Podcast: Brittany Andrews Interview
Sometimes, veteran stars are reluctant to embrace change. They can’t abandon older, often outdated paradigms, and they fade into obscurity. That’s a fate that will never befall Brittany Andrews! Through over 20 years in the industry, she’s always displayed an ability to adapt and thrive. She’s an enthusiastic supporter of new innovations like crypto, she is candid about her struggles with health and addiction, and she still turns in rollicking porn performances with regularity. Her trademark candor is on display once again in her new Adult Empire podcast interview!
Andrews discusses the changing nature of the industry, the rise of cam performers, awards shows, free porn, the importance of “pivoting,” the intrinsic challenges of the adult biz, cryptocurrency and decentralized finance, the billionaire she almost married, single life, dating, social introversion, stars and directors of the 1990s, the downsides of being a veteran performer, her famous candor, male stars and erectile dysfunction drugs, mental health, John Oliver’s comments on sex workers, and her upcoming projects.
Listen to the podcast on your favorite platform, watch the video version below or on YouTube, and check out text highlights and a complete interview transcript.
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Select interview highlights
On the rise of cam performers:
[At the 2020 AVN] award show, it had Nikki Benz and then somebody from MyFreeCams that was hosting the show. And so now the camming industry is making more money than [traditional] porn is, and so you have to kind of give them their credentials, right? They’re all doing extremely well. A lot of pornstars now come from the camming industry. So yes, I do believe that you have to have a lot more humility as a pornstar now because I don’t think that we are at the top of the pecking order anymore.On free porn:
Well, I remember back in the day, I used to be able to get away with a lot, because I would just promise everybody like, “Oh, I’ll give you free porn.” And they were like sweets, right? Now you offer somebody free porn, and they’re like, “What? All porn is free, isn’t it?” I never thought at the beginning of my career, that porn would have zero value. You always hear sex sells. Sex sells, right? So, you know, I think I learned way back that whatever I think is the way things are going to unfold — I better, you know, make sure that I stay flexible and open, because it’s probably never going to exactly unfold how I think it’s going to do so.
On the key career longevity:
It really does come down to pivoting, of just going okay, this is over. This is new, let’s move in that direction. So many people are so afraid of change, and they don’t want to change and they’re so fucking stubborn. Oh my god, and it’s like, boo, it’s not working. Move now quick, or you’re going to be left in the dust. And it’s much easier I’ve found personally to continue to keep pivoting and spinning in circles and stay in the game, then to leave and then get left in the dust and then try to crawl your way back end. That’s a much harder, difficult, and often not successful way to go about longevity in a business.
On single life:
I’ve been single now for, like nine years, and I’m pretty happy with [it]. I mean, I run multiple companies. I have like over 30 employees at the moment. I travel a lot. And I’m old, and I’m set in my ways. The last guy that tried to marry me, he did give me an extremely good prenup. And he addressed me as a business person with a contract. And I looked at the contract, and I was like, it’s a good contract design. You know, there was provisions for all kinds of things, and it was like, I would sign that contract. But I really do think that that would be the only way that I would ever get married is if it was a good contract to sign.
On dating:
[Is] dating challenging as a porn star? You know, obviously, yes, to a certain extent, because you’ve got emotions of other people that you have to deal with, around sexuality, that the average relationship doesn’t have. That kind of extra pressure to deal with those kind of emotions, right? So you see the pressure points and the break points of people, of what they can and what they can’t handle, of what they thought they could handle, what they think they can.On being a loner:
I’m very much a loner. I go to dinner alone. I go to the movies alone. I go to concerts alone. I just went to a couple of concerts recently — I went alone. I have always lived alone. I’ve literally never lived with another human being like in the last 30 years of my life. I’ve always had a cat or two cats, or a cat and a dog. I’ve got a cat and a dog right now. And when COVID happened, I’m like, I’m a total workaholic homebody. So I’ve literally googled a couple of times thinking okay, well, maybe I’ve got something like narcissistic personality disorder myself. Why don’t I get lonely? And it’s shown me my past Google [search history], because I forget that I’ve googled it before and it’ll show me the last time I googled it. And pretty much I’ve kind of came to the realization that I should be grateful that I don’t get that. Because I know I have a lot of friends that routinely struggle with it. And that looks really sad. So I’m just glad that I’m not like that.
ED drugs and the modern male pornstar:
So now you got these super skinny, young, straggly, [men who] weigh barely 100 pounds wet. Their dick ain’t working, right? I mean, they need a can of soup, right? They need some meat. And so now a lot of these agencies are starting them off with [clicks tongue] shooting up their dick. And it’s called Caverject. So now that’s really popular to shoot up your dick.
And that’s creating all kinds of new interesting issues. It’s creating the diva male porn star, right? So what do I mean by that? Well, throughout the majority of my career, when you’re having a scene, we are all professionals. But I think that women always look at it a little bit differently, right? We’re going in, we’re shooting a scene for a movie. It’s a boy/girl scene. We’re wearing this outfit, we have makeup artists, this is the wardrobe, this is the script, [and] blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. A guy is like, “Oh, I’m going to fuck Brittany Andrews, right?” A guy is still a fucking guy, right? They’re going in still kind of looking forward to fucking that other person, where I don’t think that most women could care the fuck less, right? Just being honest.
But now with these guys shooting up their dick, right? What that does is there’s no connection mentally to your dick, right? There is no emotional connection. So they’re now just like women, right? They could give a fuck less about who the fuck they’re fucking, because it’s not connected. So you’re seeing more of these men, you know, starting to act like women. “I won’t do this” and “I can’t do this.” And they’re like little fucking divas, right, because they don’t want to fuck anybody. They could care less. They’re not emotionally — they have no skin in the game, one might say. And you’re seeing a lot of them, in the same kind of way that you might have a lot of traumatized women with maybe sexual abuse issues that come into this business and kind of get wiped out right away, kind of get eaten up and spit out. You’re seeing now that happen with these younger guys. So it’s not sexual abuse that they had. But now they’re being physically traumatized — their dick, whether it can work or not — and then emotionally traumatized. Because now they don’t even know how to get their dick hard.
