Former US porn actress and former girlfriend of actor Charlie Sheen, Bree Olson, talked to The Daily Beast on Saturday, shedding light on her time in the industry and afterwards.
Olson disclosed that she worked in porn for five years, and noted that it has now been seven years since she quit. Recalling her experience, she asserted that she was lucky to work with a professional team who treated video sex work strictly as a job.
“The camera and lighting guys are from the mainstream side of the industry, and they just need the extra money so they shoot, light and sound porn on the low while keeping their names off it,” she explained. “Everyone is super-professional; nobody is trying anything weird. I never saw drugs on a porn set. I don’t think I’ve even seen drinking on a porn set.”
Посмотреть эту публикацию в InstagramShould I change my profile picture on all social media to this- yes or no?
She disclosed that she made $3,500 for one scene, but that was before the rise of YouTube and other online streaming websites. The biggest problem she had with the industry was the absence of royalties: once she was paid for a scene, a publisher can sell it as many times as they want.
It all ended after the actress met US actor Charlie Sheen. After their connection became public, she came under massive attack from TV hosts who disgraced her for her work in the adult film industry.
“I got with that actor and then my whole life fell under a microscope,” she explained. “I saw myself getting criticized on huge networks by huge reporters—who I’ve literally watched since I was a child—saying publicly that I would be a bad mother, that I’m not a good influence, and basically disgracing me because I was a porn star.”
Olson said she left the industry in a bid to evade media attention, but her porn history pursued her even as she tried to live like a normal person.
Speaking about her time after porn, she attempted to hire a financial agent to get her taxes done. During their interview, the tax agent kept prying her on her occupation, puzzled by the amount of her income. Despite her best attempts to keep her past under the rug, the agent threatened to Google her name. After Olson reluctantly disclosed her former job, the agent refused to work with her because of his religious beliefs.
“I mean, keep in mind I do live in the Bible Belt, so I’m sort of setting myself up for failure here,” she acknowledged.
Recalling her time with Sheen, Olson called her idea to speak with the man a “big mistake.” According to Olson, the subsequent scandal ruined her life.
Посмотреть эту публикацию в Instagram
“He was not violent physically but he had a very hostile attitude. He was extremely controlling,” she said of the actor. Later into their relation, Sheen publicly acknowledged that is HIV-positive – a secret he kept from Olson. Thankfully, the actress did not catch the disease, but being associated with an HIV-positive person is problematic for a worker in her former occupation, she said.
“At the time I was doing cam modeling and making a great deal of money, and to be a cam model and be associated with anyone who had HIV—even though I don’t have it, and proved publicly that I don’t have it—was detrimental to my career,” she said.
Olson disclosed she is working on a book of her memories, which will be mostly centered around her childhood, which, according to the actress, was “very tough.”
“This is a saying that I have: Not all women with a traumatic childhood go into porn, but all women that are in porn had a traumatic childhood,” she said.
With the book, she aims to tell people that working in the adult film industry is not always a personal choice, but sometimes the only option a woman has.
