Jenna Jameson Known to many as the Queen of Porn, Jenna Jameson was born Jenna Marie Massoli on April 9, 1974, in Las Vegas, Nevada. Jameson studied ballet as a child, and was also a contestant in beauty pageants. When she was sixteen years old, Jameson was beaten and gang-raped by four boys following a football game. In her 2004 autobiography, she addresses the incident and her belief that it occurred too late in her development to have been a factor in her decision to become a porn star. Jameson was raped again later that same year, by her boyfriend’s uncle. Jameson initially tried to pursue a career as a Las Vegas showgirl, which her mom had been before she passed away from skin cancer when Jameson was a toddler. Jameson’s short stature initially posed a problem for her in becoming a showgirl, but she was hired on with Vegas World show, which she quit two months later. In 1991, seventeen-year-old Jameson was rejected as a stripper from the Crazy Horse Too club because she wore braces. Jameson remedied the situation by removing them with pliers, and was soon earning $2000 a night at the club. By age twenty, Jameson had given herself a new last name in honor of her favorite whiskey, Jameson, and was posing nude in magazines such as Hustler and Penthouse. She had also acquired a dangerous drug habit, including cocaine, LSD, and methamphetamine, and at one point dropped to a deathly seventy-six pounds. Too weak to walk, Jameson returned to her father’s home to detox, but was unrecognizable when she de-boarded the plane in a wheelchair.
Jameson made her first porn film in 1994, and soon after got her first breast enlargement. Additional adult film roles followed, and Jameson proved to be a savvy self-promoter of her work. After sending photos of herself to shock jock radio host Howard Stern, she became a regular guest on his show, as well as a star in his semi-autobiographical 1997 film Private Parts. In 1996, Jameson wed fellow porn star, Brad Armstrong. The union lasted just ten weeks, but the exes continued to co-star together in porn films afterward. Shortly after splitting from Armstrong, James married porn studio owner, Jay Grdina. The pair were also business partners, forming the adult website Club Jenna in 2000. The site soon became a multi-media company, branching out into adult film production with estimated revenues of $30 million. In 2006, Club Jenna was acquired by Playboy Enterprises Inc. In August 2006, Jameson and Grdina publicly announced that they had separated. Jameson then became linked to Dave Navarro. She has also previously dated bad-boy rockers Marilyn Manson and Tommy Lee. Apart from adult film, Jameson has acted in the horror flick Samhain, re-released in 2002 as Evil Breed: The Legend of Samhain. In 2006, her acceptance into mainstream Hollywood was proven when she became the first porn star honored with a wax look-alike at Madame Tussauds Museum. YUDDY |
