Her Female Performer of the Year award might still be shiny, but that doesn’t mean those in the adult film industry remember Sasha Grey fondly. At least not according to James Deen, a fundamentally decent and honest man who has no reason to lie about anything.



In a recent interview with Vulture, everyone’s favorite boy-with-a-giant-penis-next-door discusses how much he loves his job, his role in The Canyons opposite Lindsay Lohan, and what it was like to film a (simulated) guy-on-guy scene for the movie. (“I had no questions about the scene. It made sense to me.”) But the most juicy part comes at the end, when the interviewer asks him if he ever talks to one-time scene partner Sasha Grey about what it’s like to transition from hardcore porn to regular movies, and he says in no uncertain terms that Sasha Grey doesn’t hang out with porn people anymore:

“Sasha Grey has not engaged with anyone in pornography for a really long time. That’s, like, the name that is not said in this business. I don’t have anything against her, but in the adult-film world she has a very bad reputation for many reasons. The reality is that she was 18 when she started doing porn and between 18 and 23 her goals changed, and she wants to do different things now. Actually, my ex-girlfriend and her have the same manager, and her manager dropped her because in the Entourage meeting, apparently she had this whole freakout about how porn ruined her life. The second they left the meeting, in the elevator, she was like, “I think I’ll get the part now.” And the manager was like, “Are you serious? You just said that porn ruined your life and you’re just laughing about it now? What was that, fake?”

So basically, porn people don’t like her anymore because they feel she has thrown them under the bus in a somewhat disingenuous way to obtain opportunities the straight world might otherwise withhold from her. Understandable!

I have no idea whether the agent’s story is true, but if it is, it’s pretty much the opposite of what she did back in 2007 when she went on Tyra Banks‘ dumb show and showed zero compunction about what she did for a living, then used it as a chance to point out how the mainstream media sensationalizes stories about porn actresses. We also saw an inkling of this complete 180 in how her management handled interviews surrounding her photo book.

Then again, look at that smug fucking smirk. Has Sasha Grey ever pretended not to be someone who will do and say whatever she needs to in order to get what she wants? If you can’t change the patriarchy’s fucked up sexual morality, you might as well use it to your advantage, and it’s not like it’s a particularly scrupulous entity against which she transgressed. Considering how many young women have been chewed up and spat out by the industry, I’m not going to cry too hard about the fact that one woman used it back.

But just in case things are getting too serious, here is James Deen being adorable and empathetic about the fact that people’s goals can change over time:

You know, when she was 18, she wanted to be Belladonna, and she pushed the envelope and got dirty and nasty and all of this stuff, and then she wanted to be like Jenna Jameson and be glamorous, and then she wanted to do acting. I’m sure that in the time between I’m 27 and 35, I’m going to have a bunch of different goals and change my opinions on things. Maybe when I’m 50, what’s going to make me happy is making balloon animals on the beach. [Laughs.]

I don’t think I’m alone in saying I would really not mind watching a 50-year-old James Deen making balloon animals on the beach.