by Jake Brown
For me, it was also nice to just enjoy New York. It was just the greatest thing going to Central Park, seeing the trees, and it reminded me of my grandmother, who used to take me there as a child. Anyway, I spent New Year’s in L.A., and resolved to begin the New Year out with a bang (pardon the pun) as far as my career went.That began with shooting the box cover for my fourth movie, Possessed, which I’d shot back in December. My first couple box covers had looked okay, but my third had looked like shit, and so I wanted something a little higher-grade for my fourth movie.That was really the first one I liked, it was just higher class than the others had been. The movie shoot itself had been messy with the male stars beginning the scene by throwing mud at me. It was awful. I was playing a mental patient chained to the gates of a Mental Institution, and we shot both scenes in one day, so it was exhausting. Plus I was in some kind of weird pain all day from the mud mixing with everything else because by the time I got home that night, I was urinating blood. When I went to the doctor the next day, it turned out I had developed a tract infection from the mud. It hurt all week, plus it was a $250 hospital bill that I had to pay out of my own pocket, because porn stars don’t get any health insurance benefits. It’s really a shitty business, and that’s an example right there: I shouldn’t have had to pay medical bills from a condition I got on the job. It was wrong, and I had no one to stand up for me, Charlie certainly didn’t try.
As January 1996 progressed, I went to Las Vegas for my first Consumer Electronics show, which was old hat for me given my background in the collectibles business from my years with Dick. Still, I wasn’t used to being the product, so it was still selling, but different because I was there on behalf of Metro to encourage retail buyers to order my movies. It went well beyond that for me. It was more like a circus atmosphere because we were simultaneously promoting the coming World’s Greatest Gang Bang II movie with buyers in the hopes of generating pre-orders for Metro. John T. Bone also had me sitting at the company table passing out applications to men who wanted to be in the gang bang — as my SEX PARTNERS. The big movie they were also pushing for me that was already out at that time was Hellfire, so that was cool, and I was paid $500 a day to be there so I was making money as well. My expenses were also paid, and in all, the convention was a great success in terms of our goals in being there- to introduce me as John T. Bone’s big new find, and to promote Gang Bang II.
Of course I enjoyed the attention, and though we weren’t really there to socialize, I did run into an old Playgirl model friend of mine and I sneaked him into my room one night while everyone was out, got my rocks off, and kicked him out. John would have killed me if he and his wife had walked in on me, because we were sharing a room with 2 king size beds. He was almost like a father figure at those things, so I felt like a little girl being naughty, it was fun. In sum, it was a crazy weekend that I really needed, both in terms of the attention and the realization that I was starting to become recognizable, which I loved! Metro had been pushing me and another new star Shyla at that convention because we were sort of the company’s poster-girls for naughty; we were doing the most hard core porn. Shyla didn’t last long. She was part of the turnover ratio common to porn stars with less ultimately to offer the business than I did. On top of that, I had a much higher stamina than she did, which meant she NEVER could have pulled off something like the World’s Greatest Gang Bang II. She wanted to do softer core stuff, and that put her in competition with a lot of clones and copycat fly-by-night bitches. I got a lot of press from the convention, including a write-up in Esquire, and a feature interview on FOCUS Magazine among others.
My 5th movie, which started shooting in February, co-starred Shyla — not only in the same movie, but in the same SCENE, which was a first for me. The movie was even titled Two Much, so I knew what John had in mind going into the shoot. Naturally, I was the stand out, but I was just biding my time till April, when we started shooting Gang Bang II. I had been schedule to go on the Howard Stern Show for the first time that month too, but my flight had been cancelled the day before due to some kind of incident with the plane and some guy with a gun. Anyway, Charlie lost his shit over that, calling me a ‘stupid cunt’ and whatnot, on the phone. He was a true asshole in every sense of the word. In his defense, he kept me working, but I didn’t deserve the abuse that came with it. Charlie got me so stressed over it that I ended up in the Emergency Room with an IV in my arm for dehydration. That also caused me to miss a booking for the first time, so Charlie used his three magic words over that one too. I ended up staying off the road for a couple weeks to recuperate, which upset Charlie because he was losing commissions, but he could fuck himself as far as I was concerned. Even while I was at home resting, I was still working though, doing interview after interview on the phone promoting the Gang Bang. I did a publicity photo shoot with this big photographer Brad Willis. John Bone planned to run a campaign in all of the adult magazines. He was a host at the AVN Award show too, which was officially the porn industry’s Grammys or Oscars, but was in my opinion mainly an excuse for trailer park white trash to dress up in gowns and get drunk.
