The Right Move: Pornstar Jenna Jameson's journey from a Hillary Clinton-supporting liberal to Muslim-bashing conservative warrior
Jenna Jameson established herself as The Queen of Porn with close to 200 movies in her kitty and an estimated net worth of $30 million. But her transformation into a right wing cheerleader after she retired from pornographic performances in 2008 has surprised her fans and others in the industry, which mostly aligns itself to the left of centre.
Jameson has come a long way in the industry after she started acting in erotic videos in 1993 after working as a stripper and glamour model.
Within three years, Jameson had won the top newcomer awards from three of the major adult movie organisations, 35 adult-video awards and was inducted in the X-Rated Critics Organisation and Adult Video News (AVN) halls of fame. In 1999, the pornstar won a lifetime achievement award from Adult Video News. In the same year, she was honoured with a lifetime achievement award at the Hot d'Or adult-film awards in Cannes, France.
Born Jenna Marie Massoli, she chose Jameson as her permanent professional name after opening up a phone book and thumbing through the Js. "I had to come up with a good name. I didn't want a porno name. So I sat down, opened up the phone book and thumbed to the J's, cause I wanted it to match my first name." At first, she saw 'James', but rejected the option since it "sounds too porno". Her next option was 'Jameson', which coincidently, is also the name of the whiskey she likes to drink and thought it to be "perfect".
After starring in hundreds of adult movies, Jameson rebranded herself from an accomplished pornstar with a massive following across the world to a smart businesswoman who knew where to put her money.
Thus was born Club Jenna Inc, her personal license brand, that was originally launched in 2000 as a single website, but soon expanded into managing websites of other pornstars, in addition to producing adult films and selling novelty items.
Through Club Jenna, the actress also owns the rights to her movies, meaning that she will receive fees from her distributors from "now until I am 90, which is a lot of money, considering that everything I put out is a No. 1 best-seller."
To give you a clear idea of the money involved around Jameson, humour this: A typical adult release sells 3,000 copies in the first month; a Jenna Jameson sells 50,000 at a retail price of $50 each. No wonder by 2005, Club Jenna Inc. was generating revenues of $30 million, with profits estimated at half of that.
In January 2008, Jameson confirmed she was retiring from pornographic performances.
Through most of her career, Jameson positioned herself politically as a liberal, and in 2007 she supported Hillary Clinton's bid for the US presidency, saying that having a Democrat in the Oval Office would help stave off the Republican attack on porn stars and the porn industry.
She added that despite the fact that "she is pretty conservative for a Democrat," Clinton's coming to power "would be a step in the right direction for our country, and there would be less focus of war and more focus on bettering society."
In the same interview, she explained why she doesn't support Republicans. "When Republicans are in office, the problem is, a lot of times they try to put their crosshairs on the adult industry, to make a point... There are so many things that need to be cleared up before f--king pornography."
However, as she grew richer through the first Barack Obama term courtesy her growing business ventures, she switched teams in 2012.
She openly supported and endorsed Mitt Romney for president, by putting to words what every rich Republican is thinking: "I'm looking forward to a Republican being back in office. When you're rich, you want a Republican in office."
She also attacked Obama's policies.
A lot also changed with her conversion to the Jewish faith after getting engaged to jeweller fiance Lior Bitton in 2015. Soon after, she adopted a fierce and public anti-Islam stance, even going on anti-Muslim rants on her Twitter (her army is strong at close to 700,000 followers).
In 2015, she retweeted a graphic tweet against the Democratic stance on immigration that read, "One more American death & Democrats who imported terrorist refugees need 2B arrested 4 weakening Natl Sec & treason." (sic)
Her followers were clearly disappointed with her offensive, with one user accusing her of being on the "wrong side of the argument" to which she was quick to retaliate with "...said who? You'd be surprised the important political people who follow me... And my political views make news".
She didn't have any qualms being compared to Donald Trump and being called a "proud $$ addict #LikeTrump" (sic), saying she was "happy to be compared to Donald Trump".
Her anti-Muslim tirades continued and she got into tussles online for tweeting about the existence of "Muslim rape gangs".
When users, including her followers, fired back, she called them "sympathizers" and reiterated what she said was a "Muslim rape epidemic". In January 2017, she drew fire for tweeting that Islam "promotes child rape, female genital mutilation, butchering non believers and polygamy."
She also clarified that while she doesn't hate Muslims, she "disagrees" with everything they stand for.
She also went to the extent of defending the Ku Klux Klan by tweeting, "Do the ku klux klan follow a religion that orders the death of apostates? When was the last time we saw a klan member blow up infidels?" (sic)
Her support for Trump doesn't just end at getting into arguments online and engaging in what many deem hate speech. In 2017, when Trump cited a non-existent attack in Sweden to buttress his point that immigrants cause rise in crime, Jameson jumped to the president's defense by citing newspaper articles and blogs to claim that Sweden was a "land of violence and fear".
She even attacked Chelsea Clinton, who poked fun at Trump for citing a fake attack, by calling her a "silver spooned moron" and for not realising "what the women of Sweden are facing".
The actress had also shared her issues with immigrants.
If this wasn't enough for her right wing credentials, Jameson also attracted some serious flak for defending Milo Yiannopoulos, the right-wing provocateur, disgraced online troll and former tech editor at Breitbart News, whose career went down the drain after his pro-pedophilia comments went viral.
She claimed that the left-wing media "led a smear campaign against Milo, who is an important conservative leader for this generation."
In 2017, when Meryl Streep's anti-Trump speech at the Golden Globes was being praised, Jameson took a different approach. "Please someone mute Meryl Streep" she tweeted.
When Streep said, "...Hollywood is crawling with outsiders and foreigners. And if we kick them all out you'll have nothing to watch but football and mixed marital arts, which are not the arts," Jameson tweeted, "That reference to MMA fans was completely offensive and unneeded... once again the left offends half of America #deplorables".
The reactions her strong political views elicited even forced her to leave Twitter earlier this year.
In sync with the Republican party and candidates, Jameson is also a vocal anti-abortion activist.
In a recent burst of anti-abortion tweets, Jameson not only called several Hollywood actors "bloodthirsty ghouls" but also supported Ashley Bratcher's film 'Unplanned', which is based on Planned Parenthood director-turned-anti-abortion-activist Abby Johnson.
Jameson hasn't been shy of sharing her politics and opinion online, even though the industry she is a part of does not entirely support her, or even see sense in her.
Nina Kayy, a 28-year-old adult actress, who looked up to Jameson once, says she doesn't anymore. "She’s a minority too: she’s a woman and she was an adult performer. She’s also been harassed so I don’t understand why she can’t relate to other minorities," she was reported as saying.
The adult star added that her [Jameson's] comments are "extremely ignorant and it's disturbing to see hate speech like that from someone who should know better. She is allowed to have an opinion but we also have to call her out when it’s hateful and offensive".