On the importance of sex work:
Can you imagine COVID without OnlyFans? I mean, not to be sexist, but we can all primarily agree that it’s men that lose their motherfucking minds, right, and start going crazy with guns and shit, like after the pandemic, like their anger, you know? I truly do believe that femininity is the answer to masculine toxicity, right? A man needs the love and attention from a woman to kind of stay balanced, right? I can’t give attention to all men all the time. I do a lot of them, though. So women should really be thanking me. If they’re off doing what they’re doing to take care of themselves and their family and they can’t take care of men, you know, somebody has to somebody has to love, care, give companionship to to these lonely men, because if you don’t, they become violent. And that’s my belief, and I think that most people would probably agree with me. So I do think that sex workers are participating society in a healthy way to make sure that that we’re keeping a balance.
Full interview transcript
Have the pictures gotten small?
Dallas
So I was thinking about it. Of course, you have had a very long porn career. And I thought back to the movie Sunset Boulevard, where the main character says, “I’m big, but it’s the pictures that have gotten small.” Do you think porn has gotten small at all in the course of your career as it’s moved more towards clips and fetishes and all sorts of interesting things?
Brittany
Well, I’ll give you my perspective on this, right. So I did retire for about a good 10 years between like 2008 and 2018. I did do a few films in between there. But I was pretty retired during those years. And I came back to the AVN Award show, and I hadn’t done the AVN Awards show since like, you know, yeah, 2008, when I got my one of my Hall of Fames, and so it had been, like, probably maybe a 12-year span since I had been to the award show. And, and I’m like — can I swear on here?
Dallas
You can swear. Absolutely!
Brittany
I’m like, What the fuck? What the fuck is up with this goddamn line, right? Like, the red carpet line was so fucking ridiculously long. Now, I’m an old bitch. I’ve had back surgery. You know, I’m in heels. I’m standing in line. I’m like, I’m an old bitch. I can’t be doing this line forever. What is going on with this line? And so well now, you know, in comparison to back in the day when it was just pornstars that were in the porn business. You know, most of the conventions now are really crammed with cam girls, and a lot of people that are from the cam world, and I will not lie, you know, I’m not a perfect human being — I had a little bit of judgments. I was like, what are all these cam people doing on the frickin’ red carpet? It’s supposed to be for pornstars, right? Me being an old bitch, you know, using my old filters.
And and then when COVID happened, you know, I started looking at doing camming. I’d never done it before. I mean, I’d done it like really early back in the day with IEG internet Entertainment Group, Seth Warshavsky. They were the ones that put the Tommy Lee / Pamela Anderson tape out back in the day. So we’re talking like 1997 when I was doing like camming but it was in not like a personal thing. It was with companies that had rooms, and you did it that way.
And so I’d got like this camming guide, and in the guide it more or less said that that cam stars are up here and pornstars are down here. And I was like, oh, okay, so I need to readjust how I kind of think of myself in my place in this world now, like, as a sex worker in the world of sex work and where each one of these aspects of sex work kind of fits into the puzzle. From my genre, it was like pornstars were up here and we were like the creme de la creme and then everything was underneath us. And I just don’t think that that’s the case at all anymore.
You know, even that particular award show, it had Nikki Benz and then somebody from MyFreeCams that was hosting the show. And so now the camming industry is making more money than [traditional] porn is and so you have to kind of give them their their credentials, right? They’re all doing extremely well. A lot of pornstars now come from the camming industry. So yes, I do believe that you know, you have to have a lot more humility as a pornstar now because I don’t think that we are at the top of the pecking order anymore.
Rolling with the punches
Dallas
Does that surprise you that it’s played out in that way?
Brittany
Well, I remember back in the day, I used to be able to get away with a lot, because I would just promise everybody like, “Oh, I’ll give you free porn.” And they were like sweets, right? Now you offer somebody free porn, and they’re like, “What? All porn is free, isn’t it?” I never thought at the beginning of my career, that porn would have zero value. You always hear sex sells. Sex sells, right? So, you know, I think I learned way back that whatever I think is the way things are going to unfold — I better, you know, make sure that I stay flexible and open, because it’s probably never going to exactly unfold how I think it’s going to do so.
So yeah, I never thought it would be that way. But am I surprised that things are not exactly the way that I thought they’d beat? No, not really. I’m pretty good at trend forecasting, but I’m not that good.
Dallas
Do you think that capacity to roll with the punches is an essential trait for any successful pornstar?
Brittany
I think it’s for any successful entrepreneur. But even more so when you’re in the sex worker industry. Because quite often, we’re so discriminated against, that you’re often building these immaculate mansions that can literally be burned to fire overnight, you’ve got to have a certain point of grieving, and then you’ve got to have the resilience. And sex workers, I believe are some of the most resilient people that I’ve ever met. You have to have the resilience to pull yourself up by the bootstraps and start all over again, from scratch, making that, you know, mansion.
And so when it comes to the adult entertainment industry, we’ve always been on the forefront of technology as well. And you know, I know a lot of people that are my age — I’ll be 50 next year — that are still sitting there bitching and complaining about Pornhub and it’s like, Honey, you know, you’ve got to get over it. You have a right to feel your feelings about whatever situation. Grieve that the mansion was burned down. Be pissed off that they discriminated against you, they stole from you, but for a short period of time, and then you got to just boom, you know, you’ve got to pivot, you’ve got to move on to the next thing. Adn some people just don’t have that. They take the punches, they take them really hard, and they stay down.
But especially, I think, you know, in the age of 2022 with COVID, all these different things, I feel like a lot of other entrepreneurs had to kind of have a little bit of the pornstar spirit of like going, Oh, we got to pivot. Yes, but you got to pivot and you got to pivot quick. Otherwise, you’re going to lose everything and you’re going to be left in the dust. So I do think that that’s absolutely a trade that you must have if you want to have longevity and success.