To me it was ‘White Trash Night Out.’ It could have honestly been like a Springer Pay-Per-View, just totally classless. Metro, like every other porn studio, has their own table where all the talent and producers and directors sit, and they give out awards for like ‘Best Cock’ and ‘Best Girl on Girl Sex Scene,’shit like that. I presented one, but this company called ‘Vivid Video’ swept that year. It was just fucking stupid, people crying over winning awards for the most deviant behavior and sexual acts you can imagine recorded on screen. Oh, but wait, it’s an ‘ART FORM!’That made me fucking laugh, how some fucking bronzed statue suddenly legitimized what we were doing, it was silly to me. I won a few of those fucking things over the years, and immediately turned around and auctioned them off. How is that something to be fucking proud of ? You sucked the best cock? It’s the most degrading thing they could give a woman in terms of a label, and I realize we brought it on ourselves somewhat by starring in those movies to begin with, but to rub our noses in it afterward was just
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wrong. I know a lot of readers are not going to like me saying that- or think me hypocritical — but they can fuck themselves. I won ‘Best Selling Movie’ a couple years in a row, and by that time, February of 1996, my first couple movies had come out, and both were selling very well, exceeding projections and so forth. So that at least made me feel good about the fact that I was getting out to that many homes around the world, not to mention the seemingly endless press junket I was doing to promote the coming Gang Bang II movie. Even when I was shooting other films, it all seemed like steps toward the climax that the latter movie would bring the porn world to in April. My movie that February was titled Delirium, and, pleasantly enough was my first time doing a one on one girl/guy scene. My co-star was John Decker, who I’d never worked with before. He had a huge cock, and of course the scene involved anal, so that was excruciatingly painful. It was a price I was paying for stardom, which was starting to blossom around me. People would recognize me on the street or guys would yell something from a car if they drove by in reference to my movies. Sometimes it was a frat guy, usually it was a frat guy, because more mature men wouldn’t have taken that tact to compliment me on my performance. Still, whether you disagreed with the means to the end I was achieving, I was intent on having my fame one way or another.
February was a thankfully short month, because I found myself legitimately excited for March, which would mark my first appearance on The Howard Stern Show to promote — of course — the World’s Greatest Gang Bang II. For any porn star to gain even a shred of credibility they had to appear on the Stern show, it was like a right of passage into mainstream success in the porn world. I had grown up listening to Howard Stern, so to me it wasn’t quite as cool as meeting Bruce Dickinson from Iron Maiden would have been, but it was up there. To boot, I was a star on the show, rather than jus
t a nobody. I was there to promote the Gang Bang by way of a contest with his listeners, such that the general public could actually come down to the station and sign up to star with me in the movie. It was a publicity stunt, but a big crowd of fucking dudes showed up nonetheless. I remember leaving the station and being mobbed for autographs and photos, which was weird, but pretty cool. Its different from a convention booth signing where you’re signing blindly for retailers who don’t in many cases have the slightest idea who you are, they’re just there for free shit or to place orders for the product. Being that young in my career, it felt good to get that kind of reaction from the public, especially Stern fans, because in many cases we shared the same selling demographic.
As a result, his listeners likely turned off their radio and turned on my videos in the same day, so it was very much one hand washing the other. One important thing for me was to not let it get to my head, to believe my own hype, because I knew I was a long, long way from where I wanted to be in terms of long-term stardom. Also, the E Channel — which filmed Howard Stern’s show, and specifically the one I was on — announced shortly after that they were using the footage from my appearance as part of the television show, so that was exciting. It was a pretty quick turn around, because that episode was scheduled to air sometime in April, coinciding nicely with the Gang Bang movie. Looking back now, it was a pretty big deal that I was becoming that popular that quickly given that I only had 4 movies shot and out at that point. I think I filled a void in that business. Something it was lacking in terms of quality, because it certainly had plenty of quantity in terms of generic, 15-minute famers who shriveled up soon enough due to catching AIDS from fucking their co-stars unprotected on the weekend and wilted away from the spotlight. I mean, filled to the fucking brim, if not overflowing. I knew I was better than they were too because other people validated that instinct — Howard Stern for instance, being one who specifically took me aside and said, ‘You shouldn’t be doing this, you’re too beautiful and too smart.’ And you could tell he meant it because it wasn’t something he said on air, it was a personal moment between us, and given the number of porn stars he’d made his bread and butter with on the air over the years, I appreciated the observation. Still, as much as I agreed with him, I knew that very distinction gave me my edge over my competitors in the business.
My movie that March was called Compulsion which co-starred Tom Byron. That movie shoot stands out in my mind not because of anything other than the fact that Tommy boy couldn’t get it up, and then once he did, he had trouble keeping it up. I remember they had to stop shooting at one point to help him, because I certainly wasn’t going to, that was his responsibility. Anyway, I remember having to make that point to John T. Bone because I was calling to make a nail appointment while they were injecting Tom with whatever hard-on assistance drug they had to get him up to par for the scene to continue. While this was going on, John made some comment to me about the fact that he was trying to shoot a movie
the rated X files 10 9 and I was on the phone, as though that was somehow the thing holding him up instead of Tom’s inability to get it up. Naturally, I shot back at him that ‘It’s not my fault he doesn’t have his shit together,’ and they really couldn’t argue with me, but I still found it funny. I think that’s important to underscore in context of my larger attitude about the business, that it was just that, a business, and nothing more. There was nothing personal going on between Tom and I that would have compelled me to be sympathetic to his impotence, and there would have needed to be for me to even consider helping him stay hard. I guess I took it a little personal from John that I got shit about it when I was not the cause for the hold up, but somehow it was in my job description to be a fucking hooker or something and help get him hard. It’s not like he was my fucking trick or something.That just really offended me underneath the surface, but I kept it professional on the face of things and eventually we got back to work. It has always bothered me though that those in the porn business — particularly men — fail as often as they do to draw the distinction between us being porn stars and hookers. Granted we’re both being paid to have sex, but one is doing it in the fucking street, and the other is doing it on screen for thousands of people to watch. One is making $40 for their time, the other is making $1750, and there is a defined difference. The public can make that mistake, but not professionals who work in the business. It’s important that the line between the two be finely defined and followed, and I just felt really strongly that it wasn’t that day.
