Why Are So Many Porn Stars Killing Themselves?
Dahlia Sky and Dakota Skye recently added their names to a growing list of adult entertainment industry performers who have taken their own lives.
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On the night of Wednesday, June 30, 2021, the body of adult entertainment industry performer Dahlia Sky was found in her car in the Devonshire area of the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles, dead from what appeared to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound. She was 31 years old.
The LA County Department of Medical Examiner-Coroner confirmed her death was indeed a suicide, and the LAPD agreed. “Based upon the evidence and the investigation, everything we saw from the moment the officers got there, there’s no indication of any evidence of foul play,” said LAPD investigator Dave Peteque. “We concur with the coroner’s findings.”
Sky, born Melissa Sims-Hayes, was a veteran performer with more than 600 credits to her name and had been battling stage 4 metastatic breast cancer and depression, something she regularly posted about on social media. “I’m devastated to hear of (Dahlia’s) passing,” tweeted 2015 AVN industry performer of the year award winner Annika Albrite. “She was my first real friend in this industry. This hit too close to home. It could be any of us next. Depression is a bitch & something many battle w/ every day.”
Sky’s suicide comes on the heels of the death of another industry performer who ironically shared the same stage name as her. On June 10, 2021, 27-year-old Dakota Skye was found dead by her husband at a motorhome in Los Angeles, a victim of what appeared to be suicide. As people close to her would soon reveal, Skye, born Lauren Scott, had been battling alcohol and fentanyl addiction, and was the recent victim of a “cyber-bullying” campaign targeting her after she made the questionable choice to post on social media an image of herself standing next to a George Floyd mural, topless.
Skye’s aunt Linda Arden told The Sun that the adult film actress was found “with nothing. All she had was a plastic bag with some clothes.” Arden also said that Skye had battled demons all of her life, and “was a product of a highly dysfunctional family involving drugs, alcohol, physical, emotional, verbal, and sexual abuse.”
Death by suicide after an apparent cyber-bullying campaign targeting a porn star is not new to the industry. In December 2017, 23 year-old August Ames, born Mercedes Grabowski in Canada, was found hanging from a tree in a park in Camarillo, California. Ames, who struggled with depression and had made an attempt on her own life only a few months prior, had drawn criticism in the weeks leading up to her death for publicizing her decision to not participate in a scene with Jaxton Wheeler, a male performer who had been known to do male-on-male scenes. Labeled “homophobic” by some of her peers, including Wheeler, who suggested she “take a cyanide pill” or retract her statements, the online trolling proved to be too much for Ames, who left behind a suicide letter outlining her struggles.
Add those names to the growing list of famous porn stars who took their own lives and what starts to emerge is a troubling statistic that adult entertainment industry performers are killing themselves at an alarming rate.
Emma Hix, a popular performer and close friend of Ames up until her death, believes what is happening to her friends and colleagues is a reflection of a problem that goes beyond the adult entertainment industry. “I don’t think it’s necessarily just porn stars committing suicide,” she says.” The suicide rate has gone up drastically, but when a porn star commits suicide, the news spreads like wildfire.” According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Leading Causes of Death Report, in 2019, suicide was the second leading cause of death in the United States among individuals between the ages of 10 and 34, and from 1999 to 2019, the total age-adjusted suicide rate increased 35.2% from 10.5 per 100,000 to 13.9 per 100,000. Though official numbers have not yet been recorded for 2020, a year in which Americans experienced unprecedented medical and economic challenges, preliminary estimates suggest that the U.S. had 2,677 fewer suicide deaths in 2020 than in 2019, a 5.6% decline, according to an analysis of government data published in the medical journal JAMA. While that statistic may provide some relief, it’s hard to ignore the 35% historical increase over a 20 year period.
Academic scholars around the country have been working tirelessly to try and identify the causes of the spike. In the opinion of Jean Twenge, a social psychologist at San Diego State University who wrote about teenage suicide for the Washington Post in 2017, “all signs point to the screen.” According to Twenge, teens who spend five or more hours per day online were 71 percent more likely than those spending just one hour per day to have at least one suicide risk factor. In the cases of August Ames and Dakota Skye, both victims of aggressive cyberbullying who simply couldn’t shake their social media habit, there exists a clear link between their screen time habits and the decision to take their own lives. But for the 47,511 people in the US who took their own lives in 2019, social media addiction may have only been part of the problem.
Other possible factors include untreated depression, drug use, or a combination of both. In an article published by the American Journal of Psychiatry, Michael Esang, M.B.B.Ch., M.P.H., and Saeed Ahmed, M.D. site research concluding that “90% of people who die by suicide have one or more concomitant psychiatric disorders, including bipolar disorder, unipolar affective disorder, schizophrenia or anxiety disorders.” When combined with substance use disorders, according to the research, the risk of suicide increases further, with the prevalence of lifetime suicide attempts among patients with alcohol use disorder and bipolar disorder reported to be between 21% and 42%, for example.
Does that mean that many, if not most of the women who choose to enter into a career in the adult entertainment industry suffer from one or more of these afflictions? Cheri DeVille, a 42-year old veteran performer, wrote about her experiences for the Daily Beast in the midst of last year’s pandemic. “Like many porn stars,” she writes, “I would likely be dealing with mental health even if I wasn’t a sex worker during the pandemic.” She goes on to share the details of her bouts with anxiety, dating back to childhood. “The disease — and it is a disease―runs in my family. Some families fight genetic heart conditions; others tackle anxiety. I have succeeded in porn both despite and because of my mental health problems.”