Being a pornstar: a hard business
Dallas
Have you seen fellow porn stars who had a lot of talent, but they just didn’t have that ability to pivot like you’re saying and thus they got kind of eaten up by the business?
Brittany
100% I could name many names of dead animals left on the road, you know, and it’s unfortunate because some of them [were] extremely intelligent and very smart, but just don’t have the capability. It really does come down to pivoting, of just going okay, this is over. This is new, let’s move in that direction. So many people are so afraid of change, and they don’t want to change and they’re so fucking stubborn. Oh my god, and it’s like, boo, it’s not working. Move. Now quick, or you’re going to be left in the dust. And it’s much easier I’ve found personally to continue to keep pivoting and spinning in circles and stay in the game, then to leave and then you know, get left in the dust and then try to crawl your way back end. That’s a much harder, difficult, and often not successful way to go about longevity in a business.
Embracing new technology
Dallas
Because my impression is that you’ve been always quite willing to embrace new technology, new concepts. I know you’ve talked a lot about crypto and other sort of new paradigms, so to speak that, you know, a more traditional pornstar might be reluctant to embrace, particularly one that’s been in the business as long as you have been.
Brittany
Yeah, absolutely. So I don’t tell anybody, but I’m a little bit of a nerd. Yes, it does seem that way. So you know, hashtag NerdMafia. But yeah, I’ve always loved technology. So that’s been really good. I’ve been kind of always a gearhead. I started producing when I was like 24 and I opened up a 5000 square foot studio downtown LA. So I was producing, directing, then I owned an internet company where I had 30 websites. And then when I retired from the business then I did three years of film school in New York, which gathered even more cameras and gear and all that kind of stuff.
And then I did another pivot. And then I started producing music and DJ’ing. I got a master certification of Ableton. And so then, you know, I had all of the gear of you know, when I did the DJ thing for about 10 years, and then I retired from that during the pandemic. And then you know, the next thing is definitely, I’m super into crypto. And one of the main reasons is kind of going back to one of the earlier questions that we were talking about, you know, as a sex worker, consistently, you know, building this empire, or castle or house or whatever you want to call it, and then having it burned to the ground the next day. You know, we’re so discriminated against in so many different areas and banking is definitely by far one of the worst ways that you can truly hit somebody at the core. You take away their Venmo. You take away their cash app. You take away their PayPal. You take away all of their opportunities to be able to survive. So I’m not just into crypto — I’m into decentralized finance, and that is a soapbox that I stand on. And I waved my hands kind of loudly because I’m on the board of directors for a couple of different DAOs at the moment. Vicewrld DAO, I’m a partner there and this month I’m on the cover of Treat DAO and then have a partner in another one as well. And then I’ve also sold over 100 — I’ve created and sold over 100 100 NFTs on multiple different platforms.
And so I’m in all these different Telegram groups with all these different platforms, companies, tokens, all these different things. And often at 7 a.m. in the morning, I’m going off about something to crypto people about them trying to say that it’s DeFi and it’s like “Bitch, if it’s on Binance it’s not Defi. Get your DeFi right.” And so you know, right now, with everything that’s been going on with Tornado Cash, within the theory Aetherium ecosystem, I’ve definitely been keeping my eyes very glued to it. Because now that Aetherium has done the merge from proof of work to proof of stake, they now are looking at possibly being underneath, you know, Gary Gensler and the SEC, and as a security instead of a commodity, which then changes whether it’s something is decentralized, or if something is centralized, which once again, you know, I’ve I’ve put a lot of money and a lot of heart and soul into Aetherium because I like the ecosystem and the people behind it.
And you know, I’ve done ETHDenver quite a few years in a row. And we have a space there as sex workers, like we’ve gone and we’ve put our flag on the on the moon more or less, and you know, and I’m really grateful to Ameen Soleimani, who is the founder of Spank Chain and Spank Pay? Because he also is one of the developers for Aetherium. And, you know, he’s really backed up sex workers, you know, within that space, and he does it in a very philosophical political way that us as sex workers, we can’t do within that community. It’s got to be like developers talking to nerds talking to nerds, like you can’t be like an NFT creator and start talking to developers about how developers should interact between each other. And he’s really kind of put a space for us there because we’re not somebody that wants to necessarily be there. We’re people that need to be there because literally, our ability to be able to survive and make money is consistently being taken away from us, and we need to be in that crypto space. And with the whole thing that’s been going on with Visa and MasterCard within the last couple of years with Pornhub, and all of the other different platforms of them pretty much taking it away from all these different adult platforms. Really, they’re pushing porn into cryptocurrency and so I pretty much feel like if that’s where it’s going anyways, I’d rather be ahead of the curve. And while everybody else is figuring shit out I’d like to be putting that money in my pocket just in case.
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Looking back
Dallas
You seem very much like a person who’s prepared for the future. Does it ever frustrate you sometimes that given obviously you’re a very established pornstar, you have lots of great stories, lots of great experiences, that people predominantly want to talk about the past or something that happened a long time ago?
Brittany
Fuck, yes. Oh my god, it’s one more thing. The only thing anybody wants to know is if I’ve had sex with Ron Jeremy. I guess it’s now Johnny Sins. Things have changed. The arrow has changed but the question has stayed the same. Yeah, you know, it’s one of those things of like, everybody has a stereotype that the only thing that you do — I’m working all the time right and 90% of the time I’m on my phone, on my computer, I’m doing meetings staff meetings, things like that — but they they’re like oh, are you shooting today? They think that that’s the only thing you do is suck and like God bless, I do suck and I love it and I’m good at it, but it’s not a fucking thing that I do. It’s actually on the totem pole probably the least in comparison to everything else business wise.
What might have been: marrying a billionaire
Dallas
Lisa Ann once said something very interesting. She said she said she does not like to play the game of “what might have been.” She doesn’t think about counterfactuals — if you’d taken this path, what would have happened? Are you the same way or do you sometimes think oh, you know, if I’d taken this fork, the other direction of the road things would have been different. Or do you not think about that at all?
Brittany
If I had married that one guy, that’s probably the only time I ever think that. If I had married that one guy my life would have — but that’s probably the only the only time and you know I don’t give it too much thought. Me and him are still really good friends to this day. And I’m a very spiritual person and I do believe that everything is always in perfect and divine order. So everything is the way that it’s supposed to be exactly at this moment. So acceptance is another spiritual principle that I try to live by on a regular basis.
Dallas
So without pressing you on too many of the details, this one guy, what was the magical thing that might have completely changed your path?
Brittany
The amount of money.
Dallas
I wondered because I know you’ve said you’ve dated billionaires so that was my next question.
Brittany
Yeah, the amount of money and just everything within that relationship. Yeah, I would have changed my entire life. But you know what, I think the universe thought I got enough out of that human. I drained as much as I could that I needed out of him in that way and then it was time to move on, but we’re still really good friends, though.
Dallas
So dating a billionaire — is the biggest upside of that the financial aspects that open up? I think most people have not had that experience. So that’s a little insight into into dating a billionaire here.
Brittany
Well, a you have to know how to deal with narcissistic personality disorder. But no, I’ve dated quite a few different millionaire billionaire kind of people. And you know what, they’re people at the end of the day, you know, and it was funny because I did this one off Broadway play in New York and with with Raquel Almazan, and Penny Antine, who’s a well-known person in the New York theatre world, and, you know, a lot of that, probably, like 50% of that play was was my story. And the guy that I was dating at that time, he was the CEO of Goldman Sachs, Brazil, he had more fucking issues than I did. So we’re watching them play and I’m like, dude, you actually have more issues than I do. And mine are showcased in a play. So you know, they all have their own issues and problems. They’re human beings, you know, and you just have the luxury of going first class and getting better presents and so forth and so on. But you know, there’s a bunch of other shifts and ego and stuff that you have to deal with too. As we do notice, I am single now so it wasn’t worth it at the end.
Staying single?
Dallas
So are you content to remain single for the time being? Or do you think sometime you could walk down that aisle and find the for-life person?
Brittany
I’ve been single now for, like nine years, and I’m pretty happy with — I mean, I run multiple companies, I have like over 30 employees at the moment, I travel a lot. And I’m old, and I’m set in my ways. The last guy that tried to marry me, he did give me an extremely good prenup. And he addressed me as a business person with a contract. And I looked at the contract, and I was like, it’s a good contract design. You know, there was provisions for all kinds of things, and it was like, I would sign that contract. But I really do think that that would be the only way that I would ever get married is if it was a good contract to sign.
Dallas
Right, made business sense, in a way.
Brittany
Yes, exactly. Otherwise, you know, that’s what dating is for, right? You can just date somebody and when you’re done throw them away.
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Pornstars and dating
Dallas
Now, is dating challenging as a porn star?
Brittany
Dating challenging as a porn star? You know, obviously, yes, to a certain extent, because you’ve got emotions of other people that you have to deal with, around sexuality, that the average relationship doesn’t have that kind of extra pressure to deal with those kind of emotions, right? So you see the pressure points and the break points of people of what they can and what they can’t handle of what they thought they could handle what they think they can.
You know, I’ve been pretty lucky. A lot of my earlier relationships, they were totally fine with what I did. The other guy that wanted to marry me with the business contract, he wasn’t — so it’s either pay up or shut up, and he paid up. So that worked. You know, so and it’s funny because you know, different people that you’re with, some of them can handle some of what you do. They can’t handle some of the other stuff. So you know, it is a little bit of a whack-a-mole, if you don’t know if they know exactly like when you’re getting into the relationship, if they might think that they can, and they really want to, but then as you continue, you have to respect that, right. But in general, I’m just too busy to even give a fuck at this moment in my life. So you know, I have good friendships and other people in my life. And that is I’m very content and satisfied with exactly how things are. At this moment. I don’t feel like I’m missing anything. I’m not somebody that ever gets lonely. The only time I get lonely is when I’m dating somebody. And I’m missing them because usually I’m traveling and things like that. But as a single person, it’s very, very, very rare that I ever get lonely, so I’m pretty good.
Dallas
So when you say you don’t get lonely, do you mean that you’re content with your own company? Or do you are you just sort of a gregarious person always has people around you and thus you have friends that are keeping you from being lonely?
Brittany
Yeah. No, I’m very much a loner. I go to dinner alone. I go to the movies alone. I go to concerts alone. I just went to a couple of concerts recently — I went alone. I have always lived alone. I’ve literally never lived with another human being like in the last 30 years of my life. I’ve always had a cat or two cats, or a cat and a dog. I’ve got a cat and a dog right now. And when COVID happened, I’m like, I’m a total workaholic homebody. So I’ve literally googled a couple of times thinking okay, well, maybe I’ve got something like narcissistic personality disorder myself. Why don’t I get lonely? And it’s shown me my past Google, because I forget that I’ve Googled it before and it’ll show me the last time I googled it. And pretty much I’ve I’ve kind of came to the realization that I should be grateful that I don’t get that because I know I have a lot of friends that routinely struggle with it. And that looks really sad. So I’m just glad that I’m not like that.
Dallas
Paradoxically, would you characterize yourself as an introvert, then?
Brittany
You know what, there’s a new thing that I read recently that talks about a social introvert. And so I think I’m exactly that. So you have a lot of introverts that when they’re in social situations, they’re very awkward, right? And they had a good point in this article that they were talking about, if you’re an introvert, when you go out and you’re in a social setting, it drains you. And if you’re an extrovert, when you’re in a social setting, it gives you energy. Anybody that knows me knows that when I do my public stuff, I’m drained afterwards. So that obviously means that I am an introvert, but I’m not socially awkward. I have absolutely no. So I’m like a dog! [Laughs] I’m very well socialized. So I do enjoy social stuff. But I think also too, as I get older and older, I have less and less — just like anybody else that gets older, like I don’t want to go to the club, I want to go to bed on time, like I just don’t have a need for that kind of social interactivity as much anymore
Dallas
So when you shoot a scene, what is the effect? Do you come away from that energized and upbeat? Are you just like, “Wow, that was exhausting. And I want to take a nap. It was fun, but it was exhausting.”