No matter, I let it go once the shoot was over, and moved on, but incidents like that got spread around the porn rumor mill as gossip, and that helped to spawn the whole ‘Jasmin’s a bitch’ label because I kept it strictly business on and off the set. No matter what they thought or wrote though, my movies sold well, and the press couldn’t get enough of me. John couldn’t really say shit to me either because I was his company’s bread and butter at that point, and we already had talked too much shit about Gang Bang II for either of us to back out. He needed me and I needed him I suppose, so John came quickly to respect my rule and didn’t slip up again. On a personal front, I found out through friends back East that Dick had found out what I was into and was actually rather passive in his reaction to it, taking the attitude that ‘If it makes her happy, she should do it.’Dick cared so little about anyone or anything beyond himself that he wouldn’t have been capable of being worried for me, where on the other hand, Kurt found out and actually went about trying to talk me into quitting. It was comical to me that he had originally told me I wasn’t good enough to be in the business. I didn’t know what his true motive was in trying to talk me into quitting, because he used Stern’s tact of telling me how I was ‘too good for it,’ and so forth. I took that genuinely from Howard because he had no possible ulterior motive in telling me, where Kurt had several. He was married by then and I was well over him but at least it felt a little like closure between us.
On the other hand, with Dick, I felt no sense of closure because he didn’t seem to care one way or the other. I had also started talking to Sickie again, we’d lost touch for a while, and then he’d heard me on the Stern show and called to congratulate me. He’d had some jealous, crazy bitch girlfriend who wouldn’t let him talk to me because I was a porn star, so he hadn’t really seen me become one, and we’d lost touch shortly before I signed to Metro. Anyway, it was nice for me to re-establish that friendship because we got along on so many levels as people, and he wasn’t anything like most of the shallow fucks I encountered out in L.A. I didn’t make my sentiment on that a secret in the press either, my feeling that everyone I worked with on the star side was as light in the brain as their scenes were of any real action. I was a hard core porn star for a reason, because I took it to the next level every time action was called and the camera was rolling. When I did interviews, I wore honesty on my sleeve as naked as I was in my films. I put it all out there for the press and public to sort through, and no one can deny me my ‘Queen of Controversy’ crown, or I wouldn’t have been dubbed by the press as the ‘World’s Most Controversial Sex Symbol.’I held the line on consistency with everything I did that had directly to do with porn, or rooted out from it. That was the only way to establish any kind of long-term reputation foundationally, and I worked my ass off to make sure I got the maximum exposure possible. Most of the girls — in the context of exposure — extended the boundaries of that word’s definition only to include when they had their clothes off on screen.They didn’t understand the game of promotion, and the fact that life imitates art in the porn business, so that if you play up an on-screen persona, much like a rapper, the media will eat it up. They love it because it causes controversy, and therein consistently gives them something to write about, to report if you want to call that journalism. My bottom line was: any press is good press, whether I was being positively reviewed for a performance in one of my movies or being negative by trashing everyone I had to put up with in the process o
f making my climb to the top. My biggest bang was yet to come, but right around the bend of my sexy ass, and I honestly couldn’t wait because I knew it would put me over the top! Ironically, the night before the big day, Lemmy attempted to talk me out of it!
Lemmy Kilmister: I had seen all this advanced publicity about the biggest gang bang in the world, and I’d tried to talk her out if doing it. I remember I actually saw her out at the Rainbow the night before. She came back to my house and again I tried to talk her out of it and persuade her NOT to do it, and she wouldn’t have it. I tried my best, but she wouldn’t listen unfortunately and it changed and spoiled her personality a bit, where she got very bad-tempered for a long time — quite abrasive. She changed quite a bit after that, I felt like it disillusioned her a bit. That bubbly personality went on holiday after that gang bang thing, she became very angry.
I think she wanted the notoriety, she was aiming on becoming a big porn star, but she didn’t realize how it would change her emotionally. She’s a really nice person, and she’s really taken a beating, and it’s kind of her own fault, but all the same, I don’t think she realized quite what it was going to be like. For a long time she was really uptight, and I think it’s why she didn’t do porn after 2000. It set her back a few years, and it has taken her 10 years to get this far from it.
Excerpt taken from The L.A. Weekly, ‘Scenes from My Life in Porn’ by Evan Wright, April, 1996: