call home,” Kiss muses. “There are nice ones and there are crazy ones, and there are really perverted ones — those are the ones I really like. I get a lot of foot fetish people and submissives, and a lot of virgins too, believe it or not. I’m very kinky.”
That particular trait came in handy during her recent first-time experience at Exxxotica, Kiss says.
“The fans spent two days asking me to spank their asses,” she recalls. “They didn’t come all that way just to take a selfie with me. The manager of the booth had to buy me a better whip. After 10 hours a day for two days, my right hand was hurting.”
Family Values
Kiss was just 18 years old when she entered the industry and was given her stage name by a producer. Following an initial period of adjustment, her longtime friends and close family members have been largely supportive of her career.
“They’re proud of what I’m achieving,” she says. “They just want me to be happy.”
That’s a big difference from how things stood when Kiss first started out in the industry.
“It was very bad at first,” she remembers. “People were concerned. Even my family was split. Some supported me and just wanted me to be happy. Others judged me and stopped seeing me. But guess what? It’s the classic story: Once I became successful, everyone tried to come back into my life.”
Looking back, Kiss says she’s proud of how she handled the criticism, as it made her even stronger.
“I come from a conservative place, and people are always being judgmental about our business,” she says. “But I always talk about the business on TV and reality shows, and I think it has made people think more highly of it in my country.”
Kiss also aspires to be an example to her sisters.
“We’re totally different people,” she says. “We even look very different, almost like we aren’t from the same parents. But we are very connected.”
Having grown up poor, Kiss notes, she and her sisters are committed to giving their parents a better life.
“I live to vacation with my family and bring them all around the world, from Europe to Egypt to Thailand,” she says. “Those moments are why I’m working. If you just make money, then you’re not living. Life is all about the memories you create for yourself. They mean something.
“Those moments are priceless — but they also have a price, right?” she muses. “That’s why you need to move your ass.”
Both Sides Now
“When I perform, it’s almost meditative,” Kiss reflects. “You just don’t think. As a director, you can have fun, but you also have a ton of responsibilities.”
She should know, having amassed numerous directing credits over the past five years. These days, she is eager to rack up even more. A recent milestone was helming her first shoot for Dorcel.
“Dorcel is like my second family,” she says. “I’ve been performing for them for 13 years, and I always dreamed of directing for them. I know everyone at the company, so I was like, ‘Just give me a chance.’ Finally they said yes.”
The Dorcel team encouraged Kiss to stay behind the camera so she could really focus on directing. She says the shoot ended up going very well, though the 12-hour shoot left her exhausted.
“It was my first time dealing with such a big crew,” Kiss marvels. “It was the biggest production I’ve ever been a part of. There were so many people on set. I knew some of the crew a little bit, but it was my first time working with many of them, so it was a little bit terrifying, but it went perfectly.”
Has she noticed any key differences between productions in the U.S. and Europe?
“There is a big difference between the two, mostly due to locations,” Kiss says. “In Europe, a location normally costs a fixed rate per day, but here it’s per hour.”
The upshot, she speculates, is that overseas crews tend a bit more toward perfectionism — much as Kiss herself does.
“I’m lucky my editor is my best friend,” she laughs. “Whenever I tell him we need to change something, he’ll be like, ‘I hate you.’ But I always want to be better. Otherwise, what’s the point?”
On the Horizon
Kiss says she’s excited for what lies ahead, but declines to tease any specific upcoming projects for fear of jinxing herself. However, she does mention one new venture that she’s particularly excited about and hopes to grow in the year ahead.
“I started Cherry’s Bootcamp as a way to train new male performers,” she explains. “I was already doing this in private, but I realized that a lot of performers need this kind of training because producers don’t give new guys much of a chance.
“I record everything, even the conversation with the model explaining all the testing,” she continues. “I’ve already shot a few scenes. I have an assistant who helps me decide who is actually serious about it. Hopefully we can get more male performers to enroll. If they’re good, they’ll book jobs.”
As for longer-term life goals, Kiss has some thoughts about exactly where she might want to raise a family and grow old, surrounded by children and dogs.
“I want to have a house in Los Angeles, but Spain is my everything,” she declares. “It’s my favorite place, and it’s been like that since I was very small.
“I learned Spanish from watching telenovelas when I was young,” she laughs. “So I can understand and speak the language a little bit.”
Kiss does hope eventually to have children, and says she would consider ending her performing career to start a family. But nothing is written in stone.
“If I don’t have kids, I could perform my whole life,” she says. “Because I really love it.”