Brittany
Well, it’s funny too, because I do live alone. And I’ve been sober for 10 years, 10 out of the last 11 years I’ve been sober. So I really don’t socialize very much unless it is kind of a business type of thing. Or like at the grocery store or other places and I am so talkative right. Like [trills tongue]. Like, “I’m around people!” I’m never around people. I’m only talking to my dog and my cat and they never have a proper conversation with me, all right? The cat does. The dog doesn’t. But so you know what, I’m on set, a lot of the people, I’ve known them for like 25 years, like a lot of the guys that are behind the camera that are shooting camera that are the directors, the camera guys, the lighting, the grip, the sound. I’ve known these motherfuckers for like 20 plus years. And being I was retired for so long I haven’t seen a lot of them like in a really long time. So I enjoy going on set because we end up like talking about, oh, well do you remember at my studio or do you remember this one girl?
So I really kind of feel I know I know most people think like oh yeah, I’m like fucking somebody and I’m like really horny, but really the sexual side of things is like you’re zero, but the connection social aspect of like almost reconnecting with family in a certain way is very high. And so I do very much like enjoy being on set especially sets with a lot of old people like myself that I’ve known forever. And then you’ve got like the other New Kids on the Block that don’t know anything about anything that are just cute and adorable and bouncy and fun. But you know, I’m usually pretty exhausted by the end of the day because I have two autoimmune diseases as well. I’ve got lupus and Hashimoto’s and like a long down side is just really exhausting for me and a lot of times you know when I’m in LA I’m I’m shooting because I live in Vegas and then I’ll go to LA to shoot I’m shooting like a couple of days in a row. So I’m like yeah, running on fumes and exhausted and tired and then I go home to Vegas after a week in LA because I also drive back and forth and I had back surgery so by the time I get home I’m like dead for like a couple of days.
Other stars
Dallas
You mentioned that there are certain behind-the-scenes players that you’ll see that have been in the business as long as you. Do you run into too many people who are in front of the camera performers who have also been around that long? I mean, offhand I’m trying to think how many there are. There aren’t too many, are there?
Brittany
Like old bitches? I’m trying to think of those any other old people around.
Dallas
I guess Francesca Le maybe has been around since the ’90s.
Brittany
Yes, and sometimes I work with her and her husband and they are hilarious because you know, she often runs the camera right and so I’m fucking her husband, which you know, in most cases would be awkward like hey, girlfriend known you for 25 years just here to come to fuck your husband. But You know, known him forever. This is what they do. It’s not really awkward. But it is still kind of but not. But anyways, they do like a lot of anal stuff. And she wears a construction man’s belt. And she keeps handkerchiefs, right? So that if you have any drippies, she just comes in while she’s shooting camera, cleans the little drippy off your ass and then puts it back in her construction belts. And but yeah, she’s probably one of the only ones that’s been around as long long as I have.
Dallas
Because I’m just racking my brain here. Does Nina Hartley still shoot it all? I’m not even sure.
Brittany
I think she kind of retired at this — I think she was shooting up until the pandemic, but I haven’t heard anything from her. Since after the pandemic.
Dallas
And are there any directors who were around in the 90s, who were still sort of kicking around?
Brittany
Oh, tons of them. Yeah, like most of them actually, almost everybody that’s behind the camera has been around for 25 years or so.
Dallas
So who’s a director that you’ve had a particularly fruitful collaboration with dating back to the ’90s?
Brittany
Boy, you know, it’s kind of funny because, yeah, I wouldn’t say that there is like any one in particular. You know, I’ve had some really long-standing relationships with photographers. But as far as like, directors, not as much, you know, it’s more like kind of you bump into every couple of years. But photographers, I’ve had long-standing good relationships where we’ve shot over and over and over again, but film directors not as much.
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Those who are no longer with us
Dallas
Of course, in a career as long as you’re as I’m sure there have been people who have, you know, have died! Is there anybody that you particularly miss?
Brittany
Oh my god, every time I get on set, and usually it’s like with a makeup artist, right? Because a lot of the makeup artists have been around as long as I have, too. The makeup artist will start like, “Oh my god, do you remember this person? They’re dead. They’re dead.” Like, that’s when you know that you’re really old. And you’re sitting in the makeup chair and you got all these 20-year-old girls that are like, around you. And you and the makeup artists are talking about everybody that’s dead, you know?
Oh my god. There’s so many. I mean, just this year alone. You had Jim South who passed away who is like the only agent that ever existed before the advent of agencies. I’m trying to think — I think until I retired there really were no agencies. I mean, everybody just did the self-booking now it’s like, agency-o-rama, there’s like hundreds of agencies. So it’s so crazy. When some girl is talking to me like, “Well, I self-book, it’s really hard.” And I’m like, “Oh, that’s pretty much all I ever knew was self booking the majority of my career.” You know, so Jim South; Bill Marigold, you know, who was an advocate; Stephen Hicks, a well-known Penthouse photographer. I mean, there’s just so many people. Larry Flynt passed away. There’s so many. I’m like, is Russ Hampshire still alive? [Editor’s note: Hampshire died in 2019.] So I mean, that’s when you know, you’re old. Are they still or not, right? But yeah, there’s been a lot of, you know, and even some young adult film stars, right, like women of my age that have passed away Jessica Jaymes, Shyla Stylez. You know, a lot of beautiful women that have passed away from, you know, quite often drugs and alcohol and things of that nature. So yeah, you know, it’s a shame.
Candor
Dallas
And you of course, have been very candid about about your struggles with with addiction and being sober and things like that. Seems like you’ve been very candid about every aspect of your life, your health issues, things like that. Were you always a very candid person or is that something that you learned as you entered into your adult career to be so straightforward?