While many performers bring their mental health and/or drug and alcohol abuse problems with them to the adult entertainment industry; some develop symptoms as a direct result of working in a business known for its often punishing and stressful working environment, where discrimination, exploitation, and outright abuse is often tolerated. Shelley “Roxy” Luben, a one-time performer who left the industry to start the Pink Cross Foundation, a faith-based organization designed to provide outreach and evangelism to performers and support to those wishing to leave the industry, was vocal about her belief that working in porn causes irreparable physical and psychological harm to performers. Lubben, who died in 2019 of unknown causes at age 50, had battled drug and alcohol dependency problems of her own both in and out of the industry, had stated that the sex acts women perform on film sets are physically harmful (including anal and uterine hemorrhaging), and psychologically traumatizing.
Many who decide to get out of the business and try to lead a civilian life often find that transition difficult, if not impossible. Gauge (real name Elizabeth Deans), a popular performer who started working in the industry at age 18 and racked up over 140 credits before leaving the business in 2005, attempted several “legitimate” careers, and even went to school to become a surgical tech. Forced to change jobs multiple times after someone would inadvertently recognize her, she eventually returned to the industry at age 33, unable to generate the kind of financial support for her family working outside of porn that she could get working in it.
At every job you apply for you will either have to disclose your background, or hide your past and prove yourself, hoping when the truth comes out you will be kept on,” Cindi Loftus, the editor of porn website Luke Is Back, told Salon Magazine in 2013. This inability to reinvent yourself once you’ve become established in the adult entertainment industry could be a big reason why so many performers stay working in the business, despite the risks to their mental and physical health. It could also be a contributing factor to the high number of suicides amongst performers.
At a meeting of the American Psychiatric Association (APA) in 2011, researcher Igor Galynker presented his theory that “a state of mind of intolerable anxiety, overwhelming negative emotions, and frantic hopelessness that influence people to act on suicidal thoughts. Galynker and his colleagues created a “Suicide Trigger Scale”, designed to measure the reactions of at-risk individuals when asked if they feel “trapped”, like their “head could explode from too many thoughts”, or if “there is no exit” and it feels like “the world is closing in around you”. The scale is designed to help prevent more suicides, but it only works if a friend or family member can get through to someone in trouble. And even then, there’s only so much they can do to stop it.
The family of August Ames knows this all too well. Born Mercedes Grabowski in Canada in 1994, Ames, after taking her own life, left behind a loving mother, father, two brothers, husband, and friends in and out of the industry who adored her. Her older brother James, a lumberman in Edmonton, Alberta, encouraged his sister to come home after her first attempt on her own life, which landed her in the hospital. “I knew she needed to be around people that loved her for her, not for the image she portrayed on screen,” says James. “She was planning to visit me over the Christmas holiday, but unfortunately, that never happened.”
In a statement posted on her website shortly after her death, Ames’ widower, Kevin Moore wrote about the challenges performers who need the most help seek in receiving it. “The performer community does not have adequate access to mental health services. While Mercedes did have professional support that cared about her, it was unnecessarily hard for her to find someone who would treat her,” he said. Part of the problem is a lack of resources. Performer Nikki Hearts told Rolling Stone in an interview shortly after Ames’ death that most performers, both contract and freelance, still lack health insurance or benefits from their employers.
Some performers are taking matters into their own hands. Leya Tanit, a performer in Britain, created a performer hotline, Pineapple Support, after learning about the increasing number of performer suicide in the industry. On its website, the group describes itself as “free support and therapy service for all persons working in the online adult industry — no matter their gender, ethnic origin, social status, age or sexual orientation. We have an ever growing team of sex-worker friendly, kink-aware therapists who offer face-to-face and online video therapy sessions.” The service operates a network of volunteer therapists who provide in-person and online counseling, and funds itself through donations and charitable contributions.
Few would argue that the porn industry is alone in its efforts to battle the increasing number of suicides amongst its performer population. Arthur C. Brooks, a professor of public leadership at the Harvard Kennedy School and a bestselling author, wrote about the suicide epidemic in the United States for the Washington Post in 2020. “To turn the tide on this crisis, in addition to better identification and treatment of suicidality, we urgently need to raise public awareness and shift the direction of public opinion on suicide in the United States.” The efforts of people like Brooks appear to be working. In April of this year, President Biden issued a proclamation declaring May, 2021 “National Mental Health Awareness Month.” “Even before COVID-19, the prevalence of mental health conditions in our Nation was on the rise,” the President said in the proclamation. In 2019, nearly 52 million adults experienced some form of mental illness. We must treat this as the public health crisis that it is and reverse this trend.” Only time will tell whether or not this administration takes any meaningful steps to address the crises.
For those struggling with mental health disorders and the people closest to them, James Grabowksi says that what happened to his sister should serve as a cautionary tale. “In hindsight, Mercedes didn’t have the resources she needed to help her get through what she was going through. I wish there was more I could have done for her, and if I could, I’d go back in time and make sure she received the care she needed.”
Hopefully others will heed his advice.