Brittany
I think I’ve always been extremely straightforward. I don’t think I was as willing to share as many personal things when I was younger. But it was also a different era. You didn’t have social media back then. You didn’t have to take a picture of your food every time you fucking ate. Now I’m on fan platforms like almost 24 hours a day. How can I hide anything anymore? Right, it’s impossible. I’ve got a camera through whether it’s Snapchat, TikTok Twitter, there’s a camera around all the time. And I think, you know, I, at this age, I know how to share things in a way of where I hope I’m sharing things in a way where people can feel more relatable to me, right? Like they can go, “Oh, she’s just like me. Oh, my mom had lupus” or “oh, my brother is an addict, alcoholic” or where it’s not maybe as much about ego, but it’s more on on a place of humility of like, yeah, I’ve been in this business forever but you know, really at the end of the day, I’m very similar just to like everybody else, right? I cry. I pee. I eat. All these different things. And you know, and when you are on fan platforms, like I think that that’s what you want, right? You don’t want to feel like this big gap of like, your fans are down here and you’re all the way — or at least I don’t. I want to be right there with them and I want to be able to share my life in a way that’s somewhat meaningful or fulfilling or satisfying for the fans to be on that journey with me.
The impact of ED drugs
Dallas
Right, a relatable, relatable human. Do you think male porn stars these days have it easier than the stars in your early days of the industry, thanks to things like Viagra and whatnot?
Brittany
Fully loaded question! Oh my god, I have so much to say about this, my dear. Yes, and no. So obviously back in my day, we had something that was called a good woodsmen, which is why Ron Jeremy became what he became because yes, there was no fucking Viagra, right? And back in the day there was the injections in your dick, right? So there was no Viagra. It was either inject your deck or fucking be a good woodsman. Right. You had one of two choices. And that was it. And it was really looked down upon if you used anything to be a good woodsmen. It was like humiliating, shameful, right? But then once it started getting closer to like the early 2000s, right, you had SpiceTV, you had PlayboyTV, you had a lot of softcore cable distribution. And so that opened up to the female market, right, and so they wanted to have better-looking men come into the films because they were having, you know, when they were looking at the the sales numbers, they were having couples and women that were watching these shows, and they wanted to make sure that they were giving the female viewer a good-looking man as well.
And so at that point, you started having directors having to not judge male talent only by their dick, which in my era, it was like, if your dick don’t work, you’re out of here, son! You know, but then it created a new era of, if you’re dick doesn’t work, snort this line of Viagra, you know? So that was that era, right? And that’s when you started having a lot more male talent come into the pool,n because back in the day, it was always the same 10 motherfuckers fucking everybody, right? And so now you’ve got a bigger male talent pool. And at that point, you know, I had as a fuck buddy this guy, Julian — oh, I can’t remember his last name. [Editor’s note: Julian Anderetti] But he went on to then date Stacy Valentine and marry Jill Kelly. But when he was my buddy, I helped him negotiate like the highest paid male contract ever for a pornstar, a male pornstar. And now when you look at female and male business wise of how rates have increased, men have, you know, if you’d looked at the chart, men would be like this. [Gestures] And women would be like, yeah, we’re pretty much the same. In the last 30 years, we’re still getting paid pretty much the same rate, where men have really huge, right? And so in that way, all better for guys, right? So they’re getting paid more, they’re able to do Viagra. But now we’re in a whole new era. Right? So now we’re in the 2020 era, right? And so what’s popular in the 2020 era? I’ll tell you: me! No, just kidding. But more or less the kind of scenes that I get often asked to do, which is an older woman with a kid that looks like he’s like 10. Right? You know what I’m talking about, right?
Dallas
It’s startling sometimes. Particularly for you, I’m sure.
Brittany
Yeah, you know, whatever. Cock is cock to me. But yeah, as long as they’re of age, everything is fine with me. I don’t have kids so it doesn’t bother me. So I know a lot of women, they have problems doing a lot of those scenes in nine and a half times out of 10, they usually are women that have kids. But either which way, the point is right so now you got these super skinny, young, straggly, [men who] weigh barely 100 pounds wet. Their dick ain’t working, right? I mean, they need a can of soup, right? They need some meat. And so now a lot of these agencies are starting them off with [clicks tongue] shooting up their dick. And it’s called Caverject. So now that’s really popular to shoot up your dick.
And that’s creating all kinds of new interesting issues. It’s creating the diva male porn star, right? So what do I mean by that? Well, throughout the majority of my career, when you’re having a scene, we are all professionals. But I think that women always look at it a little bit differently, right? We’re going in, we’re shooting a scene for a movie. It’s a boy/girl scene. We’re wearing this outfit, we have makeup artists, this is the wardrobe, this is the script, [and] blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. A guy is like, “Oh, I’m going to fuck Brittany Andrews, right?” A guy is still a fucking guy, right? They’re going in still kind of looking forward to fucking that other person, where I don’t think that most women could care the fuck less, right? Just being honest.
But now with these guys shooting up their dick, right? What that does is there’s no connection mentally to your dick, right? There is no emotional connection. So they’re now just like women, right? They could give a less, they could give a fuck less about who the fuck they’re fucking, because it’s not connected. So you’re seeing more of these men, you know, starting to act like women. “I won’t do this” and “I can’t do this.” And they’re like little fucking divas, right, because they don’t want to fuck anybody. They could care less. They’re not emotionally — they have no skin in the game, one might say. And you’re seeing a lot of them, in the same kind of way that you might have a lot of traumatized women with maybe sexual abuse issues that come into this business and kind of get wiped out right away, kind of get eaten up and spit out. You’re seeing now that happen with these younger guys. So it’s not sexual abuse that they had. But now they’re being physically traumatized — their dick, whether it can work or not — and then emotionally traumatized. Because now they don’t even know how to get their dick hard.
And I’ll give you a perfect example. I did a scene with this one guy after COVID, and we were doing the scene. And he was saying that I was one of his first scenes, and he wasn’t really sure whether he wanted — he was a director as well so it was like a POV thing. And he was like, I don’t really know if I want to go back into being talent again, because I don’t want to be shooting up my dick. Because during COVID, I finally just recently started reconnecting my brain to my dick to where I can actually be like a normal man and just like think, sexy things and my dick gets hard. And then I can fuck somebody’s like, I don’t want to go back to this, this association with my dick, right? And he was a little bit older, but you know, you’re doing that to these younger kids And, you know, there are some serious, physical consequences of like doing that. And so you’re seeing a lot of them kind of come in, and then they’re leaving, because they just can’t handle the mental and the physical of it. Right. So I told you, I had a lot on that!
Because I do have 30 years of a perspective of going okay, in the ’90s, in 2000, now . . . I get to use all of that information to kind of go “Oh!” And that’s what I’m always constantly doing, trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together of going, “Well, it was like this.” And then because I kind of need to know, you know, that’s how I’m going to relate to — I have to look at everything through my own filters for everything in front of me to make sense. And that is just you know, why of course I’m going to have an opinion on everything, you know, and it’s just it’s fascinating watching the different eras and the struggles and what’s good and what’s negative. And I do feel very sad for a lot of these young men that now have to to struggle with this. You know, I don’t know what the long-term ramifications are. Hopefully they can just leave the business and like the other guy said take a year and get it back together again and just you know if that’s the problem So, unfortunately some of the other females that have all those issues are probably going to be in therapy for the rest of their life over it.
Mental health support in the industry
Dallas
Does it interest you that — you mentioned therapy there — that now there is I think of Vogue to pay attention to the mental health of adult performers, I’m thinking of, for instance, pineapple support, and other things that have kind of become a little bit mainstream in in the industry now.
Brittany
Yeah, I think it’s amazing. I myself, I’m the legal conservator of a family member who is a schizo affective, and I have been for almost 20 years. So I think that it’s really important to just in general, the conversation and dialogue about mental health is an important one to have. But, you know, I’m a big supporter of not only Pineapple Support, but like in the crypto world, I’ve brought in quite a few different sex worker advocacy programs, such as SWOP Behind Bars, BIPOC. I work with Sinnamon Love quite often with at BIPOC. I work with Alex Andrews over at SWOP Behind Bars. And then there’s a couple of local ones in Las Vegas that I’ve worked with as well. And then some other international sex worker advocacy programs.
I think it’s really important. Pineapple Support, I think it was at Fetish Con a couple of years back, I was doing one of their classes on complex PTSD, because I have complex PTSD. And within that, that seminar that they were doing, they showed the numbers of drug and alcohol abuse, suicide, you know, all these different things within the adult community. And the numbers were staggering. And another person that’s around Alana Evans, who runs APAC — they changed their name recently, something guild. She’s another one that’s been around for a long time. Dee Siren has been around a decent amount of time, not as long as I have. But you find some of us that are older that are still around, we kind of become like mama bears in a certain way. And we know what things were like, earlier on. If someone r-aped you on set, there was absolutely nobody to go to. Today, you got Twitter, and everybody can fight it, fight it in the public of whether they believe the girl or not, you know, and not to say that all of them are honest. And so it probably should be fought out to see what the real truth is behind it. As a female, of course, I always want to stand behind my female sisters. But because there is such a high incidence of drug and alcohol in our business, too, you cannot always take everybody at face value for everything as well.
But we didn’t have any of these kinds of resources. So I do go to Pineapple Support, I do go to their seminars, I have taken a lot of the different things that they do online, I have seen a therapist through them, so that I can actively talk to other adult performers that are younger than I and say, “Oh, hey, I’ve done it too. They offer this. I’ve used the resources. You can use them, too.” I think that that it’s really important to promote these resources because exactly we didn’t have these before. And the fact that they do have them now I think it’s important to make sure that you know you’re trying to make it look as hip and cool as possible to like use them like they’re using them, you know, and I think that they need some of us older people to kind of support because when you’re young it’s all about being cool. “Well, it’s not cool to do that right?” Fuck that, man! Save your ass, not your face.”
And so I do my best to try to do a lot of sex work or advocacy, besides supporting Pineapple Support. I work with all the other different advocacy groups as well. I bring a lot of them into crypto. I’m just trying to do my best to give adult performers and full-service sex workers the support that they need because we are discriminated against. And we are de-banked and all these different things and we are judged so highly it can be a very lonely business. And you know, I just want to be able to promote these resources to make sure that they’re getting the help that they need when they’re in painful and lonely places because we’ve seen too many deaths, too many deaths.
The future (and importance) of sex workers
Dallas
Do you think we as a society can turn that corner and not to stigmatize sex workers at some point in the future?
Brittany
Oh my God, who was it that just did the most amazing piece? I think it was John Oliver. Oh my god, he did an amazing piece on sex workers that hit every single point that as sex workers and sex worker advocates that we’ve been asking the public to listen to, and primarily going back to we are human. And many of us are consensual sex workers. And wow do we provide exactly mental health resources, human rights, you know, having unions being paid fairly, the same thing, that same things that everybody else wants for in life, you know? As long as right-wing crazy religion exists, we’re always going to have a fight on our hands. But I would like to think that the majority of humans are not crazy on the left and are not crazy on the right. And we can have some common sense ground in the middle. And I think the more that you educate people, and the more that you have a dialogue and a lexicon that everybody can agree upon about different things, like the word “sex worker,” changing it from “prostitute” or “whore” to a word that gives dignity to the person behind it. When you’re having a lexicon and a dialogue and communication, awareness, education, you know, that’s a start. And I think as a sex worker, I’m amazed at times of how much we’ve grown from when I first got into the business to where we’re at now. I mean, literally, I cried when I saw that episode of John Oliver.
Dallas
Last Week Tonight, right? Is that the one?
Brittany
I think that’s HBO. Yeah, yeah. And I mean, I cried because I’ve been heard, I’ve been heard. That’s all we want, is to be respected and heard as human beings. I’m not out here hurting anybody. I’m just paying my bills. I pay my taxes. I took care of my mom. I take care of my sister, right? Like many women, we’re taking care of our families. And we come from places like I came from, poverty and no education, right? And until you fix issues with capitalism, don’t judge me on my choices of how I choose to take care of myself and my family and pay my taxes, at least I’m doing those things. And I’m healthy, and I’m happy to try to find ways to support people instead of, you know, just being judgmental, and making choices and decisions for me, that are not the choices that are the best for me. And I think, you know, when that when it comes to politics, that’s the main thing that everybody doesn’t want. Don’t you make choices when you know nothing about me about what’s best for me. Allow me to make my own choices.
Dallas
I do think sometimes people underestimate the importance of sex work. I mean, I don’t think you’d want to see a world where there was not pornography and there weren’t sex workers. It would be a scary place, I think.
Brittany
Amen. Oh my god, it’s like a nightmare sci fi movie, right? Can you imagine COVID without OnlyFans? I mean, not to be sexist, but we can all primarily agree that it’s men that lose their motherfucking minds, right, and start going crazy with guns and shit, like after the pandemic, like their anger, you know? I truly do believe that femininity is the answer to like masculine toxicity, right? Like a man needs the love and attention from a woman to kind of stay balanced, right? And if other women like myself — I can’t give attention to all men all the time. I do a lot of them though. So women should really be thanking me. If they’re off doing what they’re doing to take care of themselves and their family and they can’t take care of men, you know, somebody has to somebody has to love care give companionship to to these lonely men, because if you don’t, they become violent. And that’s my belief, and I think that most people would probably agree with me. So I do think that sex workers are participating society in a healthy way to make sure that that we’re keeping a balance.
Dallas
Righty, it’s absolutely a yin and yang type thing. So I know we’re running a little short on time here, but I did want to give you a chance to talk about any awesome projects you have coming up that you might want to mention and tell fans about.
Brittany
Oh boy, what awesome projects do we have coming up at the moment? Well, I know that I’m going to be at Exxxotica [New Jersey]. [Editor’s note: interview recorded in September 2022.] Oh, I know I’m hosting the Whynot Awards. I totally forgot about that for a second. I had to think of my calendar. But yeah, so the next thing I’m doing after I get home is a my hosting the Whynot awards. And after that, I’m going to be at Exxxotica. And I do think I’m going to do the DC Exxxotica as well.
And then, you know, like I said, I’m involved in quite a few different crypto projects. And so one of them is Pornverse, which is the first 3D virtual camera metaverse that exists. I’m a partner there. I’m really excited about that project. They just started the minting up the NFT’s and opened up the actual Metaverse to the public to explore. I’ve been working on that project for a year. And then I was part of adult DAO which then just recently merged with Vice World DAO. Before it wasn’t a DAO. Be brought the DAO aspect in we just did a private token. We did a private sale on a token relaunch.
And that did extremely well and part of that particular DAO and for those that don’t know what a DAO is, a DAO is decentralized autonomous organization. So it’s something like an LLC, or a 501 C three, but instead of being governed, from the top down, it is more of a governance of the people where a lot of things are voted on and and it’s not like a top-down organization. It’s more like a grassroots. And so one of the things about that particular project is those individuals that are token holders, they get to participate in what kind of porn — so it’s a porn production company — what kind of porn, who’s going to be in the porn, one of the storylines, they get to participate and pretty much become like a porn producer, if they are a token holder of the Vice World token. And so just did the relaunch of the token, did the private sale so we’re going to be starting our first production for that and we are going to be doing hentai. So like kind of a mix of in person cosplay mixed with hentai. So I’m super excited about that. That sounds like that’s going to be a lot of fun.
I was producing and directing for Kink for a little while. We’re kind of still working on whether I’m going to continue that. I’m sure it probably will at one point. But if you haven’t figured, I’m a little bit busy, but but I am consistently always shooting for all of the different fan platforms I’m on and the clip sites that I’m on. I wasn’t doing any of them before the pandemic. And then during the pandemic, I did that pivot thing. And I jumped on all of them. And you know, I’ve just been working really hard on making the kind of content that my fans want to see. And you know, I’ve jumped back into shooting with mainstream companies as well. So I’ve had a lot of new scenes come out within the last year. So I’m going to continue doing that as well. And I kind of figured this is I keep thinking and I keep saying this is going to be my last run. But you know what, I’ve done some GILF videos and old bitches are trending so I don’t know I’ll just keep riding this ride until it’s something I no longer want to do. I always say that the comeback to the pornstar’s like the relapse to the addict, so who knows? You know why I’m like a fucking Rolling Stone, can keep doing it. God damn it. And Lord, I live in Vegas. There are a lot of more less known people than Rolling Stones that keep coming out of retirement and so every time I see one of those people I’m like, if they could do it so good. I I look a lot better than them anyways, a motley crew anyways, just saying.
Dallas
Right, you can be the Mick Jagger of porn, or the more the Wayne Newton. Is he still around, Wayne Newton? I don’t know. Maybe he’s even died. I don’t even remember. Someone who will tell us in the comments of this video, I’m sure. [Editor’s note: As of November 2022, singer and entertainer Wayne Newton is still with us.] Well, if you could also let people know where they can find and follow you on social media.
Brittany
Ah well you can just go to Brittanyandrews.com Or you can go to https://allmylinks.com/DJBRITSTAR. Oh, and I’m planning on doing more for you guys actually, I’m starting to do some of my making some DVDs for you guys as well. I am I’m working on it with a friend of mine. Yeah, so I’m super excited about that. It’ll be my first time making DVDs since like 2006.
Dallas
Hey, well, originally we were Adult DVD Empire. So that’s the spot to do it.
Brittany
And then what I’m going to do is then instead of putting the content on DVD, we’ll make the DVD covers what we’re working on right now. But then what we’ll do is we’ll put it on a USB stick. And then when I’m at Exxxotica, you get the full DVD cover but then inside of it instead of it being a DVD all everything will be on a USB stick.
Dallas
Well, that’s a perfect note to close on. Thank you so much for the answers. It’s been a great treat talking to you today.
Brittany
Thank you, sugar plum. I appreciate you having me on!
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
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